Teacherworld.com's Graphic Organizers Home Page
 

What is a graphic organizer?
Graphic organizers have many names such as concept maps, diagrams, visual maps, mind mapping, and visual organizers.  A graphic organizer is an instructional tool used to visually construct knowledge and organize information generally for reading, writing, and speaking.  They are created through the use pictures and/or diagrams.  The purpose of using a graphic organizer is to aid in comprehension and promote understanding.

What is are educational advantages of using a graphic organizer?
These tools help students construct meaning.  Graphic organizers force them to focus on relationships between items and draw connections based on the meaning of the concept at hand.  It is easy to add to, edit, revise, and change a concept map.  Creating graphic organizers can also assist the student in creating more ideas while evaluating and representing their thoughts visually.  This form of constructing information is also beneficial to students who learn visually.  see http://inspiration.com/vlearning/research/index.cfm

When are graphic organizers used?
Graphic organizers can be used in any step of learning, ranging from brainstorming to presenting and reporting findings.  There are many situations in which graphic organizers can be used.  Students can use them individually or as a group.   Some examples include: investigating students' prior knowledge, brainstorming activities, writing stories, sorting information, problem solving, cause and effect situations, comparing and contrasting, making decisions, and organizing patterns. see http://inspiration.com/vlearning/index.cfm?fuseaction=techniques and http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/  

You can create many graphic organizers online.  see http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/graphic_org/

What subject can these tools be used?
Graphic organizers can be used in any field of study.

How does one know which graphic organizer to use?
Selecting the appropriate graphic organizer depends on the task.  For example, if an instructor wants to find out what their students know before teaching a lesson, a KWL chart would be a good graphic organizer in this scenario.
 

Addition Links:
Kidspiration^® and Inspiration^® - Links to resources and trial downloads
Online Tools for Teachers - Sites that help teachers create classroom materials
Resources for Graphic Organizers - Graphic organizer resources for different content areas and grade levels
Visual Literacy - Information about what visual literacy is and how to foster it in the classroom