Putting together courses, I used mind maps for various interesting purposes; In particular, the mind map of the syllabus was very useful. In this article I describe several possibilities of using mind maps to work on syllabus, which can bring more comfort, quality and productivity in this task that is so important for teaching-learning planning.
Nota: O que você precisa para pôr este conteúdo em prática é uma pequena parte do artigo; o restante tem finalidade didática. Para facilitar essa aplicação, que é o que no fim das contas dá sentido ao conhecimento, no final você encontra um sumário da parte relevante em mapa mental.
Mind maps and visualization of the structure of the CP
Recording and organizing search results
Structure visualization
Consider this math syllabus (for ease, let's refer to the syllabus as CP):
Syllabus – Mathematics (partial)
1. Sets
1.1. Representation and relationship: pertinence, inclusion and equality.
1.2. Sets: Operations of union, intersection, difference, complementary and Cartesian product.
1.3. Numerical Sets and Operations: Natural, Integer, Rational, Irrational and Real.
2. Functions
2.1. Definition of function, domain, image, graphs, growth and degrowth.
2.2. Functions: polynomial, modular, rational, exponential and logarithmic.
2.3. Progressions: Arithmetic Progressions and Geometric Progressions.
Now see a representation of this same CP in a mind map:
Which do you think is more productive to understand? I think you'll agree that it's in the form of a mind map; if not, you have mastered some special thinking skill out of the ordinary.
And why is it more productive in mind mapping? The explanation goes through the way our thinking works and its relationship with perception, more specifically observation.
Imagine that you are wanting to build a house. One of the things you do first, if not outsource, is sketch out the structure of the house, in the form of a floor plan.
You will have to talk to someone about this plan, either with who else will live in the house, or with who will build it. What would it be like to talk about the house without the plan? Check this by trying to describe in words your current residence; You will even be able to inform the structure, such as how many and which rooms, but when you get to the details of areas and distribution, you will have difficulties and may not even be successful yet.
Plans and maps play an important role in representing information: they visually show us the structure. In other words, they constitute visual models of the structure of some object or territory.
A visual model of the structure plays a key role in our intelligence: it guides perception. For example, when looking at a house plan, we identify the rooms and then we can focus on one room at a time. From this structure, we can apply divide-to-conquer (I prefer to structure to conquer) and it is much easier to maintain concentration due to the visual support.
Once we have a structure, we can think about each component of that structure. For example, what will the room be like, what furniture and decoration will it have? In fact, the structure is the basis for all the planning for structuring the property and consequently the budget.
In another context, how would we do without road maps? What if we had the highways and cities described only in common language, that is, prose?
By looking at a road map, we can quickly find out which cities exist, where they are, and what the possible paths are between them. A map quickly tells us what exists in a territory.
A visual model of the structure guides observation and thought.
The figure that represents the model of the structure can be on paper, on the canvas, or in thought. If we have it memorized, we don't need external support, which we have to resort to to reactivate information that we don't remember. And by memorizing, thinking about the structure can also be much faster.
A visual model of the structure guides memorization and recall.
Mind maps and visualization of the structure of the CP
When we observe a PC that does not show its structure or shows it only partially, as in the example above, the complicating factor is that we have to identify this structure for ourselves and stabilize it in the mind without external support.
The same CP in mind map shows the structure visually, even if reduced so that the text cannot be read, as in the next figure.
By visualizing the structure of the PC, then, as in the case of a plant, we can quickly identify each individual element and think about it, either by evaluating or by making decisions, while maintaining its relationship to the element above, which provides it with context, and its position in the whole.
Elaboration
A teacher may receive the syllabus ready, may have to prepare it from scratch or even receive a syllabus that must be detailed. We consider here the case where you have to work on the assembly of the CP.
In my experience, developing a non-trivial syllabus is not a linear process, but a progressive one: we go through it several times in iterations (cycles), each iteration includes, changes and deletes topics, changes its organization multiple times. When we are planning lessons, sometimes we discover a sequence problem or omission or we still think it is worth inserting something, and we have to go back to the CP (changing the scope, hardness!). A mathematical form that illustrates this iterative and progressive process very well is the spiral.
In this type of scenario, it becomes very important to have a good visualization of the structure, to better see the whole, the structure and the dependencies, and also that we can quickly edit the changes.
