Journal Articles and Chapters
Using Thinking Maps to Facilitate Research Writing in Upper Level Undergraduate Classes
Margie Lee Gallagher, East Carolina University
Journal of Family & Consumer Sciences Education, 29(2), Fall/Winter 2011
It is increasingly important that students who intend to become nutrition professionals acquire the skills to routinely read, understand, and critically evaluate the primary research literature in nutrition. American Dietetic Associate (ADA) accreditation standards require that the undergraduate curriculum include evaluation of primary literature. Hierarchical and sequence thinking maps were used to assist students in developing a process for obtaining the necessary skills in critical evaluation of the literature in an increasingly complex area, nutrition sciences.
Download the article Using Thinking Maps to Facilitate Research Writing in Upper Level Undergraduate Classes (Acrobat PDF file)
Bifocal Assessment in the Cognitive Age: Thinking Maps for Assessing Content Learning and Cognitive Processes
by David Hyerle, Ed.D. and Kimberly Williams, Ph.D.
The New Hampshire Journal of Education (Plymouth State University and ASCD), 2009
In this article the authors first surface the need for reframing formative and summative assessment in this, the cognitive age of the 21st century. The Thinking Maps model is introduced as a theoretical and practical common visual language for teaching, learning and assessment that reflects what we know about how the brain works, learning, and cognition. Thinking Maps--as a language--allows teachers to see student content learning and thinking processes through the same bifocal lens—viewing the content at the surface and cognitive processing more in depth. After this overview and then a discussion of the validity of the model, the investigation turns to look at student work with Thinking Maps as they develop fluency with the tools and the capacity to transfer the tools within and across disciplines. Formative assessment of fluency and transfer are described and then the authors discuss how the maps may also be used within the area of summative assessments, using the MAPPER holistic scale. The authors investigate how our assessment tools need to keep pace with our new understanding about how the brain learns and processes information, offering tools for educators and learners to determine not only “what” is learned but also “how” it is learned.
Read the article: Bifocal Assessment in the Cognitive Age: Thinking Maps for Assessing Content Learning and Cognitive Processes (PDF file)
View the student work: Download the the PDF file of Bifocal Assesssment Student Work.
Thinking Maps in Action
Bob Burden and Judy Silver
Teaching, Thinking & Creativity, Spring 2006
Bob Burden and Judy Silver visit a primary school in Hampshire, Great Britain that has taken on Thinking Maps in a big way.
Download the article Thinking Maps in Action (Acrobat PDF file).
Thinking Maps®: Strategy-Based Learning for English Language Learners (and Others!)
Stefanie Holzman Principal, Roosevelt Elementary School, Long Beach, CA + Pamell Gallagher - Olive Elementary School, Sonoma, CA
Aiming High, Sonoma County, January 2006
“Thinking Maps are invaluable for pre-writing. I am able to quickly assess whether students have understood a concept or learned key information by glancing at their completed maps.”
“Thinking Maps are an important strategy for student success. They help all children, whether their primary learning style is kinesthetic, auditory, or verbal. It’s a very good strategy for English Language Learners because it takes away the necessity to speak and write English.”
Download the article Thinking Maps®: Strategy-Based Learning for English Language Learners (and Others!) (Acrobat PDF file).
Thinking About Learning
Jacqueline Grennon Brooks
Associate Professor Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Hofstra University
Hofstra Horizons, Spring 2005
“Despite what many believe, learning isn’t simply the mental act of adding to what we already know. It’s the mental act of reformulating — morphing, so to speak —what we thought we knew into something new and different that might be more inclusive, or more specific, or something that under a banner of different descriptions involves new ways of thinking. Learning occurs through conceptual change, a phenomenon that can be described through constructivist learning theory...The Thinking Maps® constitute a common visual language that teachers and students can use, either independently or within cooperative structures, for making sense of stored knowledge and for building new concepts, linear and nonlinear...
Download the article Thinking About Learning (Acrobat PDF file).
The School as a Home for the Mind
Arthur L. Costa
Developing Minds: A Resource Book for Teaching Thinking
Edited by Arthur L. Costa, ASCD, 1991
“A quiet revolution is taking place across America in corporate offices, industrial factories, government offices—and in schools as well. It is a revolution of the intellect, placing a premium on our greatest natural resource, the human mind...”
Download the chapter The School as a Home for the Mind (Acrobat PDF file).
The Metacognitive School: Creating a Community Where Children and Adults Reflect on Their Work
Jeffrey M. Spiegel, Ed.D.
Principal, Hanover Street School, Lebanon, New Hampshire
The New Hampshire Journal of Education, Volume II, 2003
“What happens when an entire school makes a fundamental shift in its thinking? This article describes the developmental expereinces characterizing the school's evolution as a metacognitive school.”
Download the article The Metacognitive School: Creating a Community Where Children and Adults Reflect on Their Work (Acrobat PDF file).
St Cuthbert´s College Thinking Skills Programme
St. Cuthbert's College, Epsom, Auckland 1003, New Zealand
“Our Thinking Skills Programme has been developed over the past decade to help our students become critical, creative and caring thinkers. All students can think, but knowing how to select and deploy thinking strategies to solve problems, make decisions, foster creativity and write analytically requires sound instruction... We teach thinking tools to students from Year 1 through to Year 13. By having a weekly Thinking Lesson our students are taught how to use a tool, practise it and transfer it from one learning situation to another.”
