Interactive Course Maps

Many students find starting new courses in Year 11 difficult and frustrating. They grapple with making sense of complex topics and lack the ability to make the connections needed to develop a deeper understanding. Broken down into basic components, however, making sense of complex topics and connecting interdependencies is not so difficult. Interactive Course Maps are being created to help students navigate their way through the course and break down the topics into more manageable parts; these maps are visual, interactive and information is chunked into digestible parts.

Visual mapping supports students who are visual learners and think in images. The Interactive Course Map integrates visual elements such as colour, curves and hand-drawn icons making it interesting and engaging. The icons are interactive and allow students to explore and visualise the course concepts, which in turn support the student's understanding and retention of the information.

Chunking is the process of taking smaller parts of information and grouping them into a larger whole. This process helps humans retain and retrieve information more effectively. When we remember phone numbers, we chunk them into smaller parts. For example, 0-4-3-0-5-5-5-4-4-3 is typically chunked into 0430-555-443. Using a map to chunk the concepts of the course, students are able to take smaller parts and combine them into a more meaningful and memorable whole.

The Interactive Course Map helps develop understanding. However, to be really effective the student must make their own connections between the interdependent concepts, and work at developing their own concept maps. These Interactive Course Maps can be downloaded as templates for students to develop their own unique versions and can be saved as a pdf for printing and annotation. Starting a new course is not easy, but by addressing the three key elements of visual representation, chunking and mapping, Interactive Course Maps can help every student develop a deeper understanding and better memory retention.

Mrs Adelle Wilkes
ILT Integration Specialist