Apply Graphic Organizers for Better Teaching and Learning

What Is a Graphic Organizer

A graphic organizer is a graphic representation that demonstrates relationships between facts, concepts or ideas. A graphic organizer guides the learner's thinking as they fill in and build upon a visual map or diagram. They are also informally used as a term to describe all visual learning strategies such as concept map, flowchart, mind map and more.

Benefits of Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers can bring many benefits to teachers, students, writers, designers and so on. They guide people's thinking for their advantage of clarity to enhance understanding. Graphic organizers facilitate students' learning by helping them identify areas of focus within a broad topic, such as a novel or article. Because they help the learner make connections and structure thinking, students can also turn to graphic organizers for writing projects.

In addition to helping students organize their thinking and writing process, graphic organizers can act as instructional tools. Teachers can use graphic organizers to illustrate a student knowledge about a topic or section of text showing areas for improvement.

Types of Graphic Organizers

Flowcharts, concept maps, mind maps, tree charts and plots such as stack plots and Venn diagrams are some of the types of graphic organizers commonly used in visual learning to enhance thinking skills and improve academic performance on written papers, tests and homework assignments. Edraw's products cover all the above mentioned types and a lot more. For more solutions of graphic organizers, please refer to General Diagram Types - Overview.

Efficient Learning with Graphic Organizers

1. For example, students can use tree charts to make it easy to classify ideas and communicate. In a tree chart, students can examine relationships between different knowledge points.

Tree Chart Example: Change of Phase


2. Mind maps allow students to demonstrate their thinking process clearly and logically, making it easy to brainstorm. See some mind map examples below. Click the image to see large version or download it.
3. A story board helps students increase reading comprehension visually. Students will retain more information by summarizing the story and breaking apart a story into the main elements (intro, rising action, climax, etc.)

Story Board Example


4. A decision making list diagram or problem solving circular diagram help students understand how to analyze problem and find out solutions.
5. To test the learning effect, rely on interesting worksheets.

In addition to the above examples, there are more Visualization Strategies for Students offered by Edraw.

Effective Teaching with Graphic Organizers

Used throughout the curriculum, teachers can apply graphic organizers to teach all subjects, including but not limited to:

1. Cause and effect (fishbone diagram)
2. Comparing and contrasting concepts (comparison chart)
3. Sequencing (flowchart)
4. Life cycle (Cycle of Writing Template)
5. Vocabulary knowledge (flash card, Learning a New Word Template)

Using Edraw Software's visual thinking and learning tools, students and teachers can easily create more beneficial graphic organizers as they brainstorm ideas, organize information, gather research, make visual associations and identify connections.

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Other Relative Links

Educational Graphic Organizers

How to Draw a Concept Map

How to Create a Good Concept Map

Spider Map

Flowchart Mapping

Mind Mapping