Graphic Representations: A Picture Clarifies a Thousand Words

1. Graphic Representations: A Picture Clarifies a Thousand Words Karen Brunner & Kristi Roberson-Scott

2. Is a picture worth a thousand words? • Graphic organizers form powerful visual pictures of information and allow one to “see” undiscovered patterns and/or relationships. • Between 80% and 90% of information we receive from our environments is visual. • Our brains process 36,000 images every hour. • Our brains likes to “chunk information- graphic organizers complement the way the brain naturally works. • Memory for visual images- • In one study, subjects shown 10,000 pictures were then later shown the same images again mixed with new ones. The subjects identified the previous pictures with 90% accuracy.

3. What are graphic organizers? • Pictorial or graphical ways to organize information and thoughts for understanding, remembering or for writing • A way to organize newly acquired and existing concepts into a hierarchical network and depict relationships • Visual illustrations of verbal statements • Graphic forms with corresponding text frames • “A good graphic representation can show at a glance the key parts of a whole and their relations, thereby allowing a holistic understanding that words alone cannot convey” (Jones, Pierce & Hunter, 1988)

4. What are the potential benefits of using a graphic representation? • Valuable instructional/teaching tool to help: • Construct meaning/Increase understanding, recall, & higher-order thinking • Determine what is important • How key concepts/ideas relate • What points are unclear • Create interest and help motivate • Organize thoughts/concepts for writing and/or difficult content • Can facilitate meaningful student learning • Accommodates different learning styles • Encourages active classroom discussion

5. Why Graphic Representations Can Help Our Students • 64% of students taking the Learning Styles Assessment at Freshman Experience identified as visual learners; less than 6% identified as textual learners.

6. Why Graphic Representations Can Help Our Students • When asked “what types of things help you learn best in your classes?” many students gave responses such as: • “I am a visual learner so anything I can see helps me.” • “It is easier for me to learn when a teacher uses visual learning strategies.” • “Graphs, pictures, demonstrations” • “Visual aids, reference, and projects”

7. Why Graphic Representations Can Help Our Students • When asked “my students learn the most when they…” a number of faculty said: • “See pictures” • “Read actively” • “Use critical thinking methods when reading” • “Do well-organized, step-by-step activities” • “Do activities that present a challenge but not so challenging that they can’t complete the task.”

8. How do you connect students to content? • Do you think there is a disconnect between students & content? Neural networking? • When you ask your students to translate complex and holistic patterns into linear thinking what happens? • Mind mapping or creating graphic representation of content can offer an intermediary step between the web of information in the brain and expository representation of that information. • Our brains make sense of information by discerning patterns… learning occurs when students perceive and construct patterns.

9. Graphic Organizers • Help with the following academic tasks: • Describe • Compare/Contrast • Classify • Make decisions • Sequence events • Understand hierarchical relationships

10. Types of Graphic Organizers • Concept maps • Web or spider maps • Fishbone Maps • Network trees • Matrices • Flow Charts

11. Types of Representations Major types of representations: • Hierarchy – shows levels and groups • Sequencing- shows steps, events, stages or phases • Matrices – shows comparative relationships – topics, repeatable categories and details • Diagrams – displays or illustrates the parts/components of different objects

12. Matching Academic Tasks to Graphic Representations

13. Signal Words and Related Representations

14. Constructing Graphic Representations • Structure of graphic should reflect the structure of the material/text it represents. • Steps: (See QEP Handout) • 1) Discuss graphic representations (can be used as a reading strategy) with students. • 2) Explain why and how the strategy could be useful to students. • 3) Model the strategy. • 4) Select a reading passage (could be a subsection of the textbook).

15. Constructing Graphic Representations • 5) Instructor completes a graphic representation. • 6) Ask students to read the passage/text. • 7) Ask students to survey the text title(s), subheadings, illustrations, captions, abstract (if available or pertinent), and objectives. • 8) Provide a blank graphic representation that you, as the instructor, prepared. Discuss why you selected that type. • 9) Questioning: Concepts- hierarchy, timeline, compare/contrast, explanation of something, apparent signal words

16. Constructing Graphic Representations • 10) Complete the graphic representation with the students. Explain why you selected the information you did. • 11) Assign a passage and ask students to complete a blank representation form that follows the same organizational structure that you modeled. • 12) Group work/individual assignment • 13) Provide a copy of your graphic representation. • 14) Provide feedback to students. (QEP Rubric Handout) • 15) Should be a required assignment with credit. Learners, with practice in using graphic representations, will be able to construct a mental model of his/her fundamental knowledge of the material (what is important and how ideas/concepts are related).

17. Constructing Concept Maps

18. Graphic Organizer: Spider Map • Resembles spider web, with the main idea at the center of the web and all other ideas flow out from the center to create the threads. • Used to describe a central idea: a thing (geographic region), process (mitosis), concept (stroke volume & exercise), or proposition. • Key frame questions: What is the central idea? What are the attributes? What are the functions?

19. Spider Maps • Resembles a spider web, with the main idea as the center of the web and other ideas flow from the center to create the threads. • Graphic representation to describe: • Thing • Process • Concept • Proposition

20. Spider Map • Possible applications: • Helpful in reading for understanding and writing papers (using it to generate ideas) • Describing a thing (geographic region), process (meiosis), concepts, propositions with support (experimental drugs for cancer patients), etc.

21. Fishbone Maps • Interaction of a complex event (war, election, nuclear explosion), phenomenon (learning disabilities). This graphic representation is like the spider map but can be used for complex topics with more details.

22. Fishbone Map Continued • What are the factors that cause X? • How are these interrelated? • Are the factors that cause X the same as those that cause X to persist?

23. Sequential graphic organizers: Continuum or Chain of Event Maps • Types: Timelines (temporal order), flowcharts (discrete steps completed in order), cyclical organizer (connected steps with last step connected to first), hierarchy • How events or consequences flow in sequence or a continuum. • Progression of time • Steps of a process

24. Flowchart Timeline Continuum or Chain of Event Maps

25. Examples (See Handouts) • Case Study • Sample Cause & Effect Chain • Compare/Contrast Matrix

27. Questions/Discussions