Making mind-maps

by Tarmo Toikkanen, Teemu Leinonen — last modified 2008-06-19 11:44

Mind-maps mean the conceptualization of thoughts with the help of diagrams. This has been found to be an effective way of learning (Slotte, V. & Lonka, K. 1999, Review and process effects of spontaneous note-taking on text comprehension. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 24, 1-20). Mind-map making can be used:

to generate and organize ideas;
to find topics that are related to each other;
to make existing and possible missing knowledge visible in a learning process.

Usually the diagram has the main concept in the center, and concepts related to it are placed around it. A writing process can sometimes be started by drawing such a diagram of the topic. The learners can also be encouraged to make notes in the form of mind-maps. A common mind-map can be done eg. on a foil to clarify connections between concepts.

Note that mind-maps are not the same as [concept-mapping concept mapping]. Concept maps are a more stricter and have separate concepts and linking phrases in them.

Tags:
mind-map, diagram, concept, visualization

Language:
English

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