Mind map: collect all student input on one slide
The mind map is a favourite feature in LessonUp, allowing you to gather all students' answers, ideas, and thoughts on a single slide. It also lets you easily group or rearrange their input to match your learning objectives. There are many ways to use a mind map.
20% of teachers who work with LessonUp use a mind map in their lessons.
Did you know that a mind map is an effective way to active prior knowledge?
Mind maps give > 90% of students a voice—Almost all students answer them!
Activate prior knowledge
Many teachers use mind maps to kickstart students' thinking by tapping into what they already know. Organising and reviewing this prior knowledge helps students grasp new material more effectively. According to Cognitive Load Theory, if we don’t refresh old information, it can prevent us from learning and remembering new concepts.
By starting a lesson with a mind map, you create space for new ideas and build directly on what students already understand.
Reinforce student understanding
Consider students who have recently explored subjects such as natural disasters and plate tectonics during their geography lessons. By placing a powerful image, such as one of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, at the centre of a digital mind map, you can encourage them to analyse what happened before and after that moment. This method can be tailored to anything, enabling students to engage deeply with the material.
Even if they don’t know the exact location or timing of the image, their existing knowledge of the topic can help them grasp the events leading up to and following the scene.
Encourage reflective practice and critical thinking
Use a mind map to create a matrix template that serves as both a revision tool and a way for your students to organise their learning. It prompts them to think critically about what they know, what they don’t understand well enough, what they may have absorbed unknowingly, and what they might be missing. This kind of reflective practice is ideal for home learning and can be easily included in a student portfolio.
You can present a learning matrix in various formats: for independent completion, as an informative slide for reference, or as an interactive feature to complete together in the class.
Organise learning in categories
Categorising information offers students many cognitive benefits and enhances their learning process. It’s a powerful method that helps students organise, understand, and recall knowledge. This approach promotes critical thinking, reduces cognitive load, and improves overall learning effectiveness. LessonUp’s mind map allows students to drag information into different categories and easily form various groupings.
Using a mind map in this way helps learners recall knowledge, making it a valuable revision tool for exam preparation or a regular component of a student portfolio.
Create links between different topics
Establishing connections between different topics is an excellent way to consolidate knowledge by promoting synthesis, application, problem-solving skills, and long-term retention. It turns learning from isolated facts into a meaningful web of understanding. This approach is called ‘interdisciplinary learning’ or ‘connecting learning experiences’. A mind map can facilitate this by functioning as a perfect Venn diagram.
You can ask your students to provide one or more examples for each circle, encouraging them to explore logical relationships between these examples.
💡 More lessons and learning techniques with mind maps
Try out a mind map to consolidate student input on one slide, activate prior knowledge, reflective practice and organisation of information.
Use or edit any of the mind maps from our learning techniques, curriculum content or lesson library! Do you prefer to create your own? It's easy! 👇