Concept Maps for Linking Aspects in the Transformation of Education

Abstract

In previous IJPE scholarship, fourteen aspects were identified as mediators of quality in teaching/learning in higher education. These were derived from more than ten years of teaching institute observations, peer coaching sessions, and classroom self-assessments. The aspects highlight challenges that can be embraced to enrich educational experience, or ignored, to perpetuate the status quo. As a group, these aspects are overwhelming without a framework for addressing them within a larger instructional system. This work offers a set of three concept maps that cluster the aspects based on natural affinity as well as natural order of implementation. Each aspect was placed under one of four broad categories: epistemology of teaching/learning, course design for learning, facilitation for learning, and assessment for learning. Separate maps were then constructed using the aspects as well as other elements of classroom instruction to illustrate differences between traditional, transitional, and transformational teaching/learning environments. Once the maps were created, educator ways of being and common teaching and learning toolkits became obvious from each map. The set of concept maps is customized for instructors, rather than learners, to help them better visualize their personal teaching/learning practices and their local teaching/learning culture on the continuum from traditional to transformational environments. These new resources are expected to lay the foundation for a next-generation Faculty Guidebook resource as well as tools to measure educator performance and activities that promote professional growth within the three different teaching/learning environments.

Full Article: http://www.processeducation.org/ijpe/2012/maps.pdf