That's why all the syllabus I've done for a long time has been edited in a mind map made in an app. I have already mentioned the visualization aspect of the structure; Editing, on the other hand, is very fast: moving topics requires a single mouse gesture, for example.
Quality assessment
Take a look at the following mind map, of an already somewhat old Biology syllabus of the PAS at UnB.
Note that there are two repeats in different branches, Virus/Associate characteristics... and Microorganisms/Ecological Importance (in stronger yellow). There may be some reason for the repetition, but it is most likely an inconsistency.
These repetitions may in fact constitute organizational anomalies. Organizational anomalies generate disorder in the relationships between the elements of the PC, whose effect on the reader is confusion, as opposed to clarity, and a planning that uses this PC will also be impaired.
When you plan these parts, you will have to deal with the anomalies that you may receive. If you have to tinker a lot, making changes to a mind map will be very productive. This still depends on the usability provided by the app, but overall it adds value.
By the way, see that these quality issues were observed by a complete layman in the content in question (myself), and the visualization of the structure provided by the mind map helped a lot.
Recording and organizing search results
Ideally, when you prepare a course, you would have a single courseware and source. In practice, you will have multiple sources, some more useful and others with only some relevant passage. There are several possibilities for each source in terms of information and what to do:
- Sources discovered but not explored.
- Digital fonts will have hyperlinks to your file or page.
- Notes, such as reminders and things to do.
- Control markings, such as completed, in progress, and not yet worked on.
The syllabus mind map can be used as a basis for organizing and controlling research:
- If there is a hyperlink, it is inserted into the very topic to which it refers; if more than one, they are inserted as subtopics.
- Small notes are inserted as subtopics; larger notes, such as topic notes.
- Colors can indicate progress, such as green for those already processed, blue for in progress and no color for those that are yet to be evaluated.
I've done a lot of research and sometimes I use a mind map, sometimes I use Word, it's case-by-case decisions. The navigation pane of the most recent versions of Word made it much easier to work on the structure of the content, and made things more practical that I would only do before in mind map. It has also happened that I start in Word and then go to mind map, as well as the other way around.
I believe that for you it will also be a case-by-case decision, sometimes based on experience; There are things that seem great in thought, but the deepening and the experience are what really reveal what is best.
By the way, EasyMapper 2.0 has brought features that make it much easier to record research results; see the article Speeding up the mechanical and repetitive part of searches, in the TCC section.
CP mind map as a deliverable
The syllabus is an artifact with the interesting characteristic of being both an internal information product, that is, of work, and deliverable, that is, it will be made available externally to the process. The traditional use is in official documents, such as in the Course Plan; let's look at other possible uses of a CP's mind map as a deliverable.
Summary for students
You can give students the mind map of the syllabus, which they can use in a variety of ways.
A piece of content can be more or less active in the mind; sometimes we refer to it as the information being present. Students can use the PC to quickly reactivate what they have already worked on in relation to the discipline.
Students can also use CP to do learning checks, testing what they know for each topic. The difficulties they have will be input for dedication planning. A check can also be used to recognize progress already made; Useful for those who are focused on the empty part of the cup and thus not valuing what they have already achieved.
A very usable digital format of a mind map is in a PDF file, with a page size that fits the entire mind map on a single page. The look of this way has no divisions. As of version 2.0, EasyMapper generates such a PDF with a single command.
In certain circumstances and when possible, I prefer a printed mind map, because it allows a complete view of the whole in the same visual field. Something I would consider would be to provide a CP form to the students. Good mind mapping programs allow for their expansion; I would also consider printing a large version to nail to the wall, a poster, where it can be seen many times and be used to indicate some topic without having the digital image of it. This option was used twice in a cultural fair episode, told on this page.
Dissemination of distance learning course
If you are going to offer a distance course, you will have to advertise it, which usually includes the syllabus. This disclosure can be done with the image of the mind map, possibly adding value to your authority as a teacher (depending on how it is done, of course).
In my case, I consider that I do not need to disclose the complete CP; it adds nothing to prospective students and takes up more space. What I usually do is generate a scaled-down version, with just the main levels, maybe three.
I've seen the terms syllabus and syllabus used synonymously, but if we define syllabus as the higher levels of the syllabus, which seems appropriate to me, then disclosing the syllabus of your course is enough.
Summary
Below is a summary of the content of this article in mind map.
Click here to download this mind map in PDF (136 kB).
Click here to download the original mind map (.easyx, 20 kB).
