It’s our favorite time of year: back-to-school season! For many teachers and students across the country, school is back in session, and many more will be headed to campus in the coming weeks.
As schools have kicked off the 2016-17 school year, we also have launched (out of beta) the new Ideaphora online concept mapping environment for individuals. Our tool helps learners assimilate information from digital content and strengthen higher order thinking skills at a time when schools and districts are transitioning to new learning environments that better prepare students for jobs that don’t exist yet.
At the beginning of the school year, teachers often focus learning activities on self-identity to help build positive self-esteem, a welcoming classroom culture and acceptance among their students. One of the ways educators can introduce this topic while addressing key skills and standards is through concept mapping.
Identity Through the Lens of Others
Teachers can pair Ideaphora with lessons on identity across the subject areas of history, art and culture. Within the Ideaphora environment, students can discover open education resources on the topic of identity by examining the roles, qualities and attributes of historical figures, or even by analyzing the art of portraiture. Then, they can explore their own self-concept.
Start by having students create concept maps on a historical figure or artist to better understand the factors that comprise identity. Through this activity, students learn various nouns and adjectives used describe people and to organize and categorize information.
Developing Self-Concept
Next, instruct students to create identity maps about themselves and present it to their peers to get to know and respect one another. Students can use keywords and images from digital content available in Ideaphora, or upload their own materials, to create their maps. Ideaphora also provides templates on identity and self-concept to help students get started. Teachers can search for "Template" in Ideaphora's public maps and share with their students.
Through this lesson, students have the opportunity to tackle defining their roles as it relates to family, community, school and more; articulate their interests and hobbies; share their background; and embrace their differences. Facing History and Ourselves offers an engaging lesson plan and other resources on identity that teachers could use as inspiration for working with Ideaphora for a back-to-school unit.
To help educators and learners get back into academic shape, Ideaphora is offering a limited-time annual subscription fee of $19 for individual educational users.
Ideaphora offers users the following features:
- Streamlined platform that combines multimedia resources and concept mapping all in one screen for unprecedented convenience and uninterrupted learning
- Playback buttons on map nodes that enable users to go directly back to the point in the material from which the keyword or image was derived for easier studying
- Opportunity to use multiple sources in a single concept map using materials from Ideaphora’s library of vetted open education resources and from their own content they upload
Try now, or sign up for a 45-day trial to the full-featured platform. Educators interested in using Ideaphora with their students this school year can enroll in our free Classroom Pilot program, which features additional teacher management tools.
