Reflection (week 11) - Concept Mapping

Concept mapping is a technique that's used every day in various activities both instructional and business. They are used as technique to study and even as a learning tool, as it allows the instructor to go with their learners building concepts and explore in these prior knowledge, and allows students to organize, interrelate and set the studied knowledge. Concept maps (also called charts) are an effective way to graphically represent ideas or concepts that are related. This procedure will take advantage of the conceptual power of images, facilitating learning and memory of a subject. Certainly not about memorizing maps and plays them in detail, but to use them to organize the content of study.

By means of this technique can be developed multiple activities that allow the instruction to show a system of ideas and concepts and the relationship they have. For this particular exercise, we will present the organizational structure of the Department of International Admissions and Services in WMU.

This chart is a graphical representation of the organizational structure of the IAS. It is an abstract and systematic model, which allows a uniform notion about an organization, revealing the functions of the various offices that are there. It's good that the staff working in the office knows the internal hierarchy of the department, since daily it receives students, teachers and other staff members who go in search of information and that is why the front desk (principally) must know where they have to lead the person so that he can then be addressed. Thus through this graphical representation are disclosed the essential features of the organization represented.

Finally, when training the new staff that will be working at the IAS, can be used this concept map, since the functions of each area are shown and who are the main responsible for the same. So assistance may be provided and give a good service to the person that needs it, directing him to the right personnel, whether admissions or immigration. The technique of concept mapping is a powerful teaching tool to organize information, synthesize and present it. It can be used to expose and develop any subject in a logical and orderly manner.