Graphic Organizers: Enhancing Thinking Skills in Economics, Slides of Statistics

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Content

• Chapter 1: Introduction Pages
• Chapter 2: What are Graphic Organizers?
• Chapter 3: Types of Graphic Organizers
• Chapter 4: Specific Benefits to Students and Teachers
• Chapter 5: How to Use the Graphic Organizers?
• Chapter 6: Thinking Skills and Graphic Organizers
• Chapter 7: Graphic Organizers: Description, Procedures and Exemplars
  • Big Question Map
  • Characteristics Map
  • Circle Organizer
  • Compare Map
  • Concept Definition Map
  • Data Grid..........................................................................................................................................................
  • Discussion Map
  • Divergent and Convergent Thinking Web
  • Hierarchy Diagram
  • K-W-H-L Chart
  • Main Concepts Map
  • Math Factors Organizer
  • Multiple Meaning Map
  • Multiple Timeline
  • One and All Organizer
  • Overlapping Circles Map
  • Persuasion Map
  • Pie Chart
  • Problem-Solving Organizer
  • V Map
  • Venn Diagram................................................................................................................................................
• Chapter 8: Web Sites for Graphic Organizers
• Chapter 9: References...................................................................................................................
• Chapter 10: How to Use the CD-ROM

The Use of Graphic Organizers to Enhance Thinking Skills in the Learning of Economics

Introduction

L

earning how to think is not as complicated as some people have believed. Once learned, thinking skills can be readily applied to lessons in all curriculum areas and further to enhance students’ life-long learning. While our knowledge about subjects can change, fade, or become obsolete, our ability to think effectively remains constant. Effective thinking strategies allow students to acquire the necessary knowledge and apply it appropriately.

Graphic organizers, as illustrated by Drapeau (1998), can be used to enhance students’ thinking skills by encouraging brainstorming, generating new ideas, connecting parts to the whole, drawing sequence, analyzing causes and effects...etc. These are exactly important traits of economics students to make sense out of economic phenomena and to make effective decisions about economic issues (CDC, 1989).

Prawat (1991) reminds us that thinking skills are most effectively taught within a subject matter context. This allows students to use the skills in a meaningful context and to achieve deeper learning of the subject matter.

The graphic organizers introduced in this book include description of the thinking strategies, step-by-step suggestions on how to introduce it to students, and exemplars within each content area. In many cases, the ideas will apply directly to the text teachers wish to use. At other times, teachers will need to modify the ideas to meet their needs. While we have provided a number of ideas and strategies, we hope that this book will be a useful guide and resource to stimulate teachers’ own ideas and variations, and will encourage and support the use of graphic organizers to enhance students' thinking skills in the learning of Economics.

Chapter 1 • 1

The Use of Graphic Organizers to Enhance Thinking Skills in the Learning of Economics

Tools for depicting knowledge and understanding

Graphic organizers provide an optional way of depicting knowledge and understanding (Sorenson, 1991), so it is particularly beneficial for students who have difficulty with expressing relationship among parts of economic concepts in written word.

Tools for self-learning

Students who use graphic organizers in the classroom develop their ability to use them independently as study tools for note taking, planning, presentation, and review (Dunston, 1992). In other words, graphic organizers are beneficial to students’ learning inside and beyond classrooms.

4 • What are Graphic Organizers?

The Use of Graphic Organizers to Enhance Thinking Skills in the Learning of Economics

Types of Graphic Organizers

A

lthough there are many variations and possible combinations of graphic organizers used in the classrooms, most of them fall into four basic categories, namely cyclical organizers, conceptual organizers, sequential organizers and hierarchical organizers.

Chapter 3 • 5

Cyclical Organizers

Sequential Organizers

Definition Organizers showing how a main concept is supported by facts, evidence and characteristics

Definition Organizers showing the relation between a concept and its subordinate levels of characteristics

Example Concept Definition Map

Example Hierarchy Diagram

Definition Organizers showing the sequence of events in a process

Example Circle organizer

Definition Organizers showing events in chronological order

Example Multiple Timeline

Hierarchical Organizers

Conceptual Organizers

Graphic Organizers

The Use of Graphic Organizers to Enhance Thinking Skills in the Learning of Economics

Specific Benefits to

Students and Teachers

G

raphic organizers enable teachers to show and explain relationships between content and subcontent and how they in turn relate to other content areas. On the other hand, through the use of the organizers, students can make more abstract comparisons, evaluations, and conclusions. In short, graphic organizers allow students an active role in their learning. For easy understanding, specific benefits to students and teachers are presented in the following organizer.

Chapter 4 • 7

Benefits

to

Teachers

Benefits

to

Students

Assess what students know

Recognize and assimilate different points of view

Assist students in prewriting techniques

Motivate students

Help visual learners to acquire information more easily

Make your lessons interactive

Show and explain relationships between and among content

Record relationships

Clarify and organize ideas

Improve memory

Comprehend texts

The Use of Graphic Organizers

Understand the concept of part to whole

The Use of Graphic Organizers to Enhance Thinking Skills in the Learning of Economics

Thinking Skills and

Graphic Organizers

A

mong the brain’s many functions is the ability to think (Parry and Gregory, 1998), but many students do not have the skills necessary for the more “higher-order” creative and critical thinking needed to thrive both within and beyond the economics lessons.

