How to teach mind mapping and how to make a mind map Mind mapping is a visual form of note taking that offers an overview of a topic and its complex information, allowing students to comprehend, create new ideas and build connections. Through the use of colors, images and words, mind mapping encourages students to begin with a central idea and expand outward to more in-depth sub-topics. Mind Map Example Definition of a Mind Map A mind map is a visual representation of hierarchical information that includes a central idea surrounded by connected branches of associated topics. Benefits of Mind Maps Help students brainstorm and explore any idea, concept, or problem Facilitate better understanding of relationships and connections between ideas and concepts Make it easy to communicate new ideas and thought processes Allow students to easily recall information Help students take notes and plan tasks Make it easy to organize ideas and concepts How to Mind Map Mind Maps in Education and Teaching with Mind Maps Mind Mapping Software
Best Mind Mapping Tools If you’re tired of constantly getting lost in the thicket of ideas, half-concepts and free-floating words that emerge from your brainstorming sessions, then you should think about using a mind mapping tool. Though the concept of mind mapping has been around for centuries, it was popularized in the 1970s by a British psychologist named Tony Buzan, whose own mind-mapping software program, iMindMap, is listed below. Mind maps can be a useful way to get your ideas out there and see how they’re connected. Bubbl.us Bubbl.us is a Web app, which means you don’t have to download anything to use it. If you want to save your mind map for later, you can create a free account by filling out your username, password, and email address. Coggle Sign up for Coggle using your Google account–assuming you have one–and start mapping your mind within seconds, right in your browser. You can change the shape of your mind map by clicking and holding to drag the branches around. iMindMap Mapul Mind42 It’s that easy.
High School Teachers These Thinker's Guides are available through electronic license for educational institutions. Faculty and administrators - email cct@criticalthinking.org to inquire. This set includes the thinker’s guides which focus on the foundations of critical thinking. It also includes those guides useful in contextualizing essential critical thinking concepts and principles for classroom instruction. And it contains the thinker’s guides we recommend for student use.
What is Mind Mapping? (and How to Get Started Immediately) A mind map is a graphical way to represent ideas and concepts. It is a visual thinking tool that helps structuring information, helping you to better analyze, comprehend, synthesize, recall and generate new ideas. Just as in every great idea, its power lies in its simplicity. In a mind map, as opposed to traditional note taking or a linear text, information is structured in a way that resembles much more closely how your brain actually works. So, how does a mind map look like? (click for larger image) This is a mind map about – conveniently enough – mind mapping itself. Benefits and Uses I think I already gave away the benefits of mind mapping and why mind maps work. But what can we use mind maps for? Note takingBrainstorming (individually or in groups)Problem solvingStudying and memorizationPlanningResearching and consolidating information from multiple sourcesPresenting informationGaining insight on complex subjectsJogging your creativity How to Draw a Mind Map Some more recommendations:
critical-thinking - home Models -- Instructional Design The Taxonomy Table -- Faculty Resources -- OSU Extended Campus -- Oregon State University How to Write Objectives Adapted from A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Lorin W. To dispell the confusion between the means and ends of instruction, contemplate these definitions: Ends Objectives describe intended results, outcomes, and changes. Means Instructional activities, such as reading a textbook, listening to lectures, conducting surveys, and observing field work, are means by which objectives are achieved. For an objective or outcome to be measurable, learning a fact, concept, or procedure is implied. Examples taken from OSU Extended Campus distance courses are attached to each category in the Cognitive Process Dimension and the Knowledge Dimension in the taxonomy table below. For consultation regarding writing objectives and activities for distance courses, please contact: Dianna Fisher, Director of Project Development & Training Office: (541) 737-8658 Cell: (541) 230-4029 Extended Campus Oregon State University
Toulmin Model Stephen Toulmin, originally a British logician, is now a professor at USC. He became frustrated with the inability of formal logic to explain everyday arguments, which prompted him to develop his own model of practical reasoning. The first triad of his model consists of three basic elements: A claim is the point an arguer is trying to make. The claim answers the question, "So what is your point?" example: "You should send a birthday card to Mimi, because she sent you one on your birthday." example: "I drove last time, so this time it is your turn to drive." fact: claims which focus on empirically verifiable phenomena judgment/value: claims involving opinions, attitudes, and subjective evaluations of things policy: claims advocating courses of action that should be undertaken Grounds refers to the proof or evidence an arguer offers. Grounds can consist of statistics, quotations, reports, findings, physical evidence, or various forms of reasoning. example: "It looks like rain.
Bloom’s Taxonomy by Patricia Armstrong, Assistant Director, Center for Teaching Background Information In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Familiarly known as Bloom’s Taxonomy, this framework has been applied by generations of K-12 teachers and college instructors in their teaching. The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The categories after Knowledge were presented as “skills and abilities,” with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice. While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly remembered according to the six main categories.
Questioning – Top Ten Strategies “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein Questioning is the very cornerstone of philosophy and education, ever since Socrates ( in our Western tradition) decided to annoy pretty much everyone by critiquing and harrying people with questions – it has been central to our development of thinking and our capacity to learn. Indeed, it is so integral to all that we do that it is often overlooked when developing pedagogy – but it as crucial to teaching as air is to breathing. We must ask: do we need to give questioning the thought and planning time something so essential to learning obviously deserves? Do we need to consciously teach students to ask good questions and not just answer them? Most research indicates that as much as 80% of classroom questioning is based on low order, factual recall questions. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Q1. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Added Extras: Like this: Like Loading...
Operation ARIES! Professors wanted a better way to teach the skills of critical thinking and scientific reasoning, students wanted engagement and video games, the answer: Operation ARIES! Operation ARIES! is an intelligent tutoring system that using principles from the science of learning and serious learning games. The training proceeds in three stages: the Training Module, the Case Studies Module, and the Interrogation Module. In the Training Module, students learn about science by reading the Fuath's Guide to the Bean's World of Science that was written by aliens (the Fuaths). The game covers 21 scientific concepts shared among psychology, sociology, biology, and chemistry. Critical thinking activity game for high,middle school,college students,problem solving skills games Shift 2 for kids,adults Shift 2 is a totally addicting brain-teasing puzzle platformer game for all ages which helps develop your logic / analytical thinking skills (A puzzle platform is a jumping puzzle game where the key objective involves solving puzzles or riddles). Make your way through the maze (labyrinth) to earn your trophy, turn your world around, and challenge and develop your problem solving skills. The objective of the game is to reach the key to unlock the door in order to proceed to the next level. You can clear your saved data at any time by clicking on the ‘Clear data’ icon. How to Play: Use the Arrow Keys on your computer keyboard to turn right and left.
Fallacies A fallacy is a kind of error in reasoning. The list of fallacies contains 209 names of the most common fallacies, and it provides brief explanations and examples of each of them. Fallacies should not be persuasive, but they often are. An informal fallacy is fallacious because of both its form and its content. The discussion that precedes the long alphabetical list of fallacies begins with an account of the ways in which the term "fallacy" is vague. Table of Contents 1. The first known systematic study of fallacies was due to Aristotle in his De Sophisticis Elenchis (Sophistical Refutations), an appendix to the Topics. The more frequent the error within public discussion and debate the more likely it is to have a name. The term "fallacy" is not a precise term. In describing the fallacies below, the custom is followed of not distinguishing between a reasoner using a fallacy and the reasoning itself containing the fallacy. Real arguments are often embedded within a very long discussion.