MEANING ORGANIZER
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 2041 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Methodology or model |
The pedagogical use of some very general term or concept in order to create correlations among a number of different themes.
R. NUMMELA CAINE and M. CAINE give as an example the concept of “Family”, used as a mental frame , or thematic map , to interrelate many quite different types of groupings: Families of humans (in psycho-sociology and anthropology); families of laws, or families of elements (in physics); animal or vegetal families (in natural sciences taxonomies); families of rulers, family trees (in history); families of planets or stars (in astronomy and astrophysics); etc… (1994, p.129).
Of course, such meaning organizers may not even reach the analogies or metaphors levels and should be used with care. They are not much more than mental catalyzers, useful to construct mental maps .