Reflection: Mind Mapping

Challenge and Selection

Teaching new concepts, especially complex processes and ideas can be challenging when dealing with people from different educational backgrounds. Sometimes, teaching involves planning, which is similar when planning for a project, this time, the project is to convey concepts and ideas to people who might have different assumptions on the lesson topic.

The tool I usually approach is mind mapping as a visual tool which clarifies ideas and communication. It helps to learn, understand, identify,comprehend and come to conclusions.I teach my students a concept so they can visualize the process of the concept and recall the information better. Also, complex ideas and concepts can be made easier with mind mapping. It is also a flexible tool, which improves creativity, productivity and teamwork at the same time.

Application

I start the process by writing the main topic in the center of the mind map. Then I brainstorm topics to create branches from the main topic. We draw  different lines that connect the main topic to these topics. Every student is allowed to write about these topics. When several topics have been created, and we debate on them, we start to elaborate subtopics on these topics, adding just one or two words, or maybe a very brief phrase.

When all these subtopics are written, we again debate on them and rearrange them, making sure that every subtopic is under the correct topic. We use different colour markers to underline or circle the related subtopics. In this way, students start to connect ideas related to the main topic in the center of the mind map. When the subtopics are tagged with different colours - circled or underlined - we start  by making questions to analyze the ideas, tasks and concepts connected.

Insight and Approach

What I have learnt from conducting this activity with several groups and people is it makes meaningful learning, as they acquire new knowledge and they connect these knowledge, meaning, this concepts to previous knowledge and concepts.The retain the new information longer, and faster and better and it’s really engaging, as all students are involved in the process of brainstorming, generating ideas and connecting concepts.

I found out that brainstorming and visualization helps students to develop ideas and concepts before teaching the main core of the lesson so next time I would start with mind mapping as first activity so they start to generate and brainstorm their ideas and I can get to know their background and help them to connect these ideas to the new ones.

