Drawing Out Learning With Thinking Maps®: A Guide for Teaching and Assessment in Pre-K-2

by Shelly L. Counsell, David Hyerle, Yvette Jackson (Foreword by)

Overview

What and how young children are thinking are typically expressed and shared at home and school through verbal and written modes of communication. As a visual language framework conceived and developed by David Hyerle, Thinking Maps® offers an additional way for learners to represent their ideas by visually mapping their fundamental patterns of thinking. The authors offer a wide range of materials, strategies, and evidence-based practices for implementing Thinking Maps (and the metacognitive framing strategy that each map promotes) in ways that are developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, and more inclusive with the full range of pre-K to 2nd-grade children. Since 1990, Thinking Maps have been implemented by teachers in over 15,000 schools across the United States and around the world, including countrywide implementation in Malaysia. This guide provides a whole-child approach with practical ideas and best applications for working with emergent readers and writers across developmental domains, curricula, and executive function.

Book Features:

• Promotes systematic support of every students’ cognitive development in whole schools (pre-K–2).
• Demonstrates how to use visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic activities and materials to increase student engagement.
• Recommends Universally Designed Learning strategies to ensure full access and inclusion with diverse learners and children with disabilities.
• Includes graphically designed examples of Thinking Maps across content areas.
• Provides examples of student work, lesson planning ideas, and curriculum design based on cognitive education.
•  Links language and thinking in everyday classroom learning for individual and cooperative learning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807767771
Publisher:	Teachers College Press
Publication date:	06/23/2023
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	8.75(w) x 11.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Shelly L. Counsell is a retired associate professor of early childhood education, an early childhood consultant, and an Early Years Columnist with NSTA’s Science & Children. David Hyerle is a bestselling author, developer of the Thinking Maps® model, and president of Thinking Schools International.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Figures  vii

List of Tables  xi

Foreword Yvette Jackson  xiii

Acknowledgments  xv

Introduction: Can I Use Thinking Maps With Young Children? Yes, You Can!  1

Thinking Maps: Integrating Three Types of Visual Tools  2

Why Early Childhood?  3

Thinking Maps as a Learning, Teaching, and Assessment Framework  4

1.  Bringing Thinking Maps to Life  9

Learning Trajectories and Developmental Progressions  9

The Five Critical Attributes of Thinking Maps  12

TMaps Tap Into Prior Knowledge and Experience  14

Thinking Maps Exemplifies Universally Designed Learning (UDL)  15

Conclusion  21

2.  Thinking Maps Across Developmental Domains  22

Developmentally Appropriate Practice  22

Domain 1—Cognitive Development  24

Domain 2—Socioemotional Development  28

Domain 3—Physical and Healthy  29

Domain 4—General Learning Competencies  29

Conclusion  30

3.  Thinking Maps Across Academic Content Areas  31

Thinking Maps Inspire Talking, Reading, and Writing  32

Thinking Maps Support Logical-Mathematical Reasoning  42

Thinking Maps Promote Scientific Thinking, Reasoning, and Inquiry  44

Engineering Design and Technology With Thinking Maps  54

Social Studies Instruction and Thinking Maps  55

Related Early Childhood Approaches and Curricula  57

Conclusion  59

4.  Thinking Maps Promote Democratic Learning Communities With Full Community Membership  60

Thinking Maps Promote Responsive, Democratic Learning  60

Conclusion  71

5.  Thinking Maps Provide Authentic Formative Assessment and Documentation  72

A Brief Historical Perspective of Standardized Testing  72

Classroom Assessments  74

Conclusion  80

6.  The Science Underlying Thinking Maps With Young Children  81

Research and Theoretical Foundation for Thinking Maps  81

Executive Function  81

Self-Regulation  84

Habits of Mind  85

Alignment With Standards  87

Conclusion  89

Appendix: Glossary  91

References  93

Index  105

About the Authors  111

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“As pedagogical gifts, Thinking Maps enable us to be the teachers needed to confidently guide and optimize the innate potential of our young Generation Alpha learners for high levels of learning and contribution, not only to survive, but to thrive, flourish, contribute, and where needed, revolutionize for globally interconnected and interdependent radical change in the 21st century.”
—From the Foreword by Yvette Jackson, Teachers College, Columbia University

“Patterns: searching for them is how we all come to know our world. Counsell and Hyerle adroitly translate this human quest into an accessible visual language important across disciplines. This book carefully synthesizes for teachers ways to help students express and deepen how they think. By illustrating lessons that honor students’ social identities, experiences, interests, and languages, the authors skillfully guide teachers in ratcheting up the cognitive richness of their classrooms. These are the classrooms our students need.”
—Jacqueline Grennon Brooks, professor emerita, Hofstra University

“Counsell and Hyerle offer a compelling and accessible guide to structured, yet flexible, methods of visually concretizing complex conceptual relations for young students with widely varying experiences and abilities. Thinking Maps® offers a uniquely powerful tool for promoting deep understanding and achievement across domains of learning.”
—Amy Booth, professor, Vanderbilt University

“Through strategies, activities, and materials for implementing Thinking Maps, the authors invite readers to empower children (ages 3–8) to visualize their ideas. This book reminds us that all children, with guidance, are capable of higher-order critical thinking and metacognition as they make sense of the complex processes of the world.”
—Anne Karabon, Wendell and Marlys Thompson Director of the School of Education, Counseling, and Human Development, South Dakota State University