Published
both here as well. concept maps are pretty damn silly, IMO.
I've long been in curious the genesis of concept mapping in nursing education (but not curious enough to google it :) ). Is this one of those things that was some nurse's PhD thing, that was snatched up into the overall pedagogy?
My school calls it a concept map but it is a full report that combines data compilation, the concept maps with care care plans and psychosocial reporting. We come up with at least 5 problems from our concept map and we have to create a care plan for each of the 5 problems. The darn thing takes several hours. Personally it has taken me 5 to 7 hours. I don't know anyone who likes doing concept maps.
We do both for every clinical.
I think the care plans are good for showing us the details of a diagnosis and what is involved. The care plans also show us a variety of things we can do for our client...sometimes things we never considered.
The concept map I see as a way to relate the diagnoses with each other. You can see how one thing is related to another and how somethings just stand on their own.
Once my care plan is done my concept map takes no time at all. The concept map for us is just the diagnosis, related to and manifested by. Then all things are connected if they pertain to each other.
I don't mind doing them now that I do them on the computer. I hate writing them out. Then I wonder what makes my instructors think I know a lot about computers. Silly people.
1/3 of the way through the program all we've done is Care Plans. Who knows what we'll be doing next semester.
To tell you the truth, I just don't get the idea of Concept Maps.
We only use concept maps in clinical. They aren't so bad... they are supposedly way faster then care plans and I like them because they help link things that you may not link in your head
Princess74
817 Posts
Does your school use care plans or concept maps and which do you perfer?
We just started using concept maps.