Computers & Education Gloria Yi-Ming Kao a, Sunny S.J. Lin b, Chuen -Tsai Sun

1. Breaking concept boundaries to enhance creative potential: Usingintegrated concept maps for conceptual self-awareness Computers & Education Gloria Yi-Ming Kao a, Sunny S.J. Lin b, Chuen-Tsai Sun LiewKengHou 2013/01/07

2. Outline • Introduction • Background • Study Design • The Integrated Concept Map System(ICMSys) • Case Study • Results & Discussion • Conclusion

3. Introduction (cont.) • Goal • Use various concepts or leads generated by peers to stimulatecreative associations that individuals may not otherwise come up with because of their inflexibility in utilizing prior knowledge • Purpose • Integrated concept mapping system (ICMSys) is to assist learners in building self-awareness of conceptual structuresthrough a process of identifying knowledge structure insufficiencies, differences, and boundaries via comparisons with other learners’ concept maps

4. Background • Computer-assisted concept mapping system • Previous approaches • Neglecting the impacts of concept mapping on changes in individual • Approach in this study • Allows learners to request various individual concept mapsfor inspection, thus allowing them to make comparisons among concept maps without requiring detailed inspections

5. Background (Cont.) • Meta-cognition (“cognition about cognition”) • Help students become aware of the boundaries of their prior knowledge or their habitual thinking habits and to encourage them to make conceptual changes in hope of enhancing creative potential • Smaller differences between a student’s self-assessment and an actual assessment made by a team of experts were viewed as indicators of greater self-awareness

6. Background (Cont.) • Self-awareness • Ideas, suggestions, feedback, and other resources provided by peers are essential stimuli for discovering what we will call the unaware zone • Conflicts arising from comparisons of concept maps among peers promote learner self-awareness and therefore minimize the unaware zone • Encouragelearners to reconsider concepts they may have overlooked or alternative approaches to task resolution in a manner that is beneficial to breaking concept boundaries for problem solving

7. Background (Cont.) • From self-awareness to creative potential • Conceptual awareness is central to bringing out creative potential • The goal of most school systems is to equip students with skills or domain knowledge only, which might eliminate individual potential for developing creativity • Help willing individuals think outside of concept boundaries and break habitual thinkingwhenever they find their personal ideas or solutions are not sufficient for the task at hand

8. Study Design • Concept boundaries • Detectable when students become aware of conceptual differences between their own and integrated concept maps

9. Study Design Research focus and integrated concept map system architecture

10. Study Design • Students may model or imitate erroneous maps based on their current knowledge limitations • Asked three experts to assess the quality of the students’ redrawn maps to verify the benefits of modeling the first concept maps in the resource pool

11. Study Design • Research question and framework • Q1. Can learner conceptual self-awareness be promoted using the ICMSys? • Q2. Do revised concept maps contain evidence of conceptual improvements? Specific goals are to determine if students acknowledge insufficiencies and concept boundaries in their initial concept maps and construct extensions after viewing various individual concept maps

12. Study Design • Q3. Does ICMap viewing frequency affect the level of conceptual self-awareness? • Q4. Do students with higher levels of conceptual self-awareness make better quality and larger numbers of improvements when redrawing their concept maps?

13. Study Design Their approach consists of three steps: • Constructing a personal concept map • Observing various combinations of individual concept maps • Redrawing the original personal concept map

14. Study Design

15. The integrated concept map system (ICMSys) Four main ICMSys design principles: • Reduce redundancy • Placed certain concept words into the ICMSys that the participants could use when constructing concept maps • Assist with concept map integration • A lexical database for the targeted learning material must be generated in advance • Promote self-awareness of concept boundaries • Each individual’s work as a default setting for concept map integration • Proposition integration

16. ICMSys interface Integrated concept map system user interface and an integrated concept map with student A1’s map highlighted

17. Case Study • Participants and materials • Study participants were 32 information management freshmen enrolled in a computer hardware course • Course content focused on basic computer infrastructure, PC components, and storage processes

18. Case Study • Procedure • First two weeks- Instructor explained how to use the ICMSys to students and three experts • Week 3 - participants constructed personal concept maps and made self-assessments of map quality • Week 4 - students were asked to assemble ICMaps for establishing personal concept boundary awareness via the peer map modeling process • Week 5 - students redrew their personal concept maps and made self-assessments of revised concept map quality

19. Conceptual self-awareness rating method Questionnaire to measure student perceptions of the ICMSys

20. Conceptual self-awareness rating method Concept map scoring

21. Conceptual self-awareness rating method • Level of conceptual self-awareness (student/expert score)= student’s self-assessment – expert’s assessment • Change in level of conceptual self-awareness= student / expertfirst– student / expertsecond

22. Results and discussion • Does the ICMSys promote conceptual self-awareness? *Statistics for the student, expert, and student/expert conceptual structure scores

23. Scoring Criteria for Concept Maps Novak and Gowin’s (1984) Learning How to Learn • Propositions / Relationship • Is the meaning relationship between two concepts indicated by the connecting line and linking word(s)? Is the relationship valid? For each meaningful, valid relationship shown, score 1 point. • Hierarchy: • Does the map show hierarchy? Is each subordinate concept more specific and less general than the concept drawn above it (in the context of the material being mapped)? Score 4 points for each valid level of the hierarchy. • Cross links: • Does the map show meaningful connections between one segment of the concept hierarchy and another segment? Is the relationship shown significant and valid? Score 10 points for each cross link that is both valid and significant and 2 points for each cross link that is valid but does not illustrate a synthesis between sets of related concept or propositions. Cross links can indicate creative ability and special care should be given to identifying and rewarding its expression. Unique or creative cross links might receive special recognition, or extra points. • Examples: • Specific events or objects that are valid instances of those designated by the concept label can be scored 1 point each.

24. Scoring Criteria for Concept Maps

25. Results and discussion • Does the ICMSys promote conceptual self-awareness? *Improvement in conceptual self-awareness in terms of the four criteria

26. Results and discussion • Is the ICMSys help learners locate insufficiencies and break boundaries in their concept maps, leading to conceptual improvement in their revised maps? *Concept map quality as assessed by experts in terms of the four criteria

27. Results and discussion • Does ICMap viewing frequency affect conceptual self-awareness level? *Data for integrated concept map (ICMap) viewing frequency

28. Results and discussion • Is there a correlation between conceptual self-awareness level in the revised map and conceptual changes/improvements as assessed by the three experts? • Pearson correlation, = 0.38 • < 0.05

29. Results and discussion • Questionnaire responses

30. Results and discussion • Questionnaire responses

31. Conclusions • Integrated concept maps can promote Conceptual self-awareness, and Conceptual self-awarenesscan lead to personal conceptual change • Improvement in the students’ conceptual self-awareness and evidence of their breaking concept boundaries due to their ability to use others’ ideas to create quality revised maps • Provides opportunities for students to take responsibility for reflecting on what they did, what others did, and what improvements might be made by choosing and viewing, making comparisons, and engaging with their peers’ maps