Chapter Ten Reflections

1. How do you know that students understand a concept?
As a teacher, you can use graphic organizers to allow students to present their understanding before creating a project or paper.  This will assist the teacher in determining if the students are masters of the concept or if they need a little more practice before they are given anything that you will grade.

2. How can you depict student misconceptions of key information?
If your class is working with graphic organizers, you can easily find misconceptions and misunderstandings by looking closely at the work that they have already done, and even see where the misconception lies. For example, if the student does not understand a concept that they are making a flow chart for, you can see which step they missed and redirect them.

3. How can students capture and transfer brainstorming ideas into written thought?
While brainstorming, it can be easy for a student to get jumbled and forget where their thoughts were supposed to be headed.  If you introduce a good graphic organizer for the topic they are studying, it will be easier for them to jot down their ideas in an organized way, making it easier for them to simply look at their brainstorming page and begin writing.  I like a main topic chart for writing papers because it allows the student to write in their main topic and supporting ideas, keeping the paper organized and to the point.