Examination of Elementary Teachers’ Views about Concept Maps

One of the teaching methods that are carried out to make teaching-learning process more effective is concept mapping. Learners can incorporate new knowledge into their prior knowledge framework by utilizing concept mapping. Furthermore, representation and organization of the knowledge through concept maps, helps retention and recall. Thus concept maps facilitate meaningful learning by organizing knowledge in cognitive structure and encourage creative thinking. Concept maps constructed by the teachers, enable students identify and explore the structure and the nature of knowledge. The use of concept maps can also assist teachers in evaluating the process of teaching. This study aims to investigate the elementary teachers’ views on concept maps by using an open-ended questionnaire which is carried out with 24 elementary teachers. Before conducting the questionnaire teachers have been instructed about concept maps and they constructed concept map examples. The findings indicate that elementary teachers generally perceive concept maps as a useful, effective, practical tool and they highlighted concept maps as important since they provide feedback. An important implication of this study is that there is a need for teachers to know how to teach concept map construction, to associate the concept maps into their lessons and into the evaluating process.