Thousands of teachers all over the earth already use and teach mind mapping in their classrooms. As one of the most effective learning techniques, heed mapping can assistance students have better notes, improve comprehension, and foster creativity.

Mind Mapping for Teachers - Cover Photo

Enquiry from writer and visual-thinking adept Nancy Margulies institute that when children learn to write down concepts on lined paper rather than visualize those concepts mentally, their creativity begins to fade. Heed mapping helps students reignite their creativity, promoting ideas through clan, and introducing an engaging, visual, and memorable approach to learning.

In this guide to heed mapping for teachers, we'll provide an example heed map lesson programme you can utilize to teach your students the basics of listen mapping, offering four instance mind mapping activities you lot can do in grade, and fifty-fifty show you how you can use mind maps every day in the classroom to make your lessons more interactive and engaging.

Table of Contents:

  • The Best Mind Mapping Tool
  • An Example Mind Map Lesson Plan
  • Listen Mapping Activities for Students
  • Examples of Mind Mapping for Teachers

Mind Map Showing the Benefits of Mind Mapping

MindMeister is an first-class mind mapping tool for teachers and students. Hither are some of the benefits of using MindMeister to build mind maps in an educational setting:

  • It's an online tool that lets students interact with their teachers and peers and doesn't require whatever special software to exist downloaded to a student or schoolhouse computer.
  • It arranges bubbling neatly every bit they're added, so there's no need to draw and redraw mind maps over and over again due to the confines of a canvas of newspaper.
  • Students can add together images and links to their listen maps, making information technology easier for them to collect all of their notes and sources in i place.

We offer a free-forever plan that teachers and students can employ to build mind maps. Or if y'all need more features or plan to utilize mind maps every bit a cadre role of your school'south curriculum, you tin sign up for 1 of our didactics plans that starting time at $0.99/user per month.

Utilize This Listen Map Lesson Plan to Teach Mind Mapping

If you lot want a simple way to teach mind mapping to your students, you could simply walk your form through our Mind Mapping 101 course, a 50-minute, 10-lesson drove of tutorials that will help anybody go familiar with the basics of mind mapping.

But if you want to take a more interactive approach, use this case heed map lesson program.

Step i: Start by building a mind map as a course

During class, begin by writing "I work best when…" in the center of the board. Get the ball rolling with a few examples: "I piece of work best when I've recently played a sport," or "I work best when I've sketched out my ideas using colorful pens." Write each instance on a new line that connects it to the center.

Next, invite your students to provide suggestions and add them to the board as they are given, connecting each proposition to the center with a new line.

You lot'll soon finish upwards with a basic mind map.

Mind Map Lesson Plan Step 1

If your students take used listen mapping earlier, they may recognize the format. If not, innovate the concept and discuss some of the benefits with them.

On the projector, yous could also share some examples of how students can use mind mapping in class to accept notes, when brainstorming for an essay or project, or at dwelling house while reading or studying. Bank check out our student'southward guide to listen mapping for lots of relevant examples to share.

Step 2: Make a dreaded assignment easier with mind maps

Students often dread writing essays, so they're sure to be grateful for learning a new trick that volition make the task easier. As it then happens, one of the best uses of mind mapping is for essay writing.

Using mind maps, students can easily brainstorm ideas for the topic of their essay; they tin collect arguments, quotes, and other information from various sources; and they tin can visually outline the structure of their essays.

Students are sure to warm up to the heed mapping technique once they see how much easier it is to write an essay when they've first visualized all of their arguments and created a proper structure for them.

Example Essay Mind Map

Nosotros've put together a stride-by-pace guide on essay writing with listen maps that you tin written report earlier introducing the ideas to your form or share with your students.

Step three: Have students create a mind map for homework

Assess pupil progression by setting your students the chore of creating their own heed map for homework using a home or school-library computer.

Building a mind map for simple brainstorming is a good way to get them started every bit there are no right or incorrect ideas and students are completely gratuitous to note down whatsoever and all thoughts related to the topic they are given.

If you're planning on giving students a writing assignment well-nigh a certain topic, inquire them to brainstorm ideas for the essay in a mind map start.

Student Essay Brainstorming Example

four Case Listen Mapping Activities for Students

If you aren't planning to have your students write an essay anytime soon, that's okay. You can simply substitute step two of your mind map lesson plan with any of the heed mapping activities for students beneath, many of which were recommended past teachers in the MindMeister community.

1. Revision listen map

A few weeks or months after introducing students to a new topic is the perfect time to do a quick review of what you lot've learned and then far in order to deepen students' understanding of the material and assistance them memorize information technology long-term. Creating a revision mind map is perfect for this purpose.

At the beginning of class, enquire your students to open up a new, bare mind map in MindMeister and write your subject and the year in the centre of the map. If you're covering a specific theme or subject area this year, they can write that in the center topic as well.

At present, requite students v minutes to create a mind map of the material y'all've covered so far. The structure of the map is not of import at this signal. Instead, students should do a kind of encephalon-dump where they let their thoughts flow freely and but note down annihilation they can call back.

They may terminate upwardly with something similar this:

Example Revision Mind Map

When the 5 minutes are over, projection your own version of the mind map onto the screen. You can either ready it up front or create the map live in forepart of the students' eyes. Inquire students to compare their brain-dump to your map, adding keywords they may have left out and rearranging their topics to fit with your structure.

To finish this exercise, tell students what you will be discussing today, and evidence them how this new topic connects to what was covered before. Ask them to add together this new topic to the mind map in the appropriate place.

