Process of Using Knowledge Mapping When Organizing Kick-Off Activities

Based on the characteristics of the History subject, the objectives and content of the lesson, the target audience being high school students and the advantages of the knowledge mapping method, we build a process for organizing warm-up activities and propose some forms of warm-up in teaching history in high schools.

4.1.1. Process of using knowledge mapping when organizing kick-off activities

In teaching history in high schools, the use of knowledge maps to effectively organize warm-up activities should be carried out through the following steps:

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Figure 4.1: Process of using knowledge mapping to organize start-up activities

When using knowledge mapping to organize warm-up activities, teachers first need to determine the lesson objectives and basic knowledge content of the lesson to choose appropriate warm-up activities. Next, teachers select a diagram and give activity requirements in the form of questions, exercises, commands, games, etc. Then, teachers organize and guide students to carry out the activities. At the end of the activity, teachers organize students to comment and evaluate each other. Finally, teachers give comments, evaluate and apply the problem-based teaching principle to guide students to the basic content of the lesson to help students orient their tasks during the learning process.

4.1.2. Use knowledge mapping to organize kick-off activities

* Use knowledge mapping combined with situational questions and cognitive exercises

Questions and cognitive exercises play an important role in the teaching and learning process, from checking old lessons, teaching lessons, consolidating, testing, evaluating, and assigning homework. Using knowledge diagrams combined with questions and exercises to organize warm-up activities will create conflicts and contradictions in students' perceptions, stimulating curiosity, desire to learn, and desire to resolve conflicts in perceptions. In the process of organizing activities, knowledge diagrams act as a bridge and a means to specify learning activities, helping students easily recognize the requirements, levels, and order of performing activities and methods of activities. Therefore, using knowledge diagrams

Combining knowledge with questions and exercises to organize warm-up activities is an important measure to stimulate students' interest in learning and contribute to improving the effectiveness of history lessons in high schools.

For example, when teaching lesson 22, section V " The 1973 Paris Agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam " (History 12), to help students understand the content of the lesson: The context and process of the Paris Conference; Basic content of the Conference; Meaning and impact of the 1973 Paris Agreement. Before teaching a new lesson, the teacher organizes students to participate in a warm-up activity to find the correct answer to a question or cognitive exercise that the teacher gives in advance in the form of a knowledge diagram. The content of the knowledge diagram is designed by the teacher to apply the old knowledge learned in the previous lesson but is related to the knowledge in the new lesson. The content of the knowledge and the way to organize the warm-up activity are specifically as follows:

Figure 4.2a: Organizing the start-up activities

From the given information on the diagram such as: historical event name, questions, images, missing knowledge content on the diagram... Students will easily detect the teacher's request as well as the student's learning task: "Observe the diagram to find the similarities and differences between the two photos ". Next, students initially recognize the amount of missing knowledge in the diagram including 3 contents ( 1/ Circumstances and process of the Conference; 2/ Basic content of the Conference; 3/ Meaning and impact of the Geneva Agreement in 1954 and the Paris Agreement in 1973 ). Through the above content, the student's task is to find the similarities and differences between the two historical events given on the diagram.

Thus, this activity is carried out before teaching a new lesson, with the purpose of orienting students to the basic knowledge of the lesson to create a fun atmosphere and create interaction between teachers and students, orienting learning tasks for students before learning a new lesson.

Or when teaching lesson 16, section III " Armed uprising to seize power ", to help students know and understand the basic content of the lesson including: revolutionary tasks; revolutionary forces; revolutionary achievements; forms of struggle; revolutionary forms; revolutionary opportunities. With the above content, teachers use diagrams combined with historical photos to organize students to participate in warm-up activities right before starting the new lesson. The content of the activity focuses on clarifying the knowledge content: The August Revolution of 1945 was an uprising of the entire Vietnamese people, taking place in the form of armed uprising. In this uprising, the Party launched the entire people to rise up in both rural and urban areas, which had a decisive impact on the victory of the general uprising. With the above knowledge content, teachers proceed to design a picture diagram combining questions and suggestions on how to operate. The content of the warm-up activity is shown in the diagram below:

Figure 4.2b: Organizing the start-up activities

Through the diagram above, students can visually see the information: images of historical events to predict the activities in each photo, the content of the teacher's request in the form of questions, the way of learning activities... From the identified information, students continue to explore the relationship between the photos to find the keywords that the teacher requires.

