Thinking Maps - Research and Rationales For Using Thinking Maps

Research and Rationales For Using Thinking Maps

In his book Student Successes With Thinking Maps, Dr. David Hyerle (2011) provides a plethora of reasons and research as to why Thinking Maps are beneficial tools for the classroom. Hyerle states that using the eight Thinking Maps promote metacognition and continuous cognitive development for students across their academic careers, as well as adds an artistic and kinesthetic component for students who learn effectively with that specific multiple intelligence (Hyerle, 2011). Lesson objectives can be covered in less time and with greater retention when using Thinking Maps, teachers can determine their students’ background knowledge before teaching a unit or area of study, and student performance can be tracked over time in an accurate manner, too (Thinking Maps, Inc., 2011). Through his research, Dr. Hyerle (2011) also found that Thinking Maps help close the achievement gap, as they “can help students self-regulate their own learning and be more successful in the game of school because Thinking Maps serve as a device for mediating thinking, listening, speaking, reading, writing, problem solving, and acquiring new knowledge.” The thought processes that educators hope to instill in students are represented similarly throughout the curricula, and integrated thinking and learning across disciplines is promoted (Thinking Maps, Inc., 2011). As fidelity and accountability are also huge aspects in the education field, the idea that Thinking Maps as a school-wide initiative for use of a common instructional and learning tool and as a shared language among teachers and students is one of Hyerle’s (2011) main ideas for the use of this support curriculum.

In Villalon and Calvo’s (2011) Concept Maps as Cognitive Visualizations of Writing Assignments, concept maps are discussed as a means of scaffolding university-aged students' ideas in writing, as well as their metacognitive skills. In their study, Villalon and Calvo evaluated a new Concept Map Mining tool, which was used in an “e-learning environment” that automatically generated maps using students' written work (p. 16). The Concept Map Mining tool was used to look at a collection of annotated essays written by undergraduate college students (p. 16). Villalon and Calvo (2011) found that “Cognitive Visualizations provide quality feedback because they make the author's thinking visible, making explicit the mental model learners are using…Within the writing process, providing automatic feedback in the form of allows learners to reflect on their own work and their own mental models that guided its construction, facilitating the development of metacognitive skills” (p. 23). Villalon and Calvo’s (2011) study illustrates that the use of concept maps are beneficial to even the oldest of learners in a college setting, and although precise Thinking Maps were not used in this study, the idea of a graphic organizer to “map out” thought processes is universal.

In Thinking with Maps, Elisabeth Camp (2007) investigates how individuals think and how thinking is related to language. Camp (2007) states that “…thinking in maps is substantively different from thinking in sentences” (p. 155). This concept supports Hyerle's (2011) idea that Thinking Maps possess an artistic and kinesthetic component, where students can feel free to express their ideas in a “drawing,” or map, instead of using complete written sentences. Thinking Maps support learners who thrive with the artistic and kinesthetic multiple intelligences of learning.

David Hyerle (1996) reports numerous success stories with the use of Thinking Maps in his article Thinking Maps: Seeing is Understanding. After teachers participated in a year-long professional development in the use and purpose of Thinking Maps, as well as integrated the maps into their curriculum during this training year, the “teachers agreed that the maps had successfully helped students develop their thinking processes and their ability to organize ideas, improved the quality and quantity of their writing, and also motivated them to learn. Further, the maps benefited the teachers by helping them organize content and assess student learning” (p. 88). Hyerle (1996) also reported that the educators who gave Thinking Maps the highest ratings at the end of the year were those who taught English Learners (Spanish-speaking students), as Thinking Maps “enabled their students to transfer patterns of thinking from Spanish into English, to focus on learning, and to build vocabulary” (p. 88).

In Designs of Concept Maps and Their Impacts on Readers' Performance in Memory and Reasoning While Reading, Jeng-Yi Tzeng (2010) investigates the effect of Thinking Maps on students' performance of “cognitive operations.” In the study, Tzeng had students read two opposing history articles that “argued from different perspectives about a historical incident” that occurred in Taiwan (p. 133). The results of the study indicated that the focus and design of the concept maps may “influence the formation of mental representations, and that this may be facilitative or constraining in regard to the readers' memory formation and reasoning about the reading materials.” With regards to the maps' designs, Tzeng uncovered that this can impact a student's memory and/or understanding of a text, which poses as a negative aspect of the maps themselves.

In conclusion, by linking each thinking skill to a unique and dynamic visual representation, the language of Thinking Maps becomes a tool set for supporting effective instructional practice and improving student performance. Teachers and students, therefore, independently apply thinking skills for their own learning while also having a common visual language for cooperative learning. By having a rich language of visual maps based on thinking processes, learners are no longer confused by poorly organized brainstorming webs or an endless array of static graphic organizers. They are enabled to move from concrete to abstract concepts, think with depth, and directly apply their thinking to complex tasks.