Graphic organizer is a visual display that demonstrates relationships between facts, concepts or ideas. There are many types of graphic organizers like webs, concept maps, mind maps and plots such as stack plots and Venn diagram. They proved to be effective study notes for visual learning to enhance thinking skills and improve student’s performance whether it is school written assignment, test or their homework.
Why are they so Effective?
Graphic organizers can be used as visual study guides for organizing information. They benefit students in many ways by making it easy to classify ideas, allowing them to examine relationships, guiding them in demonstrating their thinking process, encouraging to organize essential concepts and ideas or helping them break apart a story into the main elements, for example into an introduction, rising action, climax and so on.
First, students are are going to understand and remember what they need to learn easier, as the information is presented more in more precise and obvious way. Graphics help students separate what is important to know from what might just be interesting for them. Second, students are more likely to become strategic learners. Reading and writing skills, communication skills, and analytical, critical, and creative thinking are built by using graphic organizers.
Another advantage of using graphic organizers is that they help students focus their energy on studying the essential information. This is the case when, for example, reading a piece of writing, students do not know how to prioritize and distinguish from what is important and what is not. Showing them visually will create a better picture of what they have read, and help them understand the whole story.
Finally, sometimes it is difficult for some students to connect the information given in the text. Whether they read history textbook or a novel, graphic organizers serve as effective devices for helping students focus on the relationships between main ideas and details, main ideas and other main ideas, and so on and so forth.
Having this in mind, it is obvious that the focus of study is how it is all connected and how it fits together, rather than just memorizing isolated, decontextualized bits of information.
Types of Graphic Organizers
As previously mentioned, there are several types of graphic organizers, but the two most commonly used are mind maps and Venn’s diagram.
Mind Maps
Mind Maps are considered a subtype of spider diagram and they are visual representations of information that include a central idea or image surrounded by connected branches of related topics or ideas. They are probably the most popular type of graphic diagram, and most widely used. Not only are they a good teaching device, but students use them as a fast way of taking notes in the class.
Venn Diagram
This type of diagram shows all possible logical relations between objects. It is most commonly represented with two or more circles, each representing a group of entities. They are used to visually compare and contrast information. It was primarily used in mathematics, but now people apply it in all other fields of science.
Authors bio: Dan Radak is a VPS security and Hosting generaly specialist. Currently he is employed as a consultant in a couple of e-commerce companies. Lately he has been interested in studying related themes. You can follow him on Twitter.