This activity can be done in groups - whole class or individually - whole class. If divided into groups, the teacher organizes for groups of students to determine the tasks needed.

solve then exchange, discuss to come up with a common opinion. The content of the answers is written by the groups on sticky notes (note that each group has a different color of paper). At the end of the activity, the teacher asks the group representatives to stick the sticky notes on the board for the whole class to follow (Note: duplicate words or phrases can be stuck on top of each other). Next, the groups take turns presenting and explaining the words or phrases that their group has chosen. Finally, the teacher lets the groups comment and evaluate each other. The teacher is the one who gives the final conclusion and leads the students into the content of the lesson. Thus, through the above activity, students not only learn about the armed uprising to seize power in Vietnam in August 1945 but also create a fun learning atmosphere, practice thinking, presentation skills and orient the tasks to be solved in the new lesson.

* Use knowledge mapping combined with history quizzes

Games used in history teaching are play activities for education, learning and training. Games often have certain themes, purposes, content, actions, requirements and objects. The organization of historical games is always associated with the orientation of teaching new lessons and students' learning activities. The forms of organizing games are diverse (role-playing games, movement games, news games, historical character investigation games, etc.). Games are organized in the classroom space with the allowed time (usually 5 minutes) of a lesson. Through active, proactive and creative participation in game activities, students not only have fun but also practice skills and techniques (observation, presentation, teamwork, practice, application of knowledge into practice, etc.), develop thinking operations, and acquire necessary knowledge in the lesson. However, to make students interested and actively participate in the game, teachers must be solid in their expertise, know how to creatively integrate knowledge in the lesson with the game, be proactive, flexible, predict situations during the organization process, and must always encourage, motivate, and control student participation, and must allocate time reasonably when organizing the game. Thus, using knowledge diagrams combined with historical games helps students to be interested, active, and proactive in the learning process and contributes to orienting learning tasks in the new lesson.

For example, when teaching lesson 17 " The Democratic Republic of Vietnam from September 2, 1945 to December 19, 1946 ". During the first year of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

The Republic of Vietnam revolution encountered many difficulties and challenges such as famine, illiteracy, foreign invaders, and internal rebellion. To solve these difficulties, the Party and the Government took many measures to solve political, economic, and social difficulties. One of the measures to solve financial difficulties was to launch a fundraising campaign to implement the "Golden Week" and build an "Independence Fund". Responding to that movement, a wealthy merchant contributed his money and gold to help solve the financial difficulties of our country at that time. Who was that historical figure? What contributions did this figure make to our country's revolution? Students observe the diagram below and complete the following requirements:

Figure 4.2c: Organizing the start-up activities

The teacher gives information in advance such as: portrait, biography of the character, the character's great contributions to the Vietnamese revolution. Then, the teacher asks to state the exact name of the historical figure. This activity is carried out individually - the whole class. The teacher calls on volunteers or calls on the teacher's instructions. At the end of the game, the teacher announces the winner and continues the game " Profile of historical figures " in the form of a diagram with the following content:

Figure 4.2d: Organizing activities to explore characters through historical games

The content of the diagram includes the understanding, questions, and wishes of the students. The teacher spends a few minutes to answer them. Through the above activity, students not only know and understand more about a historical figure with great contributions to our country's revolution, but also develop thinking skills, synthesize information to solve problems quickly and effectively. In particular, this activity makes the lesson more fun, exciting, and exciting, promoting the students' positivity. At the same time, it helps students expand and connect knowledge in textbooks with knowledge from other historical sources, contributing to enriching students' understanding of national historical figures.

