Concept Mapping involves constructing a visual map of different concepts, showing how they relate to one another. Concept maps will often begin with a provided overarching concept, from which other concepts are drawn out.
Unlike a brainstorm, where new ideas may be generated at random, concept maps focus on how different concepts are connected.
Instructions
- Provide students with pens and paper, or an online whiteboard tool.
- Provide an overarching concept for students to start drawing out their maps from.
- Give students guidance about how they might go about drawing a concept map, e.g., suggesting important relationships to consider.
Resources
- Pens and paper, or an online whiteboard tool
Variations
- Make it an individual or group activity: Students could work by themselves, with a partner, in a small group, or together as a class.
- Give more guidance: Provide students with the beginnings of a concept map and have them add to it.
- Make it structured: Provide students with a set list of concepts and/or relationships to use.
- Make it closed or open book: Students could work from memory, or refer to their notes. If run as an open-book activity, encourage students to try to recall the answers first and use their notes to fill in any gaps.
- Make it collaborative: Have different students or groups map out different areas of a topic, then join the different concept maps together, collaboratively adding new connections as needed.
- Make it personalised: Allow students to choose a topic to map that is most relevant to their needs, such as one they are using in an assignment.