How to Use Mind Maps for Teaching Concepts

Mind maps are used for students to explore and engage in learning materials.

A mind map is a way of illustrating relationships between concepts and ideas. Mind maps can be used to teach concepts to students, or students can work in small groups to create their own based around a central theme. Seeing their thought processes on paper can help children begin the creative process for other projects. Sometimes called a concept map, a mind map is a spider web of connected thoughts useful for writing prompts, test review or just class discussion.

Things You'll Need

• Whiteboard or chalkboard
• Teaching unit

Instructions

1. Choose a concept or a unit theme to start from. This is the center of your mind map, and all the ideas and information stem from this topic. Write the topic in the center of the board, or have the students do it on their paper, and then draw a circle around it.

2. Use this theme to expand on the main points of the unit. Draw branches outward from your center circle and draw a circle at the end of each with the subtopic inside. The students can also complete this step individually or in groups. The process of developing ideas in this way is sometimes called brainstorming.

3. Ask the students to expand on the subtopics by drawing branches from the sub-circles. These branches should answer questions and describe the subtopic in detail. You may also add "why" and "how" questions to the map. To answer these, use the branch technique to expand on the ideas.

4. Continue working the mind map outward using the "spider web" technique with new ideas and concepts relating to the central theme or unit topic.

5. Link ideas together. The end result of your mind map might be that you have several similar ideas under different subtopics. The purpose of a mind map is to see all ideas and concepts on one sheet of paper.

Tips & Warnings

• You may want to write your topic and subtopics inside another shape rather than a circle to help jump-start the brainstorming process. For visual learners, encourage the students to draw pictures of the idea or subtopic. A mind map does not have to be all words.

References

• University of Delaware: How to Construct a Concept Map
• Study Guides and Strategies: Concept or Mind-mapping Explanation