Generally speaking, there are five different ways in which thinking skills can be used to enhance classroom instruction in economics lessons. First, thinking skills can be used to enhance students’ learning by generating ideas and activating relevant diagrams of economic concepts. This makes it more likely that they can connect new knowledge to their prior knowledge. Second, thinking skills help students organize ideas and components of economic concepts by searching for meaningful patterns, organizing information, and putting things in groups or categories in order to understand. Third, thinking skills help students understand the parts of an economic idea to the whole by seeing the structure of a concept or an event. Fourth, by focusing on similarities and differences, thinking skills can be used to help students establish relationships between two or more ideas, concepts and events. Finally, knowing how to use thinking skills in teaching economics will provide teachers with a vast repertoire of activities to use with any unit or lesson. (Johnson, 2000)

Graphic organizers have a number of attributes that enhance students’ thinking skills. They allow students to make connections among pieces of information and make information easier to recall. Furthermore, they also allow students to break information into manageable chunks, so that they can easily see the relationships among the separate ideas.

Chapter 6 • 11

The Use of Graphic Organizers to Enhance Thinking Skills in the Learning of Economics

Graphic Organizers:

Description, Procedures and

Exemplars

Chapter 7 • 13

I

n this chapter, we’ve included a variety of graphic organizers that can be used in many areas of economics learning. They are accompanied by brief descriptions, step-by-step procedures and exemplars. However, teachers are reminded to modify the ideas to meet their own needs. The modification should depend on students’ developmental level and their experience with graphic organizers. Certainly, the modification itself is a valuable opportunity for critical thinking.

14 • Graphic Organizers: Description, Procedures and Exemplars

The Use of Graphic Organizers to Enhance Thinking Skills in the Learning of Economics

Big Question Map

Description

This organizer can be used to help students improve their research and problem-solving skills. Students are trained to plan their research and investigation of a topic and thus promote their ability to learn and think independently.

Procedures

1. Identify an authentic question for which there is no easy, pre- existing answer or solution.
2. Brainstorm the procedures and resources required for answering the questions.
3. Record the information in the organizer.
4. Add, delete or change the boxes in the organizer whereas appropriate.

16 • Graphic Organizers: Description, Procedures and Exemplars ExemplarExemplar

The Use of Graphic Organizers to Enhance Thinking Skills in the Learning of Economics

Big Question Map

Topic

Occupational Mobility of Labour

Concepts

1. Referring to a recent research, employees in Hong Kong in general lack loyalty to their employees.
2. Most of the employees are preparing to change their jobs whenever they can find better ones.
3. Most of the companies in Hong Kong are small in size, so that the employers lack experience and funding to provide fringe benefits to the employees.
4. High occupational mobility of labour will bring along high training cost with new employees.

ExemplarExemplar Chapter 7 •^17

The Use of Graphic Organizers to Enhance Thinking Skills in the Learning of Economics

What is the question?

What are the factors leading to high occupational mobility of labour and how it can be minimized?

Who will suffer?

1. The employers will suffer as the experienced employees leave whenever they find better jobs.
2. The employees will suffer as the employers are not willing to spend money in training their employees.

When did the problem

start?

The problem has been existing for a long time. It becomes more serious when employees strongly feel that they are unfairly treated by their employers.

How comes the

problem?

1. Employers are inexperienced in improving employer- employee relationship.
2. Employees feel that they are underpaid and poorly treated.
3. The searching cost is relatively low as the access of information of new jobs is easy.

How can we solve the problem?

1. Conduct research and interviews to identify the causes of high mobility of labour.
2. Conduct research and interviews to identify what employers are willing to do to improve labour loyalty to their companies.
3. Encourage communication between employers and employees to solve the problem of high mobility.

Where can we seek

help to solve the

problem?

1. The Labour Department
2. The Labour Union
3. The Trade Union
4. Research experts

What is the question?

What are the factors leading to high occupational mobility of labour and how it can be minimized?

Who will suffer?

1. The employers will suffer as the experienced employees leave whenever they find better jobs.
2. The employees will suffer as the employers are not willing to spend money in training their employees.

When did the problem

start?

The problem has been existing for a long time. It becomes more serious when employees strongly feel that they are unfairly treated by their employers.

How comes the

problem?

1. Employers are inexperienced in improving employer- employee relationship.
2. Employees feel that they are underpaid and poorly treated.
3. The searching cost is relatively low as the access of information of new jobs is easy.

How can we solve the problem?

1. Conduct research and interviews to identify the causes of high mobility of labour.
2. Conduct research and interviews to identify what employers are willing to do to improve labour loyalty to their companies.
3. Encourage communication between employers and employees to solve the problem of high mobility.

Where can we seek

help to solve the

problem?

1. The Labour Department
2. The Labour Union
3. The Trade Union
4. Research experts

Topic :

Occupational Mobility

of Labour