{"id":406,"date":"2012-02-24T03:38:52","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T03:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.thinkingschoolsethiopia.com\/?p=406"},"modified":"2012-02-24T04:06:16","modified_gmt":"2012-02-24T04:06:16","slug":"visual-mapping-for-organizing-understanding-and-sharing-our-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.thinkingschoolsethiopia.com\/?p=406","title":{"rendered":"Visual Mapping for Organizing, Understanding and Sharing Our Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>23 February 2012
\nVisual Mapping
\npost by Robert Price<\/p>\n

Visual Mapping – Visual Tools…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Visual Mapping is one of\u00a0Thinking Schools Ethiopia’s Six Starting Points of Thinking<\/a>\u00a0which includes reflective questioning; thinking skills; visual mapping; collaborative networking; developing dispositions; and structuring environment. This blog posting will explore Visual Mapping. Schools that participate with Growing Thinking Schools<\/em> professional development training can participate in sessions on Visual Mapping and Thinking Maps\u00ae as part of their whole school transformative design. Read more on Thinking Schools Ethiopia<\/a> and Thinking Schools Trainings<\/a> on this website.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Visual mapping transforms the way we SEE<\/em> thinking \u2014 SEEING<\/em> the patterns of our thinking and with other people’s thinking. They are a tool to organize our thinking supporting deeper thinking and understanding. Visual mapping improves comprehension, writing and presentations. Think of how a road map is used: to ‘map’ out a journey and understand where a place is in context to other locations. Visual mapping for organizing and seeing thinking provides a ‘road map’ for the mind. Thinking Schools Ethiopia uses Thinking Maps\u00ae in trainings – eight maps representing eight different ways the brain cognitively thinks and understands things.<\/p>\n

An excerpt from the book\u00a0Visual Tools for\u00a0Transforming Information\u00a0Into Knowledge<\/em>\u00a0by David Hyerle (2011, Second Edition, Corwin Press) will provide an introduction with visual tools. Thinking Schools Ethiopia is in the process of translating the highly respected book into Amharic courtesy of the author and publisher. The excerpt\u00a0Summary Definition\u00a0of Visual Tools<\/em> from the book follows below:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>“Visual tools are nonlinguistic symbol systems used by learners, teachers, and\u00a0leaders for graphically linking mental and emotional associations to create\u00a0and communicate rich patterns of thinking. These visual-spatial-verbal displays\u00a0of understanding support all learners in transforming static information into\u00a0active knowledge, thus offering a complementary representational system to more traditional\u00a0literacies grounded in speaking, writing, and numerating. These linear\u00a0and\/or nonlinear visual forms are also metacognitive tools for self-assessment in\u00a0each content area and for interdisciplinary learning that may unite linguistic, numerical,\u00a0and scientific languages together on the same page.\u00a0There are three\u00a0basic categories of visual tools, each with specific purposes and visual configurations:<\/p>\n