Concept Mapping & Mindmapping
Concept map about concept maps (source)
My students and I used a computer-based tool for mindmapping/concept mapping, but you can do it with a pencil and paper or sticky notes and markers on a white board -- simply write down key ideas (nodes or concepts ) and draw lines to sub-categories (subnodes or child nodes or concepts). Simply playing with two-dimensional representations of knowledge is the first level of mapping, but you can use a simple map as a tool to think in more complex ways. Subcategories can nest, with further subcategories. One of the most powerful cognitive levers humans have at our disposal is abstraction: although our short-term memory can hold only a small number of items at any one time (see "The Magical Number Seven" if you want to delve into the psychological evidence behind this), we are able to chunk together smaller units into larger patterns -- we chunk letters into words and words into phrases that can be apprehended at a glance. So just the act of clustering nodes and establishing hierarchies leverages your learning. You can draw lines from nodes across categories, so you can work with hierarchies and associative networks simultaneously.
The use of a two-dimensional map as visual representation is another powerful tool that complements abstraction -- moving post-its on a blackboard or nodes on a mindmapping tool enlists your visual thinking capabilities to break out of the serial order of the printed page, to look at the connections between course themes and the relationships between key components of these themes in a multi-dimensional way. (More advanced work can replace text-only labels for nodes/concepts and for linking verbs with images and/or URLs that link to resources).
My classes at Berkeley and Stanford, met face to face once a week. Each week we explored a number of different issues and questions that emerged from our readings. Then, the next week, we were on to a new theme, new texts, new discussions. Concept maps are one way to try to establish some continuity from week to week, theme to theme, key concept to key concept. By iteratively building out the concept map, we connected what we were learning in the short term with what we learned previously, and at the same time we sought a deeper understanding of the subject matter by exploring its components and the connections between the components as well as connections between themes.
Each week, the co-teaching team developed a concept map for that week's theme and added it to the map that the previous weeks' teams had developed. The team did this by downloading the client software, downloading the last posted map from the previous week's session wiki page, amending the map, and uploading the amended mindmap to the wiki. Link to the mindmap wiki page from the Scoop blog for that session. With their permission, I saved and share some of the student team mindmaps.
This is a helpful article about the theory underlying concept mapping and how to construct them. It offers explanations and sources underlying the learning theory of concept mapping and explains lucidly how to go about building a concept map. This 67-slide PowerPoint about concept mapping in education can be useful, as well. You don't have to read these documents as if they are sources that you might be tested on later. A quick read will orient you to the context of mindmapping and concept mapping; you can return to the cMap document for detailed instructions when you build your own maps. Here is a fast summary of concept mapping steps, adopted from The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Use them (the link at beginning of this paragraph):
Choose a focus question. "a question that clearly specifies the problem or issue the concept map should help to resolve. Every concept map responds to a focus question, and a good focus question can lead to a much richer concept map. When learning to construct concept maps, learners tend to deviate from the focus question and build a concept map that may be related to the domain, but which does not answer the question. It is often stated that the first step to learning about something is to ask the right questions"
List key component concepts ("people" and "communication" are two components of "community," for example; or "nodes" and "links" are components of networks). At least 4 or 5, ideally 15-25 concepts. Keep this in what the cMap people all "the parking lot" -- like putting your stickynotes up in an undifferentiated cluster on a whiteboard before you begin clustering them into related areas.
To the degree that it seems appropriate, prioritize the more general and more specific, more and less important concepts. Don't get hung up on hierarchy to the point where you force it, but see if any hierarchies exist. If you do find a hierarchy, arrange the sub-concepts around or below the central concept.
Move concepts, starting with the most important ones, out of the parking lot and onto your preliminary map (all concept maps are provisional, subject to revision as we learn more about the subject).
Seek words, usually verbs, that connect nodes on your map to create links between them. "People" are individual components of "Community" and "Nodes" connected by "Links" are part of "networks." Passive verb constructions like "are part of" are as acceptable as more active verbs like "require" or "stimulate."
Begin looking for crosslinks between the concepts you already have on your map and between concepts and clusters of concepts on your map that connect to other themes.
Step back, look at your map. Revise. Reposition. Add concepts. Arguing about whether there are links between nodes and how those links should be designated is part of the process. Never fear changing the knowledge landscape that seemed reasonable yesterday if what you know today can build a better picture.
Difference between mindmaps and concept maps
cMap tools on What are the steps to building a concept map?
Video on three concept mapping tools: cMap, VUE, Mindmeister
Vic's Picks Extremely good list of mindmapping tools with thumbnails.
Howard's ongoing list of mindmapping resources.
Wikihow on how to use cMap tools to conceptualize
Jerry Michalski's Brain -- a personal mindmap with 12 years of entries
(Recursion alert:) Five ways to use mindmapping in the newsroom.