Mike Jones, our Connecting Knowledge Grant winner and a STEM instructor and technology coach in the Bloomington School District 87 (Illinois), shares his insights on using Ideaphora in the classroom.
Formative assessments by the literary definition are pieces of data that allow teachers to measure where our students are at in their learning continuum. While it is easy to measure the more rote knowledge with short answers or multiple choice quizzes, finding ways to assess their understanding can be much more difficult.
I use the Ideaphora concept mapping environment in my classroom to allow my students to document and share their learning. When I first started using concept mapping, I mistakenly thought of it as a “one and done” activity. I would assign a resource and have students complete a concept map due the next day. Now, building a single concept map is a reflective process that we revisit often during a unit.