Mind Maps Help Students Navigate Challenging Material

By Doug Buehl, Madison East High School teacher

May 1996

Drive down Leonardo Street for about 10 blocks until you come to the second set of lights. Turn left onto Raphael and go about three blocks until you see a Citgo Station. Continue another half block and take the first right. You are now on Botticelli Boulevard, which winds through a subdivision and then along a heavily wooded park. When you come to the railroad intersection, go about a quarter of a mile until you see the Lutheran Church. Take a sharp left on Van Gogh ... .

What we really need here is a map! Maps are visual representations designed to guide us to our destinations. They allow us to perceive how all the necessary information is connected within the context of "the big picture." They let us see where we are going, and they alert us to important "signposts" along the way.

Likewise, students find that visual overviews which display major concepts and their relationships can make tough journeys through textbook chapters more navigable. Buzan (1983) terms these graphic organizers that demonstrate the connections among key concepts and ideas "mind maps."

The Strategy

Mind maps are a strategy that can effectively introduce new material to students. Tierney and his associates (1990) describe the following steps for using these graphic organizers as a preview for learning:

Step 1: Analyze a passage students will be reading in terms of the important ideas and concepts to be learned. Next, identify the key vocabulary from the reading which is necessary for understanding these concepts. Ignore any difficult terms in the text not essential to learning the central ideas. This way students won't get sidetracked by terms that are only of secondary importance when they read.

For example, for a chapter in Earth Science on glaciers, you might determine the following central concepts: (1) glaciers are moving masses of ice; (2) glaciers have had great impact on the features of the Earth; and (3) glaciers have periodically covered much of the land surface of the Earth.

Key vocabulary on glaciers from the chapter might be: ice front; erosion; lateral, ground, and end moraines; till; drumlin; esker; kame; kettle; and ice age.

Step 2: Organize the key concepts and vocabulary into a graphic outline which shows relationships and connections among the terms. Include visual elements such as arrows, boxes, circles, pictorial representations, or other creative touches to make the mind map more vivid and memorable.

In addition to the specific vocabulary featured in the reading, integrate into the map relevant terms that the students already know. These familiar "landmarks" will help students recognize how the material fits into their current background knowledge of the subject. In our glacier example, we might add well-known state locations, such as Devil's Lake, which contain glacial features, and references to global warming, which students could relate to this concept.

Step 3: Present the mind map to the class to prepare them for the new material to be learned. This can be done using an overhead transparency. Students may be given copies of the mind map to discuss as a small group activity. Encourage students to speculate on the meanings of the new vocabulary and the nature of the relationships between concepts. Stimulate the discussions with open-ended questions, such as "What can you tell me by looking at this overview?"

Step 4: Recommend students have their mind maps available to consult as they read the new selection. To prompt the use of these overviews as guides, you may ask them to add new words to the mind maps, both from the text and from their experience as they make connections while they read. After reading, students might return to their small groups to add more important ideas and terms to their copies of the maps.

Step 5: After students become practiced in using mind maps, they can become involved in a number of variations of this strategy:

• Students can be given a list of important concepts and terms and be asked to create their own mind maps. This can be an especially effective activity to help students see relationships within material they have just read and can be done both individually and in small groups.
• Students can select their own list of important concepts and terms from a passage and create a mind map that represents their understanding of the relationships. In addition they could add information from their own background to this graphic overview.
• Students can be assigned a chapter to map for their classmates, and be given the task of presenting the overview to their fellow students to introduce a new reading.

Advantages

Graphic organizers have been increasingly popular as an effective strategy to use with students. Using mind mapping to preview new material accrues the following advantages:

• Students encounter and discuss critical new vocabulary before reading a potentially challenging passage.
• Students have a visual outline of the major ideas and relationships between important information.
• Students see how what they already know fits into the new material they will be studying.
• Mind maps can be created for use in all content areas and are appropriate for students from elementary to high school levels.

Further Resources: Buzan T. (1983) Use Both Sides of Your Brain. Rev. Ed. New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc. Tierney, R., Readance, J., & Dishner, E. (1990) Reading Strategies and Practices: A compendium. 3rd Ed. Boston: and Bacon.