* Use knowledge mapping to orient basic knowledge

Basic knowledge is the main knowledge, essential and indispensable for knowing, understanding and applying historical knowledge in current life. Basic knowledge presented in history textbooks includes: historical events, phenomena, historical dates, locations of historical events, historical figures, concepts, historical terms, laws, historical lessons... Using diagrams to identify basic knowledge in lessons is to avoid overload, omission or to supplement knowledge to orient the learning tasks for students, choosing teaching methods appropriate to the basic knowledge content that has been identified.

For example, when teaching lesson 16 “ The national liberation movement and the August general uprising (1939-1945). The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was born ”, the teacher uses a picture diagram to summarize the basic knowledge content according to the lesson structure. The knowledge content includes: The situation in Vietnam in the years 1939-1945; The national liberation movement from September - 1939; Armed uprising to seize power;

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was established (September 2, 1945); Causes of victory, historical significance and lessons learned from the August Revolution in 1945. Each item includes many small units, so teachers can use a knowledge map to introduce the items sequentially according to the lesson structure. During the introduction of the items, teachers can stop to summarize basic knowledge to orient students on the knowledge, skills, attitudes, abilities, and qualities that need to be achieved through each lesson content. Thereby, teachers can also identify tasks and choose appropriate methods to organize students' learning to achieve the above goals.

Figure 4.2e: Organizing the basic knowledge orientation of the lesson

Through the diagram above, students can see the amount of knowledge in the lesson (5 main contents), the location of the knowledge content, the name of each knowledge content and initially determine their own tasks in the lesson. Using knowledge diagrams to determine basic knowledge is necessary before teaching a new lesson.

Thus, the flexible use of the above forms of organizing warm-up activities in history teaching is not outside the purpose of helping students be interested in the lesson, absorb the lesson better, grasp knowledge more firmly, practice better skills such as: observation skills, thinking skills and practical skills... thereby forming and developing positive qualities in students. However, to effectively organize the forms of warm-up at the beginning of the lesson in teaching in general, and history teaching in particular, it is necessary to carry out in a way that the teacher plays the role of organizer, guide, direct, and control, students have the task of participating in the activities that the teacher organizes.

Using knowledge mapping to organize warm-up activities is an important measure to contribute to improving the effectiveness of current history lessons in high schools.

To test the feasibility of the measure: Using knowledge mapping to effectively organize the start-up activities , we conducted a field experiment for 2 groups: Group I - To Hieu High School, Son La province, conducted by teacher Nguyen Thi Thuy. Group III - Dien Bien City High School, Dien Bien province, conducted by teacher Giang A Mi. We chose lesson 20, section II " The Winter-Spring strategic offensive 1953-1954 and the Dien Bien Phu campaign in 1954 " to conduct a partial field experiment in accordance with the content of the sections presented in the thesis. Through classroom observation and on the basis of conducting a test of learning outcomes between the control class and the experimental class, the results obtained are specifically shown in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1: Results of the pedagogical practice of each part of the first measure

Analyzing the data in Table 4.1, we see:

- The percentage of students with excellent scores in group I, experimental class is 28%, control class is 13%; The percentage of students with good scores in group I, experimental class is 49%, control class is 23%, the percentage of students with good scores in group III, experimental class is 45%, control class is 29%. Thus, the percentage of good scores in experimental class is higher than that in control class, 26% (group I) and 16% (group III).

- The rate of students with weak scores in the experimental class of group I is 4%, group III is 2%. This rate is lower than the control class of both group I at 26% and group III at 20%.

In terms of both qualitative and quantitative aspects, the results of the experimental class were higher than those of the control class. We can conclude that the measure of using knowledge mapping to effectively organize the start-up activities is feasible. The results obtained are detailed in the following chart:

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