Using Concept Mapping to Foster Adaptive Expertise: Enhancing Teacher Metacognitive Learning to Improve Student Academic Performance

Concept mapping is a powerful means to promote metacognitive learning in students and teachers alike. When teachers integrate concept mapping into their instructional planning, they clarify the big ideas, expose new conceptual relationships, and refine learning goals for their students. Salmon and Kelly provide a research-based framework and corresponding strategies to help teachers develop, critique, and revise their concept maps. In using this approach, teachers refine knowledge for teaching in order to expand their adaptive expertise and ultimately improve the academic performances of their students. Teacher candidates at both the undergraduate and graduate level can use this book to support their professional learning and planning for teaching. Teacher educators will find this text appropriate for courses that address learning, cognition, and instructional planning. In-service professionals can use the approach described here to support their own professional development through their practice. Administrators and coaches will find the volume a useful tool in fostering a professional learning community in their schools.

Diane Salmon received her doctorate in educational psychology (with concentrations in school psychology and human development) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989. She is a tenured faculty member at National-Louis University in the School and Educational Psychology Department and Research Director for the College of Education. Salmon is the author of several articles and a text for professional educators, Facilitating Interpersonal Relationships in the Classroom: The Relational Literacy Curriculum.
Melissa Kelly is a PhD candidate in educational psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she is also a visiting clinical lecturer. Kelly has co-written several articles and book chapters related to online teaching and learning.