Some kinds of processing cards have words, others facial expressions, and still others pictures. The cards are spread out, the facilitator asks a question, and each person picks a card that represents his or her answer to the question. For example, a small group of university professors were asked to pick the card that best represented the state of environmental studies at their respective institutions. One professor picked the broken pottery card, explaining there would be no environmental studies at his university until the current outdated commitment to disciplines was shattered and a new interdisciplinary approach was allowed to develop. Concept maps Concepts maps are most common in classroom settings, but are gaining popularity elsewhere as well.
Concept maps are pictorial representations of whatever the participants learned from the activity.
The representation may be a drawing, a flow chart, or literally a map or what occurred. After the action component of the activity, the facilitator breaks the full group into smaller groups of 4-6 people. Each small group is then asked to describe pictorially what occurred or what was learned. After the drawings are complete, a representative from each small group then explains that group's concept map to everyone else. If the processing takes place in a classroom, the concept maps can be drawn on transparencies and presented on an overhead projector.