Books, Comics & Magazines

Getting through the college application process can often be one of the most challenging aspects of a student’s high school career. This challenge is even greater for parents, who want to ensure that their child both gets into a good school and has the means to pay for it. How then, do students and parents navigate their way through the barrage of applications, personal essays, and financial aid forms? One way to do this is to use a Mind Mapping software tool. Mind Maps can be incredibly helpful in managing the college application process because they allow for the organization of information in a way that is highly intuitive. Because Mind Maps are created using visually stimulating images and colors, users have the advantage of viewing information in a way that is easily conceptualized and simple to recall. With Mind Mapping, students and parents can organize every aspect of the college application process effortlessly, efficiently, and creatively.

What is Mind Mapping Software?

Mind Mapping software is any software that is used to create diagrams, pictures, and other graphic visuals in order to show the relationship between ideas or other types of information.¹ With Mind Maps, the key concept or main idea of the information being presented is represented by a central image, located in the center of the map. Any themes surrounding the main idea are shown on “branches” that are attached to the central topic, with subsequent themes of less importance attached by “child branches”. The resulting diagram is a “map” of the ideas and information shown in a spatial, rather than linear, format. Moreover, along with the ideas shown on the map are images, visual graphics, and colors that the constructor of the “map” associates with each of the themes and ideas. Mapping out information in this manner is widely believed to allow the brain to process the information in manner more consistent with its natural functioning.

Using Mind Mapping to Manage College Applications

A student and her parents have finally arrived at the time to begin applying for college. The student has selected 4 universities to which she will apply, and she and her parents decide to use a Mind Map to help them through the application process. They construct the college application Mind Map by first representing the purpose of the map, the college applications, with a central graphic image. Next, they divide the map into different sections, one for each of the 4 universities, via “branches” that are attached to the central topic. They continue the map by listing all of the materials they will need to turn in for each school, such as the personal essay, or financial aid form, on “child branches”. On “twigs” that are attached to these materials, the student and her parents list the deadlines by which the materials need to be mailed. Throughout the map, the student and her parents use any colors or visuals they feel will help them better internalize and remember the information laid out on the map. Attached is a Mind Map diagram that shows what their map might look like when completed.

The Advantages of Mind Mapping vs. More Traditional Means of Managing College Applications

Contrast the attached Mind Map with a more traditional way of managing the college application process. Using more traditional means, the student and her parents would probably have used a list to help them remember what was needed for each school and by when. The list, no doubt, would have contained multiple pages, and a large amount of varying information, all of which they would have to keep track. In addition, the list would have been linearly, rather than spatially organized, and would therefore not contain the same visual and color associations found in a Mind Map. The lack of visual imagery and spatial depth would have made the list more tedious to process, and more difficult to recall. The Mind Map, on the other hand, allows the student and her parents to view all of the information they need to know for each school in one, easy to understand diagram. They can, thus, find out what steps they need to take for any given school with just one look at the map; they do not need to locate and rummage through the pages of a list in order to stay on track of application timelines and materials. Mind Mapping has, therefore, provided both the student and her parents with an effective way to organize all of her college application materials, making the process of managing the applications a relatively simple one.

1. Farrand, Paul; Hussain, Fearzana and Hennessy, Enid (May 2002). “The efficacy of the ‘mind map’ study technique”. Medical Education 36 (5): 426–431.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

essbee Art college, mind mapping, parent, student

http://clk.bz/to-do-list

One of the biggest obstacles to successful academic performance for students is lack of organization. A student can often get bogged down in the maze of class schedules, homework assignments, and extra-curricular activities. Today there are an almost limitless number of computer software tools available to help one organize scheduled activities. However, few contain the advantages found in Mind Mapping software. With Mind Mapping software, you are able to organize multiple activities using a simple process of “mapping out” components in a spatial and creatively graphic format. Students therefore, can use a Mind Mapping software tool to create a schedule that is intuitive and visually stimulating, facilitating mental processing and recall.

What is Mind Mapping Software?

Mind Mapping software is any software that is used to create diagrams, pictures, and other graphic visuals in order to show the relationship between ideas or other types of information.¹ With Mind Maps, the key concept or main idea of the information being presented is represented by a central image, located in the center of the map. Any themes surrounding the main topic are shown on “branches” that are attached to the central image, with subsequent themes of less importance attached by “twigs”. The resulting diagram is a “map” of the ideas and information shown in a spatial, rather than linear, format. Moreover, along with the ideas shown on the map are images, visual graphics, and colors that the constructor of the “map” associates with each of the themes and ideas. Mapping out information in this manner is widely believed to allow the brain to process the information in manner more consistent with its natural functioning.

