A Concept Map

After our in-class experience with concept maps, I felt as though one must be well prepared on a subject in order to be able to complete such a task. Therefore, my subject this week received a random topic that I knew he would not be prepared for. I did not give my subject any words or clues, just simply instructed him to draw a concept map to help me understand the extinction of dinosaurs. Below is the resulting concept map.

The extinction of dinosaurs was a very basic, random topic, in my opinion. Because it is something all of us have learned about in a science class, I suspected this would help the subject construct the map. He started with the main concept in the center box, and then branched out with four causes he thought were possible in the ovals. From the ovals, he then branched out to boxes that supported the possible causes.

When I asked the subject how he decided on the framework for his concept map, he told me that he thought of a concept map as similiar to brainstorming, but more organized. Other than the basic science class overview of dinosaurs, the subject did not feel like he did the topic justice because he did not have enough information to work from. When I asked the subject if word prompts would have helped him construct the concept map, he agreed that it would have been beneficial, but still wouldn't be sure how well the concept map represented the extinction of dinosaurs. Therefore, I think the larger the working knowledge and familiarity of the topic being assessed through a concept map will dramatically help the subject organize more thoughts that are applicable to the suject matter and task at hand.