Mind mapping lets learners interact with ideas like puzzle pieces. Using our visual, spatial and kinesthetic senses, mind mapping allows people to build a visual model of a concept and organize that information logically.
When mapping an idea, a person can skip around from topic to topic, but rather than leading to confusion, mind mapping provides an effective way to capture thinking as it happens. Mapping allows students to capture ideas and integrate content in no fixed or prescribed order, and in ways that use multiple senses. This is where visual learning and mind mapping come in. This is excellent for delivering information, but synthesizing and integrating new information – the key to deep learning – requires very different cognitive processes. Lectures, videos and textbooks all present information in orderly linear ways – with a beginning, middle and end.
For most of our lives, we are asked to learn information that is presented in a linear form. Why is Visual Learning So Useful for Learners?įor teachers and students, mind mapping offers a fundamentally different way to work with information. I also provide 8 template mind maps, which you can take straight to the classroom. In this article, I offer a breakdown of the cognitive learning theories behind how the visual learning technique, mind mapping, can assist learners. As I explain in my book, Visual Leap: A Step-by-Step Guide to Visual Learning for Teachers and Students, the reason mind mapping works so well is because it matches how people naturally think – which is not how most people are taught. It is a universal thinking strategy a way to organize ideas and learn just about anything. The value of mind mapping goes beyond simple webbing done in elementary school. Mind mapping is often considered a visual learning strategy for brainstorming or visualizing ideas, but it is actually far more than that.