The Focus on Teaching and Technology Conference is an annual two-day regional conference with participants from universities, community colleges, K-12 schools, and corporations. This year, it will be held on Thursday, October 24 and Friday, October 25 on the UMSL campus. The conference offers a program of keynote addresses, faculty innovations showcased during concurrent sessions, technology workshops, and vendor exhibits. The conference program has evolved over the years to reflect emerging trends in technology applications in higher education and developing shared expertise in online teaching experiences and strategies.
For the past several months, I have been serving on the planning committee for the conference. I served on the Program Selection Committee and was charged with selecting 26 of the 75+ proposals. In addition to serving on the committee, I will also be presenting at the conference with a colleague from Maryville University, Krista Hyde. The presentation is titled “Concept Maps:Using Bubbl.us to Assess Student Understanding in Introductory Courses.”
Our session will outline an activity created for an online introductory philosophy course at Maryville University. It was designed to help students explore and be able to work with the key figures, concepts, and terms of the field. The activity consisted of developing individual concept maps of an assigned sub-discipline, collaborating as a group to refine their concept maps, and then collaboratively writing a Wiki entry over their assigned sub-discipline.
Below is a short description of what the presentation will cover, and I’ve also embedded the presentation that we developed using Prezi.
Concept mapping is a powerful tool to gauge and assess students’ knowledge of subject matter. Free online technologies allow students and instructors to make professional and clear concept maps. Using concept mapping when teaching an introductory course enhances student learning and is an excellent opportunity to engage all learning styles.