CONCEPT MAPS: LEARNING STRATEGY FOR THE STUDENT AND TEACHING STRATEGY FOR THE LECTURER

As a result of the adaptation of the Spanish University to the European Space for Higher Education, changes in teaching-learning methodologies are required. In this context, concept maps can be used. A concept map is a diagram that collects a group of concepts. These concepts are significantly related by means of linking words with the aim of building meaningful sentences denominated propositions. Concept maps can be useful for both students and lecturers. Regarding to the students, concept maps get better the active and meaningful learning, since students act as an active agent finding relationships between new and previous concepts in an organized structure (diagram). Concept maps allow students to: detect important concepts easily and their relationships, organize the school materials, remind previous knowledge, organize learning into a hierarchy, improve the widening of the knowledge from the previous one, apply this tool to other learning contents (as a model), and explore previous knowledge concerning to a new subject and incorporate new information. On the other hand, concept maps can improve teaching quality, since they let lecturers to: organize the knowledge, check student learning, transmit complex ideas, evaluate the understanding, identify the lack of understanding, explore concept mistakes, and measure concept understanding (evaluating tool). The aim of this work is to show different examples of the use of the concept maps as learning strategy for the students, comparing the results obtained individually and in teamworks, and also different examples of the use of the concept maps as teaching strategy for the lecturers. This experience has been realized in different qualifications of the Polytechnic University of Valencia.