The Power of Mind Mapping
Written by Dr. Molly Myers, Lower School Counselor at SCIS Pudong
“SEE what you think.”
― Lois Farfel Stark, The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times
What is Mind Mapping?
A Mind Map is a diagram used to generate, organize, connect, and explain information in an alternative way. This shows the relationship between relevant knowledge about a specific subject by using words, symbols, and imagery.
By creating a mind map, information and ideas are easier to remember because they are organized by relative importance. By clustering individual ideas in relation to the overall concept, you can easily add to Mind Maps you have already drawn to help you to make associations, connections, and generate ideas.
How are Mind Maps used?
Mind Maps are useful tools that can help students for taking notes, brainstorming, researching, problem-solving, and personal development. By utilizing both the left brain (creative) and right brain (logical), the capacity for synthesizing information and expanding critical thinking, and learning is enhanced. Mind Maps have the capacity to help students apply critical thinking skills to social-emotional learning.
As a counselor, I use Mind Maps to help students process emotions, solve problems, and develop self-awareness. Mind Maps can help people discover their potential, understand who they are, and overcome obstacles. By giving children the power to create an image of what they are experiencing and what support they have, they can develop confidence in their ability to shape their responses to experiences. Mind Maps give people the chance to see what they are thinking in ways that shape understanding and behavior.
How to create a Mind Map?
Follow these simple steps.
Step 1: Write the idea, topic, or project that you're exploring in the center of a page and draw a circle around it.
Step 2: As you think of facts, tasks, concepts, etc. related to the main topic, draw lines out from the circle, write your subheadings and connect them back to the center circle.
Step 3: Continue expanding your ideas to uncover the next level of information. Then, link these to the relevant subheadings.
Step 4: Continue repeating the process until you have expanded your idea into a beautiful web of connections.
Your Mind Map may end up looking like a simple wheel with subtopics radiating from a central spoke, or like an ancient tree with subtopics forking off like branches and twigs from the trunk of a tree. You don't need to worry about the structure you produce – this will evolve to suit your creation.
Tips for making Mind Maps:
Use single words or short phrases
Use color to separate ideas and make connections
Use symbols or images to support the words.
Use lines and arrows to show connections
SCIS. Self-Directed Learners.
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