Publications: Concept Mapping

My work with concept mapping has been an extraordinarily interesting area of research for me. I have used it as an area of inquiry several times throughout my studies and I continue to be fascinated by human cognition. I know this field will receive much more of my attention throughout my career.

My initial interest in this area began after I became familiar with the software, Inspiration. As a practitioner, I used Inspiration to plan projects, web sites, workshops, and events. For me, it was an extremely effective way to capture my ideas and my resource needs. I knew K-12 students used it for writing, but didn't appreciate the power of the software for my own writing. For me, Inspiration was a useful planning tool but nothing more.

During the first semester of my doctoral program, I was required to write a research proposal in my Research Fundamentals of Graduate Education class. I wanted to understand why Inspiration was so helpful to me. For my semester project, I prepared a very brief literature review on the topic and designed a simple experiment. I also decided to try using concept mapping for my own writing and became a better writer for my efforts. I also knew I wanted to learn more. I had only scratched the surface in this initial literature review.

Since then, I've become more adept at using concept mapping to plan my writing. I worked out many of my Inspiration-enhanced strategies for myself, but was eventually influenced by some of Jamie McKenzie's ideas for using it.

Next, I took an independent study under the direction of psychology professor Dr. Eduardo Salas. I became very familiar with the concept mapping literature under his guidance. He helped me identify literature I wouldn't have found on my own. More importantly, I learned how a wise mentor can guide a doctoral student to accomplish much. I worked harder for this study than anything to date.

At the 2004 Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE) conference, I heard several keynote speakers admonish the audience to present their research to practitioners. I realized I had gleaned important information about the practical application of concept mapping strategies from my literature searches. I used what I've learned to present at UCF's Annual Literacy Symposium and had a paper accepted at the Summer 2004 AECT conference. The complete AECT paper is available in the conference Proceedings. The paper and presentation was specifically geared to practitioners, as suggested in the Call for Proposals. It contained the Inspiration diagram I created to help me write the paper.

I have also spoken to others about how I use concept mapping for my writing. Following is the text of an email I received from another doctoral student with whom I shared my strategies:

"Huge Kudos to you:
I was very skeptical about this whole outline/concept mapping thing.  Once you get into the rhythm of it and work on it for  a while, the benefits become so much more clear.  Like you, I am a visual person and written outlines just don’t have the same impact as pictures.
 
I can’t wait to show you what I’ve done so that you can give me feedback and ideas on improving my technique.
 
This is very exciting, creatively stimulating, and organized.  A real help.  Keep spreading the gospel of concept mapping.  You’ve got another believer!"