Professional Development
Concept maps are more than summaries of content. In KnowAtom classrooms, they function as shared thinking spaces where students actively decide how ideas connect, which ideas matter most, and how their understanding changes over time. When used intentionally, concept maps shift ownership of meaning-making from the teacher to students and amplify student voice across lessons, units, and even grade bands.
Why concept maps support agency, not just organization
Concept maps align closely with what learning science tells us about understanding. Research on visible thinking and teaching for understanding emphasizes that learners develop agency when they are asked to actively construct relationships among ideas rather than receive those relationships pre-assembled (Ritchhart, 2015).
In KnowAtom lessons, concept maps are not decorative posters or end-of-unit products. They are tools students return to as they encounter phenomena, test ideas, and revise explanations. Each addition or revision reflects a student decision: what concept belongs here, how it connects, and why.
When students are responsible for these decisions, voice naturally increases. Students are not just answering questions; they are shaping the knowledge structure of the class.
Using concept maps to empower connections between concepts
Agency grows when students recognize that ideas do not exist in isolation. Concept maps make these relationships explicit and negotiable.
Kindergarten
In Weather in Our World, kindergarten students begin with a blank visual concept map that includes familiar words such as sun, wind, rain, and temperature. After investigating sun and shade on the playground, students suggest adding arrows between sun and temperature, explaining in their own words how sunlight affects warmth. The teacher records student language directly, preserving student voice rather than translating it into adult phrasing.
Grades 1–2
In Land and Water, students map landforms, water sources, and movement. After modeling how water flows downhill, students revisit their concept map to connect gravity to water movement. Some students propose linking solid, liquid, and gas to temperature, drawing on earlier observations. These connections emerge from student reasoning, not teacher prompts.
Grades 3–5
In Energy Transfers, fourth-grade students connect force, motion, and energy using evidence from lever and catapult investigations. Students debate whether energy should connect directly to motion or through force, using data from their models to justify their choices. The map becomes a site of productive disagreement and sensemaking.
Grades 6–8
In Atoms and Molecules, sixth-grade students refine their concept map as they move from atomic structure to chemical reactions. Students decide where energy transfer belongs and revise earlier connections when new evidence complicates their initial models. These revisions signal agency: students see changing one’s mind as expected scientific work.
Empowering connections between lessons
Concept maps support agency when they persist across lessons rather than resetting each day.
In KnowAtom’s phenomena-based structure, each lesson adds complexity to the central problem or question. Concept maps serve as the throughline that students carry forward.
For example, in Sound Waves, fourth-grade students begin with waves and energy. In later lessons, they add amplitude, frequency, pitch, and volume, revisiting earlier connections to energy transfer. Students decide which terms belong as central ideas and which function as properties, reinforcing their role as organizers of understanding.
In Animal Behaviors, first-grade students connect structures, behaviors, and survival needs across lessons. When they later engineer dams inspired by beavers, students refer back to their map to justify design decisions, using their own recorded ideas as evidence.
Empowering connections between units
Agency deepens when students recognize that knowledge travels beyond a single unit.
Grades 3–5
In Life on Earth, students connect food webs and energy flow. Later, in Ecosystem Interactions, students reuse these ideas to explain how environmental change affects populations. Teachers invite students to bring forward concepts from the earlier map, reinforcing that learning accumulates and belongs to students.
Grades 6–8
In Changing Environments, students extend prior concept maps from Forests and Climate and Human Activity. Students independently reference earlier connections between photosynthesis, energy flow, and resource availability when designing shoreline barriers or analyzing invasive species. This transfer signals ownership of ideas, not dependence on teacher reminders.
Adding to the concept map over time
The most powerful agency move is allowing students to decide when and how a concept map should change.
Rather than updating maps only at predetermined moments, KnowAtom teachers watch for natural points of conceptual tension: unexpected data, disagreement during discourse, or conflicting explanations. These moments invite students to revise the map.
Across grade levels, teachers support this by asking questions such as:
• What needs to be added or changed based on what we observed?
• Does this connection still make sense given our new evidence?
• Where should this idea live on our map?
These questions position the concept map as a living model, not a finished product. Students learn that understanding evolves and that they are responsible for keeping the model accurate.
What to avoid when using concept maps
Concept maps can unintentionally undermine agency if they are treated as teacher-owned artifacts.
Common missteps include:
• Pre-filling most connections before students investigate
• Requiring students to copy a completed map
• Treating the map as a vocabulary checklist rather than a reasoning tool
These approaches shift attention away from thinking and toward compliance. In contrast, high-quality KnowAtom implementation keeps maps intentionally unfinished, open to revision, and grounded in student evidence.
Concept maps as a signal of trust
At their core, concept maps communicate trust. They signal that students are capable of organizing complex ideas, revising explanations, and carrying knowledge forward.
This aligns with the broader arc of this series, including How do I release responsibility to students without losing control? and What does scientific discourse have to do with student agency?. In each case, agency grows when teachers design structures that require student thinking and then step back enough for that thinking to matter.
Concept maps are one of those structures.
References
- Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools. Jossey-Bass.
- Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Visible Thinking and Teaching for Understanding frameworks.