CBE—Life Sciences Education The Synthesis Map Is a Multidimensional Educational Tool That Provides Insight into Students ’ Mental Models and Promotes Students ’ Synthetic Knowledge Generation

Concept mapping was developed as a method of displaying and organizing hierarchical knowledge structures. Using the new, multidimensional presentation software Prezi, we have developed a new teaching technique designed to engage higher-level skills in the cognitive domain. This tool, syn-thesis mapping, is a natural evolution of concept mapping, which utilizes embedding to layer infor-mation within concepts. Prezi’s zooming user interface lets the author of the presentation use both depth as well as distance to show connections between data, ideas, and concepts. Students in the class Biology of Cancer created synthesis maps to illustrate their knowledge of tumorigenesis. Stu-dents used multiple organizational schemes to build their maps. We present an analysis of student work, placing special emphasis on organization within student maps and how the organization of knowledge structures in student maps can reveal strengths and weaknesses in student understand-ing or instruction. We also provide a discussion of best practices for instructors who would like to implement synthesis mapping in their classrooms. Article edge, (b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a con-ceptual framework, and (c) organize knowledge in way