Concept mapping is a process for representing information visually. This method facilitates handling complex information, can enhance your teaching and research and also ease your students’ learning.

You can use it to:

• plan your studies and career
• generate ideas (e.g., brain storming)
• design a complex structure (e.g., long texts, hypermedia, large web sites)
• communicate complex ideas (e.g., graphics for print media)
• aid learning by explicitly integrating new and old knowledge
• assess understanding and diagnose misunderstanding.

Your students can use concept mapping to:

• take lecture notes
• outline term papers and presentations
• structure term paper content

Concept maps enable us to visualize complex information, thereby facilitating understanding. “The primary function of the brain is to interpret incoming information to make meaning. It is easier for the brain to make meaning when information is presented in visual formats. This is why a picture is worth a thousand words.” (from http://classes.aces.uiuc.edu/ACES100/Mind/CMap.html, April, 2006).

You can download a free concept mapping tool at CmapTools: http://cmap.ihmc.us/. It’s easy to use. Be patient. The tool requires at least 15 minutes for downloading. Have fun and share it with your students. It’s especially great for visual learners.

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Is making good multiple choice tests a challenge? Do your tests represent the content you have emphasized and the cognitive level you’re expecting your students to achieve?

This resource can begin your journey toward understanding a systematic approach to developing your tests. Click here for the entire article, or use the links below to view specific sections.

I. Planning a Test
Read about creating a test matrix to make sure your exams cover the content you emphasize and cognitive levels at which you expect your students to perform.

II. Item Formats
Explore variations in item formats. Some may help assess students’ higher cognitive processes

III. Tips for Writing Questions
Improve your test items by reading the guidelines for writing test items. For example, keep in mind the following when writing the stem:
• The stem must be clear and unambiguous, and learner should be able to arrive at an answer without having to read the options.
• Avoid imprecise phrases such as is associated with, is useful for; is important, and words that provide cueing like may or could be and vague terms like usually or frequently.

IV. Ideas for Item Generation
Explore strategies for writing quality test items.

If you are interested in a workshop on how to write good test questions, explore the following opportunities:

• UNC at Chapel Hill School of Nursing is offering a one-day Continuing Education Workshop on "Test Construction for Critical Thinking in Nursing Education" on May 12th. Contact CE to register ($109).
• Assessment Technologies Institute, LLC, the company we contract with to provide our students with online practice assessments, provides a Faculty Enhancement Program designed to provide strategies for nursing faculty to enhance their test construction and item-writing skills. Topics presented in this service include: test selection, how students learn, test diagnostics (reliability and validity), components of test items, item creation, and item analysis.
  
  Look for a future workshop announcement at the SON.
• An online self-paced CE course for nursing faculty: Assessment Strategies for Nursing Educators: Test Development and Item Writing offered by NCSBN Learning Extension ($175).

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Kaiser Foundation provides a tutorial site about delivering effective graphics: pie charts, bar graphs, time series, maps and more. This tutorial is based on guidelines established by the Foundation, and the focus is providing content clarity. The narrator’s presentation coupled with visuals is a good mini training session. Turn on your speakers before clicking the link because narration begins immediately.
http://www.kaiseredu.org/tutorials/effective_graphics/
alantutorial_updatedbuttons.html

If you decide the tutorial is useful for your purposes, you can go to the site below to download the slides.
http://www.kaiseredu.org/tutorials_index.asp#EffectiveGraphics

For Kaiser Foundation tutorials on other topics go to:
http://www.kaiseredu.org/tutorials_index.asp

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Scenario: You have entered columns, thus rows, of numbers or words using tabs to create a table in Word. Now you want to select a segment but not the text surrounding that segment. How do you do this?

• Place your cursor at any corner of the section you want to copy.
• Depress Alt key and hold it down.
• Click left mouse button and keep it depressed while dragging mouse over the area until you reach opposite corner of content you want to copy.
• Release mouse button and Alt key.

Word has selected only the text that you want.

• Copy (Ctrl+C) or Cut (CTRL+X) the selected text.
• Place your cursor where you want to enter the content and paste (Ctrl+V) content into that application.

This method lets you copy, cut and paste with speed. If columns do not contain the same number of digits, use space bar to align digits after you paste it.

Adding, deleting and rearranging content in tabbed columns in Word can pose problems on several levels, especially when you import your tabbed table into other programs. For best results, use Create a Table option in Word. At the site, click Show All in upper right corner of the text box for complete information.

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