Students' readiness

Mind Mapping is a visual information management tool. It allows you to structure, organize, arrange or brainstorm information. Through Mind Maps, you can visualize connections of topics or details of new ideas.

Basically, you take an empty piece of paper and in the middle of it, you write down the topic you want to think about. Following, you write down any thoughts that come to your mind and connect those thoughts to the main idea, e.g. via lines or arrows. Those thoughts can also be connected to each other. Further on, you can write down more details that come to your mind, maybe something specific to one thought of that idea.

You can also work with small illustrations or colours. Anything that helps you to organize your thoughts and ideas. At the end, the paper should show a map that reflects your cognitive structure of a specific idea. A Mind Map.

Since this tool is trying to help you with organizing your thoughts and ideas, it is important to always try to keep the Mind Map clearly structured and not too overfilled with information. The art of Mind Mapping lies in painting a detailed picture of an idea, connecting its most relevant aspects and illustrating your string of thoughts concerning one specific idea. It should give you an overview of your thought processes and support you.

Example:

(source: link)

This blog gives some more details on the history of Mind Mapping and its inventor. Both videos on this page are very interesting and helpful.