What is a Roundhouse Diagram?

Roundhouse Diagram is a graphic-based organizer used by teachers and students to plan, memorize and reflect. The technique is based on George Miller’s psychological research of the magical number seven (+ or – 2). (Pavel Samsonov, Robin McCartney, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA.2010)

George Miller

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/us/george-a-miller-cognitive-psychology-pioneer-dies-at-92.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Roundhouse is actually a story map constructed by the learner and from the learners’ perspective. It is sequentially designed connecting pictures to concepts that relate within a schema based on the content being addressed. Therefore information is internalized and not memorized.

Roundhouse has mainly been used with science content due to its abstract nature. Students must plan, diagram and reflect in order to complete the process. Roundhouse is a fun and innovative instructional tool. (McCartney Robin, Pavel Samsonov, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA.20110)



The Roundhouse diagram is composed of a circle within a circle. Circles are two dimensional geometric figures, which are pleasing to the brain (Solso, 1994) and easy to recall.Our field of vision is circular making information easy to process when encompassed in a rounded figure. 

Students Created Sample : 

The curved inner line within the smaller circle can represent “yin and yang” or a comparison of ideas which lends itself to higher order thinking (Ward & Wandersee, 2001).

The outer circle is composed of seven wedges. Seven wedges were chosen based on Miller’s (1956) seminal research, which revealed that the normal human brain can easily recall seven chucks of information if related properly. (Robin Ward McCartney and Candace Figg. 2011)

THE PROCESS FOR CREATING A ROUNDHOUSE DIAGRAM
Three phases:

A Planning phase in which students use a worksheet to storyboard their ideas.

The Roundhouse diagram worksheet (Ward, 1999; Ward & Wandersee, 2001) guides a student to        reflect upon a topic and plan a diagram. Each worksheet question is linked to a step in the process of Roundhouse diagramming. An explanation of each worksheet question, printed in bold type, follows:

• What is the main idea (or ideas) you are exploring?
• Write out your title in different ways using the “and” and “of” words.
• Write down the goals and objectives you have for constructing this diagram.
• Take your entire concept and break it down into seven parts.
• Take your seven parts and chunk this information.

A Diagramming phase in which students match icons to conceptual statements within the Roundhouse Diagram.

              





 Goal :

• Draw an icon that directly relates to each chunk of information.
• Each section in the outer circle holds one chunked concept and a picture to represent that idea. The image or “icon” connected to each key concept serves as a trigger to remembering that concept.

c. A Reflection phase, in which students express their knowledge in an essay, either written or verbal.

RESEARCH

REFERENCES

1. Marcella W.Hackney and Robin E.Ward (2002). How-to-learn biology via Roundhouse diagrams. The American Biology Teacher, 64(7):525-533.
2. Robin E.Ward and Candace Figg (2011). Every picture tells a story. The Roundhouse process in the digital age. Teaching and Learning, 6(1),1-14.
3. Candace Figg, Robin Ward-McCartney, Kamini Jaipal-Jamani. Round’em Up with Roundhouse Diagrams: Techniques for Building Scientific Concepts. http://www.handy4class.com/stao2008/

Categories: Active Learning, Roundhouse Diagram