Read online about St Cuthbert´s College Thinking Skills Programme
Visual Tools for Mapping Minds
David Hyerle, Ed.D.
Developing Minds: A Resource Book for Teaching Thinking, Arthur Costa, editor, 2001
“Over the past 50 years there has been a radical transformation in our understanding of the scientific underpinnings of life: we have moved from measuring isolated parts of structures to showing patterns within dynamic systems. As this shift has slowly taken place we have not yet changed the fundamental way we present or represent these new understandings in classrooms.”
Download the article Visual Tools for Mapping Minds (Acrobat PDF file).
I See What You Mean: Using Visual Maps to Assess Student Thinking
Laura Lipton, Ed.D. and David Hyerle, Ed.D.
“Thinking Maps: A Shared Visual Language. As this view of measurement evolves, educators seek tools to complement and expand the information learned about students from standardized tests. While standardized tests provide a quantitative 'snapshot' of student achievement, assessment tools such as portfolios, performance tasks, and student exhibits offer a more qualitative 'videotape'.”
Download the article I See What You Mean (Acrobat PDF file).
Thinking Maps: Visual Tools for Activating Habits of Mind
Chapter by David Hyerle, Ed.D.
Habits of Mind: Activating & Engaging
Edited by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick
Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2000
“New theories penetrate into the world of practical affairs when they are translated into methods and tools.... “Tool” comes from a prehistoric Germanic word for “to make, to prepare, or to do.” It still carries that meaning: Tools are what you make, prepare, or do with.” Peter Senge
Download the chapter Visual Tools for Activating Habits of Minds (Acrobat PDF file).
Parents and Teachers Working Together in the 21st Century
David Hyerle, Ed.D.
The Upper Valley Parents' Paper, November 2000
“Maps for Learning. So.. . why not use mapping techniques for the learning process? For the past few decades mind mapping (also called semantic mapping), graphic organizers, and concept maps have been used by folks in the workplace and by many teachers. Now many teachers are using some form of these visual tools on a daily basis. Right now these graphics are showing up across the content areas, in published textbooks, and even within standardized tests. There is a strong history of research on the usefulness of these tools..”
Download the article Parents and Teachers Working Together (Acrobat PDF file).
Thinking Maps: The Cognitive Bridge to Literacy
A Visual Language for Bridging Reading Text Structures to Writing Prompts
By David Hyerle, Ed.D. and Thommasina DePinto Piercy, Ph.D.
A comprehensive book focused on the wide ranging applications of Thinking Maps, from preschool through college. The working title of this book of collected chapters from 15 authors is: Thinking Maps: A New Language for Learning.
Download Chapter 1 (Acrobat PDF file)
Thinking Maps: Seeing is Understanding
By David Hyerle, Ed.D.
Education Leadership, January 1996
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.
Download the article Thinking Maps: Seeing is Understanding (Acrobat PDF file)
Expand Your Thinking
By David Hyerle, Ed.D.
Developing Minds: Programs for Teaching Thinking, Edited by Arthur L. Costa, 1991
Important ideas and relationships often go unseen by students because verbal tools alone do not clearly communicate the overall patterns of how people are thinking.
Download the chapter Expand Your Thinking (Acrobat PDF file)
Teaching Students to Construct Graphic Representations
By Beau Fly Jones, Jean Pierce, and Barbara Hunter
Education Leadership, December 1988/January 1989
When they construct graphic respresentations of text they read, students better understand which ideas in the text are important, how they relate, and what points are clear.
Download the article Teaching Students to Construct Graphic Representations (Acrobat PDF file)
Learning and the “Marzano 9”
Researchers at the Mid-continent Research for Educational Learning, led by Dr. Robert Marzano, have identified nine instructional strategies that are most likely to improve student achievement.
Download the article Learning and the “Marzano 9” (Acrobat PDF file)
Thinking Maps: Enriching, Extending, Integrating the Curriculum
By Joseph P. Hester, Shirley Owen, Barbara Piekarski and Wendy Hildebran
North Carolina Middle School Journal, Volume 17, 1995-96
...research told us that to be effective, thinking skills must be completely integrated into the ongoing curriculum... the infusion method they had developed seemed to fit the framework we had established for a thinking skills inititive...
Download the article Thinking Maps: Enriching, Extending, Integrating the Curriculum (Acrobat PDF file)
Thinking Skills in the Curriculum - Teaching Thinking in Tulsa
By Larry Zenke and Larry Alexander
Education Leadership, September 1984
A thinking skills program has given test scores in two Tulsa middle schools a quick boost... “perhaps it is possible to teach students how to think.”
Download the article Teaching Thinking in Tulsa (Acrobat PDF file)
Effects of Teaching Thinking Skills on SAT Scores
By Antoinette W. Worsham and Gilbert R. Austin
Education Leadership, November 1983
Students with about 100 hours of instruction in a Baltimore pilot program increased their SAT scores by an average of 42 points.
Download the article Effects of Teaching Thinking Skills on SAT Scores (Acrobat PDF file)
Research Summary
A compilation of a variety of research documenting the effectiveness of Thinking Maps®.
Download the article the compilation of research (Acrobat PDF file)