Diverse Learners
These documents offer a kaleidoscope view for exploring how learning styles, language differences, multiple intelligences and the interactions of gender, race, class and culture are influenced by focusing on developing ALL students’ abilities to think in a variety of way. Importantly, the capacity for metacognition is key: how do we think about our thinking? Think about our emotions? And think about how to direct and improve the scope and depth of our own complex, multifaceted individual potentials? Carol Dweck has promoted the idea of “Mindsets” as a term recognizing the barriers educators must transcend in order to reach beyond expected potentials. The recent focus on “grit” or perseverance has gained traction as an extension of the early work on emotional intelligence. How do we do this, in practical terms, in classrooms? We suggest Dr. Yvette Jackson’s chapter below as one starting point for engaging these questions central to her important book, Pedagogy of Confidence (Teacher’s College Press).
Chapter 5: Closing the "Gap" by Connecting Culture, Language, and Cognition.
Yvette Jackson Ed.D.
Many teachers of students labeled as under performing have been led to believe that the students are deficient and that their underachievement is the result of limited potential. Yet when we talk about people having undeveloped muscles or physiques, we say they're "out of shape." We don't say they're deficient. In our work, we focus on the idea that the brain is like muscle; it requires specific exercises, guided personal trianing, and relevant and meaningful instruction to build competence and prevent dysfunction. It requires mediation. We address these misperceptions through professional development, and the impact of culture and language on cognition, critical thinking, and higher-order comprehension skills. We believe that when teachers are provided with the tools or strategies to strengthen intellectual development, learning, and literacy skills (or what Lisa Delpit, 1995, calls "codes of power"), urban students are able to demonstrate their potential through performance that changes the expectations of the teachers.
Student Successes With Thinking Maps®
David Hyerle and Larry Alper coeditors Corwin Press, Second Edition, January 2011, Thousand Oaks, California
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Student Successes With Thinking Maps®
David Hyerle and Larry Alper coeditors Corwin Press, Second Edition, January 2011, Thousand Oaks, California
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Minds of Mississippi
"The Pass" has been the top performing school district in Mississippi. The Pass Christian School District Story is one of gain in the midst of loss. Watch the documentary.
Student Successes With Thinking Maps®
David Hyerle and Larry Alper coeditors Corwin Press, Second Edition, January 2011, Thousand Oaks, California
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Chapter 14: Stories From Mississippi, Results From College to Kindergarten.
Marjann Kalehoff Ball Ed.D.
It is now been years since Hurricane Katrina came ashore. The city of New Orleans, Louisiana, was a tragic and unbearable center of destruction, with the winds and water penetrating the city and destroying lives and neighborhoods. Little known to the outside world, just up the Golf Coast was where Katrina actually made landfall: along the stretch of land of the small coastal towns of Pass Christian and Gulfport in Mississippi. For several years before the devastation of Katrina, Pass Christian has brought Thinking Maps to its community of learners with great success.
Thinking Maps for Gifted and Talented Learners
By Stuart Jamieson, Birchwood Community High School, Warrington, U.K. 2006
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This research evaluates the use of Thinking Maps as a visual tool to improve the quality of pupils thinking and planning using eight cognitive functions. Central to our work is whether pupils’ redrafted writing would improve through greater use of descriptive techniques derived from the application of Thinking Maps. In seeking to prove that pupils would be able to transfer their thinking and planning skills across a range of themes and/or subjects to promote overarching learning concepts we have used relevant forms of data. We hoped to ascertain what teachers and support staff would do to change their approaches to planning by using Thinking Maps to connect learning visually and emotionally.
Birchwood Community High (BCHS) and Gorse Covert Primary school conclude that Thinking Maps were an effective tool in raising the quality of pupils thinking and planning. On average BCHS learners improved their SAT scores by one complete level. Gorse Covert Primary School learners demonstrated that they were able to organise and sustain their writing through the usage of Thinking Maps.
Mapas Pensantes® Como Recurso Cognitivo de Intervenção para Estudiantes Do Ensino Médio
By Carla Oliveira de Carvalho, Salvador Bahia, Brazil. 2015
This work aimed to review studies on Thinking Maps® establishing relationships with development of reading comprehension in light of the Multi-component Working Memory Model, and to present research that investigated the impact of the use of Thinking Maps® during Portuguese Language and Writing classes in the development of reading comprehension of students of the first year of high school from a public school.
