Mind Mapping  By Neia Rodrigues

Challenge

I used this tool to understand the learning process of my students,

during the history sessions. It is very common that students consider History  as a difficult, boring subject, and completely unecessary, given the fact  that you can find all sorts of information available on the internet. But the  challenge here is to anayze what you do with that information and how  you use it for the future and to understand the present. Now, the diffciult  part is to understand how teenagers think and or understand better a  topic. Mind Mapping strategy is quite accurate to visualize the process  students go through when think. Moreover, this strategy is great for  keeping track of the small moments of the class that  are missing empathy  with students; in this way I can  improve the activities inthe  class to make  the process smoothier and meaningful.    Selection

Mind Maping is a strategy that has great feaatures you can use to

define how the students learn. I like ti think ypu cna track the whole  process with it. According to the course Mind mapping  looks for patterns  and insights in a large quantity of data  you collect during the research  about the stakeholders. You can also explore visually the current reality.  The effectiveness of mind mapping relies on establishing the criteria of the  “what-if” idea generation phase.

This strategy invloves several engaging techniques easy to

understand and remember for all types of learning, since is more intuitive  than reading a huge report or just listen to somebody explaining the  results of a research.   Mind mapping makes the whole creative process available for  everybody, since you cna extract meaning from data in a way that let  partners and insights emerge.    Application    1- Get data from different sources

-  Google Forms surveys

-  Peer class observation

-  Student´s comments on aspects of the class

-  Expert observations

2- Have the working team in a creative environment

-  Invite the experts

-  Sitting in an open area (garden, cafeteria)

-  Plenty of material (paper, markers, pictures, data available,  studnets books and notebooks, some of  project´s evidence)

-  Food (coffee, chips and fruit)

-  Comfortable chairs and relaxing music.

-  Objective written and visually vailable for everybody

3- Go through the infomation.     The whole team will go through the information in order, then once the  info is written, the process begins. A useful tip: use different colors for  different purposes, probably using symbols as well. Another team can  have key questions that met the objectives.  An important aspect: all the team must feel confident to express all sorts  of ideas without being judged.       Insight and Approach

By using this tool, I have learned that Mind Mapping isn´t just a tool

to reflect the team´s ideas, but to effectively approach problems or  identify shortcuts in the whole creative process. Eventhough is not merely  about organizing information, but to visually express it and then taking a  path, I feel that this tool helps to organize the ideas and to discover new  ones along the road.

Next time I use this strategy, I would set working teams and having

more people involved for working in specific areas with a time limit. Also,  using the visualization tool first to understand the problem would be a  great way to approach the current situation.

