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Study skills > Module 4 > Page 7

 

Mind Mapping and critical thinking

A Mind Map consists of:

• a central word or concept, around the central word you draw the 5 to 10 main ideas that relate to that word.
• you then take each of those words and again draw the 5 to 10 main ideas that relate to each of those words.

Click on the thumbnail below to view an example of a Mind Map which we have called an 'Ideas Map'.

In this way an exponential number of related ideas can quickly be produced with virtually no mental effort. The concept of 'writers block' is hard to understand once you have grasped the use of this simple technique!

1. What can you do with a mind map?

Note taking:

As a means of note taking mind maps have several advantages over other systems:

• you can place each new idea in the right place, regardless of the order of presentation
• it encourages the reduction of each concept to a single word
• the resultant mind map can be 'seen' by the eye and memorised by your visual memory

Studying the easy way:

Instead of simply reading a book on some topic, next time try using a mind map while you read:

• just draw your central word and then begin reading
• every time you read some idea that strikes you as important or interesting, just add it onto your mind map in the appropriate place
• when you have finished reading the book you will have a one-page mind map which summarises everything of interest in that book
• you will probably also have added several things, which you thought up yourself during your reading
• the act of creating the mind map will have greatly increased how much you absorbed from the book, and if you ever want to review the topic all you need to do is to look at the mind map
• if you want to learn the information very solidly then try to redraw the mind map from memory a few times. You will find it very easy

Studying as a group (or family):

A group of people can work together to produce a single mind map by following these steps:

1. Individually draw mind maps on what you already know about the subject.
2. Draw a group mind map combining what the group already know.
3. Decide what you need to learn based on this group mind map.
4. Individually study the material, all covering the same areas for depth of knowledge or all covering different areas for speed as appropriate. Each person completing the mind map by his/her self.
5. Again combine as a group and create a final master group mind map.

Families who have started regular weekend study days as a hobby have benefited tremendously. Children typically go from average or below average to second or third from the top in all subjects and the parents also find themselves excelling at work. One Swedish family was besieged by neighbourhood children asking if they could join in the fun!

Meetings & Think Tanks:

• creative meetings should always start by people spending a couple of minutes individually mind mapping
• then draw a master mind map on a white board allowing every idea or statement to be recorded and placed in an appropriate place so that it can then be discussed at the appropriate time
• also no one feels ignored as all ideas are placed on the mind map

Giving a talk:

When giving a talk a set of notes in the form of a single mind map has several advantages over other memory aids:

• brief: Only a single page is needed.
• not reading: As ideas are reduced to single words you will not be 'reading' your speech.
• flexibility: If someone asks a question you can move instantly to the place on your mind map which relates to that question and then return to where you were without loosing yourself in a pile of cards or papers.

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2. What you can do with a computer mind map?

Computer Mind Maps offer several major advances over the original paper mind map:

Easy restructuring:

You can easily restructure your mind map, moving words and trees of words around in seconds. This makes the computer mind map even better for quickly creating new ideas and ordering ideas into a meaningful structure.

Highlighting:

Using the style system you can instantly highlight different features of a complex mind map. E.g. you might make all the 'expensive' options suddenly appear in bright red or all the 'good' ideas appear in bold underlined type.

Comments:

Being brief and using single words is the key to a good mind map, but sometimes you need to write sentences of explanation for yourself or others. The computer mind map allows you to do this but to keep the extra information hidden until it is needed.

This can also be used for learning information, you should be able to recite the 'comment' information without looking at it, when you can do this you have 'learned' the contents of the mind map and only need the key words to bring it back.

Presentability:

A computer generated mind map has the same high quality appearance as any other computer generated document.

Export:

With a computer mind map you can instantly export the mind map to a normal text file or to a structured word processor document.

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3. How was it invented?

Mind Mapping was invented by Tony Buzan as a result of his research into note taking techniques.

Note taking:

Tony Buzan studied the three common techniques for taking notes during a lecture:

• writing a complete transcript
• writing a summary
• writing key words only

He then tested each of these and found the following results when testing how much was learned or remembered:

Least learned = 1

1. Complete transcript given to student
2. Student writes complete transcript
3. Summary given to student
4. Student writes summary
5. Key words given to student
6. Student writes own key words

Most learned = 6

Visual memory:

Another seemingly unrelated study on memory was also used in the formation of mind maps. In this study by Ralph Haber 2560 photos were shown to subjects. Then subjects were shown 2560 pairs of photos and asked in each case to say which photo had been in the original group of 2560 and which had not. The success rate at this test averaged between 85% and 95% showing that humans have an almost photographic visual memory. In another study where 10,000 vivid pictures were used a success rate of 99% was recorded.

Originality result:

If two people all draw mini mind maps around the idea 'shoe'. (A mini mind map is a mind map which only goes one level deep, i.e. it only has words which are directly related to the central idea). If each person comes up with seven related words, how many do you think would be duplicates between the two people? Studies have shown that the average is one word in common, and anything above two is very very unusual. Try this yourself, get a friend to write down the first seven things related to the word "shoe", and do the same yourself, then compare the lists.

Mind Maps:

With these results and other research Tony Buzan came up with a new method for taking notes. His new system was based on the idea of making the notes as brief as possible and also as interesting to the eye as possible. The surprising result was that mind maps can be used in many different ways other than just simple note taking.

Click here for more information on mind mapping.

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4. Software

Mind Mapper - a windows based mind mapping application, it allows mind maps to be quickly and easily created and then restructured.

Thinking critically:

Ask yourself the following questions:

• what is the issue?
• What conclusion does the author reach about the issue?
• what are the author's reasons for believing as he does?

Be alert to bad reasoning (i.e. pity, fear, misuse of statistics etc.) that can fool you. Has the author used facts or opinions?

Facts can be proven.

Opinions cannot be proven and may or may not be based on sound reasoning.

Has the author used neutral words or emotional words?

Critical readers look beyond the language to see if the reasons are clear.

What are characteristics of critical thinkers?

• they are honest with themselves
• they resist manipulation
• they overcome confusion
• they ask questions
• they base judgments on evidence
• they look for connections between subjects
• they are intellectually independent

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