2. Heed map presentation

Creating a Presentation in MindMeister

Mind maps aren't merely great for encephalon-dumps, they're also fantastic presentation tools. They show how individual pieces of data are connected and let students meet the bigger picture show. This helps them comprehend and retain data more easily.

Instead of having students create slide decks for the next topic they're going to present to the class, have them create a heed map. This will help their peers spot connections and will foreclose students from just reading from a slide deck while presenting.

3. Group assignment

Group assignments are supposed to encourage collaboration between students. In most cases, nonetheless, one or two students will sacrifice themselves to do all the work while the residue will but goof off and play with their phones.

Group mind mapping can change that. Tools such as MindMeister enable multiple students to all work on a heed map at the aforementioned time. In contrast to a bullet-point list or text document, everyone can hands add their own contributions to the map wherever they fit.

MindMeister also offers a historical view of all of its maps, assuasive you to replay the entire change history of a heed map and see exactly who contributed what and when.

Change History Video in MindMeister

four. Reading comprehension exercise

Taking notes in a mind map while reading a complicated text can help students break downwards the information into more manageable chunks. They are able to capture thoughts and questions that arise while they're reading, and they can visualize connections between private arguments and facts presented to them.

A good way to ensure they capture the key points of the text is by providing them with a mind map template that they tin make full in at abode. A typical reading comprehension template for a novel might include branches for the primary characters, themes, motives, plot points, and some background information nearly the book and the author.

For nonfiction texts, a typical template could look something like this:

Nonfiction Mind Map Template

Of grade, the same principle can also be used to aid students comprehend a complicated moving-picture show, documentary, or play.

When they're washed, students can either share their mind maps with you (via link or e-mail) or discuss them in a grouping setting in form.

Mind Mapping for Teachers: 6 Ways to Use Mind Maps in the Classroom

Mind mapping isn't just an action y'all teach to your students, information technology's too 1 you lot can actively use every day in the classroom to meliorate collaboration and achievement.

Students are more likely to empathize and retain data when it'south displayed through a combination of words and imagery. Mind maps offer a fantastic format that combines not but words and images merely also colors, a graphical structure, and other mental triggers that better long-term memory.

Hither are six groovy ways you tin can use mind maps in your classroom and lessons every twenty-four hour period.

1. Create a curriculum overview or lesson programme

At the kickoff of the semester, prepare a curriculum overview or lesson plan mind map that provides an introduction of all of the topics you're planning to cover.

Class curriculum mind map

You can also add examination dates and learning goals to the mind map and adhere worksheets. Then, share this map with your students then they can use it as a guide during the semester and notice out what they need to take hold of up on if they've missed a grade.

ii. Organize and manage class projects

If you're planning a projection with your students, you desire to brand sure everyone knows exactly what they are supposed to do. What's more than, you probably want a central place where all project-related information is stored and can easily be accessed and updated.

Photography project mind map

A mind map is a great format you lot can apply to create a visual overview of a whole project. You lot can add a description of the assignment, provide deadlines, add together links to useful websites, embed examples, and more.

3. Create engaging presentations in less than three minutes

Listen maps are a great tool to present complex concepts to your students. Drawing a listen map live in front end of your students will help them follow your train of idea more easily. They will likewise be able to run across how individual ideas are connected, and when your map is finished, they will be able to run into the big motion picture.

You can use MindMeister to put together a listen map and and then but turn it into a slideshow. The nifty part nigh this is that it takes no time at all—you can create an engaging presentation in less than three minutes. Take a look at the existent-time video below to see how this works:

four. Create discussion templates and foster critical thinking

Create topic and discussion templates and broadcast them to all of your students. These templates may either be filled in by students or used as a springboard to create their own maps.

Anthony Valentin, a World History teacher at New York City's Stuyvesant High School, says, "I ofttimes utilise MindMeister to elicit responses to questions posed later students had watched a moving picture or read a document. Other students can then edit and/or substitute their own commentary."

"The goal is to get students to critically think about sources and share their thoughts. We review the piece of work in course by projecting the mind map on a screen," Valentin says.

five. Facilitate oral exams and lesson reviews

If you want to exam how much a educatee knows or understands well-nigh a certain topic, let them draw a mind map most it and explicate information technology simultaneously, either on the blackboard or on a piece of newspaper. This volition give you insight into the student's thought process and testify whether they've really grasped the cardinal ideas of the topic and how they're connected.

Paper Mind Map

At the same time, the act of cartoon the mind map will put your student'southward brain into action. Instead of forgetting big chunks of information due to nervousness and stress, the mind map volition help them relax and enable their brains to retrieve information more easily.

vi. Create games, quizzes, and questionnaires

The use of mind maps isn't limited to brainstorming and project planning. You lot can also apply this versatile tool for games, quizzes, and questionnaires.

For example, hither'due south a "Observe the matching pairs" mind map, or check out the simple geography quiz below:

Example Mind Map Quiz

There Are Lots of Means to Use Mind Maps in the Classroom

We hope you now feel gear up to teach mind mapping to your students and thus provide them with a valuable skill they will do good from for the residuum of their lives.

Besides essay writing, heed mapping can be helpful for all kinds of educational tasks such as notation-taking, creating engaging presentations, and more.

For more ideas on how to utilize listen maps in the classroom, take a look at these articles:

  • Case Studies: Mind Mapping in the Classroom
  • Become Inspired With These 13 Listen Map Examples
  • 8 Lesson Ideas That Promote Lifelong Learning
  • 8 Inspiring Examples of Educational Heed Maps
  • Like shooting fish in a barrel to Use Listen Map Templates for Teachers and Students

Originally published in July 2016, this mail has been updated to consolidate three blog posts into one in order to create a more comprehensive guide to mind mapping for teachers.