Today: Dregs of the day

Just like yesterday, today my research work was relegated to the dregs, the weary end, of my already overloaded workday.

Me staring at/reading concept mapping articles on my computer tonight

I did manage to review some previous readings on concept mapping. I did this because my initial plan involves creating a concept map to help me visualize the elements of my study. It's been a pretty long time since I read about and practiced concept mapping, so I need to figure out how (and even why again) to approach my concept mapping process.

Along with a paper I wrote on concept mapping in a research course at the beginning of my Ph.D. program, I gleaned this gem of a succinct rationale and basis for approaching my concept map:

Based on the features provided by CmapTools, the student can use the concept map prepared as a pre-test as an initial step towards learning the pieces of knowledge that he/she needs to better understand, as the basis on which to perform the research that leads to this understanding, as a way to organize the various sources from which the student will construct this understanding, as the artifact with which to collaborate with peers, and as the means to present his/her findings at the end of the unit. Furthermore, the concept maps constructed by the student can become the foundation for a portfolio evaluation (see Vitale & Romance, 2000) of his/her performance. (Novak & Cañas, 2008, p. 17)

It's that "initial step" towards what knowledge I need to learn and understand that I want my concept map to be.

Next, I'll re-read that paper and the references to get myself oriented before beginning my concept map.

And about giving this effort better than the dregs of my day, tomorrow I plan to do this during earlier, fresher hours. Schedule, rearrange.

Reference

Novak, J. D., & Cañas, A. J. (2008). The theory underlying concept maps and how to
construct and use them (Technical report) (Rev. ed.). Florida Institute for Human &
Machine Cognition. Retrieved from
http://cmap.ihmc.us/docs/pdf/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.pdf