Development of Pedagogical Tools like A Directional Map of Learning for Introductory Physics

Introductory Physics courses are often built around modules that allow for lesson planning and segmented content review for students. We summarize the motivation behind and process of developing the learning tool, which utilizes lesson and concept compartmentalization to aid in student success. This tool is an interactive learning map with the course modules and learning objectives for an introductory physics course. Treating each learning objective like an information node and connecting it to others with learning tags that describe its connections, we create scaffolded learning maps with modules visibly building on each other or proximity maps that show how closely connected specific concepts are. This map enables students to visualize the relationships between learning objectives, facilitating the creation of review paths. These paths bring the student back to the foundational concepts, which, when lacking, lead to confusion and misconceptions in higher-level concepts. Student-centered applications of this visualization of course content might include creating tracked personalized self-study and homework assignments that can adapt to how a student answers a question and provide review material based on these connections. Curriculum development applications of maps such as this might provide visualizations of how courses are connected and aid in planning of majors and submajors.