Using Novakian Concept Maps to Foster Peer Collaboration in Higher Education

Abstract

Novakian Concept maps (N-Cmaps) and the hierarchical reductionism method are combined to create a new pedagogic architecture to address high-complexity issues in classrooms. This strategy considers the epistemological challenge of managing a substantial amount of information from diverse disciplinary fields and the need to engage students in productive, collaborative work sessions to generate the synergistic effect of combining many informed individuals' perspectives. Discussions through peer collaboration can be organised to achieve the creation of a knowledge model (KW), i.e. a hypertext structure containing a collection of N-Cmaps with any digital resources about the field under study. Students create their own hypertext and use it as visual resource of information to navigate through the complexity they are learning. After discussing the theoretical foundations that underlie our instructional design, we present a case study involving the collaborative creation of a KM to characterise the interdisciplinary connections among six undergraduate courses offered at the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil). Fifty-two students worked collaboratively to map the connections among these courses and the results revealed an interesting perspective. The structured approach adopted to organise the collaborative knowledge construction process allowed students to make explicit several latent information about the courses they were enrolled. The possibility of reducing cognitive overload explains why the combination of N-Cmaps and the hierarchical reductionism method is useful to grasp complexity in classrooms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)