Concept maps and formative assessment: creating approaches Nadia Aparecida de Souza Universidade Estadual de Londrina Evely Boruchovitch Universidade Estadual de Campinas Abstract Having formative assessment as a backdrop and meaningful learning as a possible horizon, this text aims to highlight concept maps as particularly relevant tools to the intentions of training, because as a relevant teaching and learning strategy they favor the regulation of teaching and the self-regulation of learning. Revisiting the theoretical framework on this issue has favored: (a) considering the usefulness of concept maps – employed as a strategy for teaching and / or assessment – from different perspectives: the one of who teaches / assesses and the one of who learns / is evaluated, (b) assessing how much employing concept maps is to create alternatives for the organization of knowledge, by promoting educational experiences that encourage not only reflection, seeking understanding and deep processing of information, but also the development of self-regulation, of meta-cognition and of learning to learn, (c) reconsidering the importance of the means used to assess learning, which cannot be any means, but those which favor a clear perception of the learning constructed and of the learning still in progress, guiding and enabling actions to surpass prior performance, and (d) giving new meaning to the task of teaching to learn, understood as a permanent aid in the ongoing development of knowledge, by means of the disclosure of the reasons for the difficulties to be overcome. Keywords: Assessment of learning – Teaching and learning strategies – Concept maps – Self-regulation. Contact Nadia Aparecida de Souza Rua Maria Lucia da Paz, 400 apto. 1804 – Gleba Palhano 86050-470 – Londrina – PR e-mail: nadia@uel.br