A Road Map to Memorization

This book, Strategies for Great Teaching: Maximize Learning Moments by Mark Reardon and Seth Derner, has some really good lesson ideas. I picked it up at my library and I think it’s definitely one I will spend the money on to have as a reference in my own collection. I am only about halfway through, but I already have fallen in love with a lot of the ideas presented
One of the chapters was about using maps. You deliver the instruction and then use the idea of map making as an engaging activity to solidify the information learned in the lesson. During the instruction, students are asked to take notes (the book also really focuses a lot of attention on teaching effective note taking techniques). Then, when introducing the activity, you show and discuss some examples of different kinds of maps and how they might be used in the context of the lesson. They also suggest that you have a self prepared one to show as an example. Then students can work alone or in groups to create a map which organizes and expresses the concepts learned in the lesson in a memorable format that also creates a visual organizer for the material. It could be a road map, a treasure map, a world map, an agricultural map, ect. The possibilities are only limited by the imagination. I immediately thought of game boards when I read this and I remembered in high school a project where we had to create a board game which was similar. I also thought of Candy Land, Life and a game I used to play when I was a kid called The Unknown Game. All of the boards for these games were a kind of map. They had specific destinations and paths to follow. There were some shortcuts and/or bridges connecting destinations. I thought that one way I could personalize this idea of making a map would be to create a foundational map, much like the game boards mentioned, which have standard routes, bridges connecting locations and shortcuts, and have the kids fill in the information from their notes using that foundational map. I thought that this might help teach them how to organize their own notes, how to make connections between material to find ways that ideas can be “bridged” together and how to recognize when shortcuts are appropriate. I also like the original concept of having them come up with their own map, plus the maps could then be used for a bulletin board display. I definitely will start to look at maps in a different way and hopefully begin to brain storm some different ways they can be used in lessons.
I obviously don’t have to plan lessons yet, but I do think about it a lot. Partly because I know that sometimes lessons need to be planned “on the fly” and because I know that planning an effective and engaging lesson might come second nature to a lot of experienced teachers, but when I am student teaching, and a new teacher, and when I am being observed the first few times, I am going to be thankful that I did a lot of research when I had the opportunity to and I might even appreciate the innocent and creative perspective I offered myself back when I didn’t worry about things like standards and just had ideas for the sake of thinking they sounded cool. Then, once I do learn the required curriculum and standards, I will have some idea on where I can apply all these fun activities!