Using concept map for a better understanding of circular motion

The concept maps are didactic instruments useful in any stage of the learning process: teaching, learning, evaluation. Employing this tool, the teacher can share the knowledge in a structured way, stressing the connections and/or the causality rapports between the studied notions. During the learning process, the students are encouraged to structure the information in a concept maps manner in order to establish a hierarchy from general to particular, while establishing links between them [1-3]. In this paper, we present the concept map that can be used to teach the circular motion to upper secondary students. It was built by means of the free software CmapTools (that can be found on the Internet - https://cmap.ihmc.us/cmaptools/). The map spreads similar to a tree and it has four main branches. On the first one, the general qualitative characteristics of the movement are presented. In the second one, the periodicity elements with the specific concepts and the relationships among them are shown. The third branch holds the cinematic notions particular to the uniform circular motion: angular velocity, linear velocity, central acceleration etc. On the fourth branch, one can find the forces involved in this kind of movement. All the elements are connected among each other and examples can be found through links to illustrations, animations and so on. The concept map can be used as a didactic evaluation instrument. The teacher can provide the students with a tree that is only partially filled (just some titles and some connecting words) and a list of notions, terms, formula etc. that are similar to some puzzle pieces for finalizing de map. Another option would be to give cards to the students containing notions from the concept map and ask them to prioritize the ideas from general to particular, to group them according to various criteria, to identify links between certain concepts and, in this way, to assemble their personal concept map. We believe that the concept maps are very important elements, facilitating the understanding of a studied theme. A concept map is a tool that addresses many learning styles and it represents an effective instrument in a teacher’s toolkit.