Visual Map Assignment Seminar Preparation MIT Weaving the Web of Democracy Fall 2007 Context and Purpose for this Seminar Preparation You may experience a dynamic tension in our expectations of how you work with the texts in this program We want you to be efficient readers but not so efficient that you become gullible and passive users of information We want you to be efficient and active as readers We want you to identify remember and be able to work with key ideas from the readings We want you to be able to critically examine those ideas How are you going to decide whether the author has made a well founded argument What are the strengths and weaknesses of the argument What are the implications of the author s arguments for your practice as a teacher What will then be the implications of your practice for diverse learners This kind of preparation and thought is what s involved in informing your practice as a teacher one of the central goals of this Masters in Teaching program In Learning Outside the Lines Mooney and Cole share important strategies that are not just useful for getting through the work but also essential for deep learning The strategies they outline be they for reading note taking writing or participating in academic discussions involve SKIMMING SORTING CATEGORIZING PRIORITIZING FINDING RELATIONSHIPS and APPLICATIONS in some way In other words they give you the tools to be both efficient and active gleaners of information In The Art of Changing the Brain Zull points out how important it is for learners to both gather information and to experiment with ideas if they are to achieve a deep understanding He points out that just gathering information without transforming it in some way leads to a shallow unexamined understanding On the other hand playing and experimenting without using or taking in new knowledge will foster little growth or comprehension see pages 38 45 With that said the purpose of the visual map assignments is to help you 1 2 3 4 make decisions about what is important to know transform and make meaning out of that information remember key ideas and prepare you to begin critically examining the validity and implications of authors arguments Task 1 Create visual maps for each article and seminar book chapter e g for a book with 5 chapters you will submit 5 visual maps Make sure that each map i ii iii captures the central argument for the chapter article identifies the main points evidence used to make the argument and purposefully uses space and symbol to communicate the nature of the argument 2 Many authors explain what the purpose and argument of their writing is up front in an introduction Examine that BIG GOAL and argument in light of your collection of visual maps and sub arguments and address the following questions briefly in writing i ii iii Looking at the whole in your own words explain what argument is the author making cite page references that inform your answer What seem to be 1 2 strengths and weaknesses of the argument What 2 3 questions do the visual maps provoke for you 3 Hand in the above writing and set of visual maps every Tuesday morning We will return them to you Tuesday afternoons for use in seminar NOTE You may do this preparation alone or in study groups If you choose to work in study groups Your group may have up to 5 members For books with multiple chapters you may divvy up the creation of the maps You must still read the whole book You must create at least one of the maps Each person needs to have and hand in a complete set of the visual maps with names of the respective map creator on each map You must also set up an explicit study group time before Tuesday to explain each map to your colleagues
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