UTS Digital Generation – Danny Mavromatis

“Why mindmap?” is a very good question raised by Matthew. I’ve seen a few mind-maps now from both teachers and students at UTS and invariably they have been complex, with connections going everywhere, and difficult to read and understand. One part of me thinks, yes that looks pretty and obviously a lot of work has gone into it. However, another little voice in my head is saying “what is the point of this”? Is it just me? Does the emperor have no clothes?

Some of the mind-maps presented must have taken hours to do. I mean, you put one up for a discussion point for a few minutes and then it’s over. Is that a good use of a teacher’s valuable time? If the mind-map is overly busy or crowded, my eyes glaze over anyway and I suspect most students would react in the same way. What learning outcomes are being achieved?

I decided to review the literature to see if it could shed any light on my problem with seeing relevance. There is no shortage of papers that wax lyrical about using graphics organisers such as mind-maps (aka semantic maps). However, there is very little hard evidence of the benefits that they may provide.

Here is a skeptical view from a UK newspaper.

“They are no good as planning tools for those with a linguistic bias, as the process of creating one is too bloody slow and, maybe because of all the left-brain-right-brain-cross-filtration-action, they can give you a headache. But they are a useful piece in any teachers’ repertoire, given the right circumstances.”

What about student use of mind-mapping? A research paper (PDF) compared the effectiveness of using mind-mapping (a graphics organiser) compared to outlining (an advanced organiser) and to a control group when learning Life Science in the seventh grade.

“Important differences did result between groups on the unit test scores. The outlining group significantly performed better than the mind-mapping group and control group. However, there was not a difference between the mind-mapping group and the control group. There was no difference in the one-week delayed comprehensive post-test scores between groups.”

Having said all this, would I use a mind-map in teaching Mathematics? I could see a possible use as an advanced organiser when starting a new unit of work. However, I would keep it very simple and colourful, with large bold text. I would not have more than six or seven boxes up on screen. Any more is too confusing and won’t be absorbed and remembered. (From psychology earlier in the year, we should take note that our short-term memory limit is only about seven items).

“Why Do We Teach” by Annie Agnew

The link you provided for “Freedom Fighters” was good and I found the story inspiring. I wish there had been a bit more detail about the actual teaching side of things.

The “Ron Clark Story” link confused me. We had a very famous runner in Australia by that name (it may have been Clarke). Not the same person! And very little detail in the link.

The “Teacher Man” link to an interview that Mr McCourt gave was fascinating. I read it from start to finish and ate up the words. However, at the end of it, I came away feeling that he wasn’t really enthralled by his life as a teacher. He seemed a bit jaded or even cynical about other people’s perceptions on the worthiness of teaching. I felt he had always been a frustrated writer who was now free and in his element. That’s how it came across to me anyway.