How are two or more concepts or words connected? Concept maps make the web of connections between words and ideas come into focus by visually representing their relationship with one another. Better yet, they are easy to use across disciplines as a way to organizing students’ growing knowledge.
What’s a fun way to engage students of all ages in critically thinking about vocabulary and new concepts? Concept sorts ask students to think about what they know as they compare and contrast it to new information. They are a fun and interactive way to introduce and review vocabulary and concepts across disciplines.
The Frayer Model is a simple approach to building students’ vocabulary and conceptual knowledge. It can be used across content areas/disciplines, builds students’ critical thinking skills, and can expand their word knowledge.
List-Group-Label is an interactive strategy that engages students in developing their vocabulary and connections between words and ideas. It helps students learn to better categorize and organize information by activating their critical thinking skills while working together as a group.
The Semantic Feature Analysis strategy engages students in reading assignments by asking them to relate selected vocabulary to key features of the text. This technique uses a matrix to help students discover how one set of things is related to one another.
