"The focus of this investigation is on the use of thinking maps as tools for students and teachers in classrooms from kindergarten through graduation. Thinking maps are eight fundamental thinking processes represented and activated by semantic maps [Circle, Bubble, Double Bubble, Tree, Brace, Flow, Multi-Flow and Bridge]... This distinct set of visual tools is used for inter-actively connecting, sharing and reflecting on information for personal, interpersonal, and social understandings. ...[S]tudents who are taught how to use this set of tools will be helped in becoming independent and interdependent learners. [T]hey... [will] have a common visual language in the classroom for connecting and seeing what they are thinking, for deepening dialogue, and for assessing how they are thinking and learning. ...This investigation of thinking maps as student-centered tools is... a practical response to a continuing educational problem... defining the relationship between teachers and students... Since the advent of public school education this relationship has been securely entrenched in teacher lecture and the rote repetition of lessons by students. ...[T]he teacher-talk and student-listen relationship that had been criticized by progressive educators for generations has finally become recognized to be at the heart of our educational problem."