Concept Maps and Peer Assessment for Student Learning

Introduction: Assessment Beyond Traditional Methods

During a training session with early-career teachers, I shared practices in effective student assessment that had worked for me throughout a successful career teaching English at both the high school and college levels. Two assessment tools — the Concept Map (also called Mind Mapping) and Peer Assessment — provided me, as teacher, with insights into student progress that could not have been gained through more traditional methods of assessment.

In presenting the Concept Map, I utilized the technique of sharing a personal experience. I have found this produces a non-confrontational atmosphere — the teacher opens up and shares something personal that may, in the long run, prove genuinely beneficial to students as well.

Concept Mapping as an Assessment and Learning Tool

Throughout my career, the profession of teaching has shared space in my private goals with that of writing. Yet I have spent double, if not triple, the number of hours on teaching and teaching preparation compared to preparing manuscripts for submission to publishers. The concept I wanted to explore was: why is this? What is stopping me from writing more? A listing of personal impediments produced the following concept map, with "The Writer" at the center and connected barriers including: No Time, No Ideas, No Workspace, Old Computer, and Myriad Occupations.

As we reviewed the linked impediments to my central goal of becoming a more active writer, the students were quick to see that each one was essentially an excuse. Were I to apply some discipline to each area, the impediments would disappear.

What if students applied the same mapping process to impediments preventing them from earning that coveted "A" on each quiz or test? What might be stopping them in their tracks? Some rough but very interesting concept maps resulted. A bright young woman added a strategic connection: she noted that students had already included self-evaluation letters in their portfolios, and that concept mapping was simply a more concise way of assessing individual intellectual progress in any given area of study. An "Aha" moment followed as everyone retrieved those letters and began to simplify their thinking through concept mapping.

Applying Concept Maps in the Classroom

In their application of Concept Mapping for instruction and assessment, Dempsey and O'Sullivan describe maps as prime tools for discerning what students are actually learning, as well as for consolidating concepts and the relationships among them. The maps can be subject-specific; for example, O'Sullivan devised the following process for a course on Planetary Climate Change:

Valerie J. Janesick, in her book The Assessment Debate, considers an assessment tool to be authentic when it is realistic; when it requires judgment and innovation; when it asks the student to "do" the subject; when it replicates or simulates actual challenges in the workplace, civic life, and personal life; and when it allows many opportunities to practice, rehearse, consult, get feedback, and refine actual performance (p. 2).

In utilizing Peer Assessment, students upload their assignments and are then given at least two of their classmates' assignments to review against a set of criteria determined by the teacher. Each student's work is reviewed by at least two peers; once that is complete, the teacher receives the work for a final review — making it an extremely powerful learning tool.