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Click on the PDF icon to download complete Dissertation in Portuguese
Visual Tools for Transforming Information Into Knowledge
By David Hyerle, Corwin Press, Second Edition, 2009, Thousand Oaks, California
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Chapter 8: Thinking Maps for Special Needs
Thinking Maps is one of the most powerful tools that Learning Prep School uses to facilitate learning for students who have been unable to succeed in other educa- tional environments. Four years ago, we felt we served our students well, but they were not where we knew they could be in their daily performance and their abilities to perform on the Massachusetts exam, the MCAS. We now see the significant results of our students’ performance through the use of these visual tools integrated into our overall program, and students can see themselves differently, as independent learners capable of “getting it,” as one student declared:
"Thinking Maps give me a chance to learn. I couldn’t get it when one of my old teachers talked to me all day and then wanted me to write a lot of words. At this new school, I can understand the teachers when they use the maps. And I can finally do the work because I get it!"
The Impact of Primary Students' Multiple Intelligences on Motivation in Thinking Maps Classroom
By Then Yih Yaw, University Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia. 2014
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The implementation of Thinking Maps had been introduced in Malaysian schools since 2011. Hence, the present study served to investigate the impact of primary students’ Multiple Intelligences and motivation in Thinking Maps classroom. The participants of the study were 100 Year 4 students in a Chinese medium school in Sri Aman. Students’ MI profiles and motivational level were surveyed by using Multiple Intelligence Profiling Questionnaires III (MIPQ III) and Instructional Materials Motivational Survey (IMMS) respectively. Students were found to be intermediately motivated in Thinking Maps classroom. There were also significant differences found in Logical- Mathematical, Spatial and Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence between boys and girls. Additionally, Linguistic and Naturalist Intelligence could contribute partially in predicting students’ motivation in Thinking Maps classroom. Other factors affecting students’ motivation in Thinking Maps classroom include school climate, teacher’s teaching experiences and knowledge about Thinking Maps. The study provides some insights into the effect of students’ MI on motivation in Thinking Maps classroom. It is hoped to benefit all stakeholders as well as the students themselves to achieve effective learning.
Student Successes With Thinking Maps®
David Hyerle and Larry Alper coeditors Corwin Press, Second Edition, January 2011, Thousand Oaks, California
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Chapter 4: Tools for Integrting Theories and Differentiating Practice
Alan Cooper, B.Ed.
While Thinking Maps are valuable in their own right as flexible tools for differentiating and nifying learning in a classroom, these tools become more useful for learners when they are connected to the other current learning theories and practices. As we found at our school, there are many connections to be made between the use of Thinking Maps in classrooms and emotional intelligence, multiple intelligences, learning styles, and Habits of Mind. When used together, they develop a synergy that truly benefits both the teacher and the student.
Thinking Maps as Tools for Multiple Modes of Understanding
By David Hyerle,University of California at Berkeley, United States. 1994
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As a language of interrelated graphic patterns, thinking maps are shown in this study to have a visual
organizers presently being used in schools --supports the introduction of thinking maps as a language for facilitating students' thinking and content learning. As a language of interrelated graphic patterns, thinking maps are shown in this study to have a visual lexicon based on four distinct characteristics: theoretical breadth, characteristics are revealed by thinking maps applications created by students and teachers at both elementary and secondary school levels. Thinking maps are also introduced in this investigation as interactive tools for use in key areas of educational change at the
turn of this century: for the development of students' thinking and metacogniti ve abilities, perspecti ve-taking and multicultural education. organization for research and writing, and for interdisciplinary learning. In addition, an assessment rubric based on holistic scoring of thinking maps is presented as a framework for viewing the development of students' thinking and content learning over time.
The Impact of Thinking Maps® in Elementary School Music Education
By YoungHoon Park, Fifth Grade Flute Class of 2012-13
Thinking Maps® help performance with effective literacy in instrumental music education. Thinking Maps® increase average group score eventually.
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Importante é Pensar Melhor e Resolver o Problema
By Fernando Vivas, Revista Muito, Brazil. 2012
Journal Interview with David Hyerle (Portuguese)
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Thinking Maps: Seeing is Understanding
By David Hyerle, Ed.D., Education Leadership, January 1996
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By using visual tools that correspond to thinking processes, students can organize their ideas on paper or by computer, and as a result read, write, and think better.
"Barbara Bell, principal of the Joe Hall Elementary School in Miami, says one reason she adopted Thinking Maps at her school was that it is particutarly difficult to find strategies that work together to develop higher-order thinking skills. By learning how to use Thinking Maps together, students show they can persevere and not give up in midproblem."
Professional books for additional research and documentation on Thinking Schools, Visual Tools and Thinking Maps®
