Mind Mapping

My assignment is to create a mind-map of one of my topics in my curriculum.

I have chosen to use Inspiration to create a mind map because I have heard of other people using the Inspiration software and it is, in fact, a common tool among graduate students at my college. Therefore it was time for me to become familiarized with this tool.

I wanted to create an image for the science curriculum and I picked the weather unit because students interact with their environment every day and it is important to provide them with an understanding of their surroundings and the factors that affect it. My expected goal of my weather mind-map is to understand the major concepts of temperature, pressure, and relative humidity and their interrelationship. Later on, they will be able to analyze data and apply their skills towards problem solving activities.

Mind-map, concept maps, or graphic organizers can be utilized as "conceptual assessments" where students can demonstrate their understanding through performing work shaped by their own choices. There is not only one way to make a mind map but many different ways and a teacher can find out how their students construct knowledge by just looking at the structure of their maps!

They are a very helpful tool for students to improve their learning because they can:

• Assist understanding
• Create interest
• Organize thoughts
• Increase memorization

Students can use a mind-map to learn about the lesson but they can also create one based on their understanding of the lesson, which I think is even more valuable becuase by playing and manipulating essential information they are reinforcing their learning.

By doing this assignment I learned to read a large amount of academic information, synthesize that infomation into main ideas, and to create a coloful poster that will be my focus in the lesson.
I really like Inspiration because it was easy to use, it had plenty of colors, shapes, images, and templates that made it fun to work with.
I did not use a template because, since it was my first time exploring Inspiration, I wanted to create my own and see if there were any limitations that I needed to be aware of. Next time that I use this tool I will pick one the templates, that all look amazing, and I will challenge myself to organize information into it.