Opinions of Preservice Teachers on Creating and Using Concept Maps in Elementary Schools

Paper presented at the annual meeting of The American Educational Research Association International Conference (AERA 2008)

Concept Mapping had its roots in education; and education and learning probably still constitute the bulk of its use. Like any other tool, the effectiveness of Concept Mapping depends on how it is used and the conditions in which it is used. This study investigated the opinions of the preservice teachers in a western university of Turkey on learning concept maps and its implementations in the classrooms. Data gathered from interviews and analysis of the concept maps showed how the preservice teachers used the concept maps to construct their curriculum content knowledge in the form of more powerful integrated patterns.