Using a Mind Map to Construct an Academic Schedule

On any given weekday, it would not be uncommon to find a student wandering the halls of an institution asking herself, “English or History class? Cheerleading squad or Swim practice? What am I supposed to do next?” In order to make what “to do next” easier to remember, she might consider organizing her schedule using a Mind Map. The student can begin by representing the topic of the Mind Map, her academic schedule, in the center of the map. She can then divide the map into five sections, each representing a day of the week, using “branches” that are attached to the central topic. It is next that she can begin filling out her Mind Map with the specifics of her schedule using “child branches” attached to the corresponding weekday. She might use any graphics, images or colors she chooses to help make her map more intuitive. When she has finished with her Mind Map, it may resemble something like the attached Mind Map diagram of an academic schedule.

Using the Mind Map to Facilitate Recall

The student is now set. Having used a Mind Mapping software tool to construct a map, she has her entire academic schedule organized in way that makes it easier to remember. She has selected, and included, the pictures, words, and graphics shown in the map, and that make sense with the way she thinks about her schedule. She can also organize the information using colors that she associates with specific components of the map. For instance, she has used the color blue, the color of her cheerleading uniform, to represent Tuesday, because it reminds her that she has cheerleading squad practice on that day. Points of association such as these help jog her memory, and make it easy for her to visualize each day of the week and the various activities she has to do during them. The student no longer has to worry about where “to be next”.

1. Farrand, Paul; Hussain, Fearzana and Hennessy, Enid (May 2002). “The efficacy of the ‘mind map’ study technique”. Medical Education 36 (5): 426–431.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

essbee Art academic, mind mapping, organize, schedule, student, teacher

One of the greatest challenges teachers face is preparing an engaging and enriching lesson plan for students. There are many tools teachers can use to make this process easier. However, very few of these methods will contain the advantages found in Mind Mapping. Mind Maps are more intuitively laid out than most traditional lesson plans, because they are presented spatially, rather than linearly, and are “mapped” out across the page. Moreover, because Mind Maps are comprised of colors, visual images, and pictures, instead of just words, they allow the brain to process the information contained in them in a manner more consistent with natural brain functioning. Mind Maps are an effective and creative way to help teachers design lesson plans, and they can make the process of teaching students a lot simpler.

Using Mind Mapping to Construct a Lesson Plan

At minimum, a good lesson plan usually contains six key components. The first component is the key concept of the lesson, namely, what the teacher wants the students to learn about the topic. The key concept should be represented in the center of the Mind Map. The second component of a good lesson plan is the objective, or the skill the teacher intends to teach, and which he or she wants the students to learn as a result of the lesson. For instance, the teacher’s objective may be to teach students the letters of the alphabet, resulting in the students being able to recite the alphabet from memory. The main topic should be connected to the key concept via a “branch”. If the teacher has more than one objective, he or she can list them on multiple “branches”. The third component of the lesson plan is the pre-planning materials. The pre-planning materials are any materials that must be prepared in preparation of teaching the lesson. The pre-planning materials component should be attached to the topic(s) via a “child branch”. The fourth component is the student materials, or the materials the children need to successfully complete the lesson. The student materials component should also be attached to the topic(s) via a “child branch”. Though attached to the same objective(s), the pre-planning materials and student materials components should be shown in separate areas of the Mind Map, on either side of the objective(s), with the specific materials to be used flowing out of them via new “child branches” or “twigs”. Fifthly is the procedure component. The procedure component lists the steps the teacher intends to take when teaching the lesson, including sample questions. As with the previous two components, this component should also be attached to the objective(s) via a “child branch”. The “child branch” should extend below the objective, off to the side, and have the steps of the procedure attached to it via “child branches” or “twigs”. The last component of a successful lesson plan is the closure, or the summary of the lesson to the students.¹ On the Mind Map, this component should be attached to the key concept via a “branch” located below the key concept. The attached Mind Map diagram shows an example of a teacher lesson plan “mapped out” in the manner described.

Teaching the Lesson From the Mind Map

Once the Mind Map outlining the lesson plan is completed, the teacher can easily see all of the components for his or her lesson “mapped out”, with colors, visuals, and picture associations included. This mentally and visually stimulating representation of his or her lesson plan makes it simple for him or her to interpret, process and internalize the lesson. Therefore, the teacher will have more thoroughly learned the lesson, and can more naturally impart the lesson to the students.

1. Source: www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/fieldexperiences/pdfs/lessonplanhunter.pdf

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

essbee Art lessons, mind mapping, school, students, teacher