How Teachers Can Quickly Create Lesson Plans Using Mind Maps
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Lesson Planning using Mind Maps
Learn how to create great lesson plans using Mind Mapping techniques.
Plan Your Lessons using Mind Mapping
Teachers have many demands on their time outside of what they get paid to do while in the classroom e.g. after school sports and clubs, department meetings and marking homework. With only so many hours in a day, that means creating and updating lesson plans sometimes just doesn't get done properly.
However, help is at hand because teachers are discovering how mind maps speed up lesson planning, make it more enjoyable and encourage collaboration with other teachers. And they're using mind mapping programs such as NovaMind to do this, as an exciting alternative to traditional lesson planning software tools.
Creating lesson plans from mind maps is fast because it's so simple to assign the relevant keywords. Plus it's easy to edit, delete or move them round the map - try doing that with pen and paper or a text document. And where NovaMind mapping software really shines is in the personal creativity it allows you to bring to lesson planning. Contrast that with how menu driven, text-based lesson planning software often has teachers follow a specific and routine layout. Can you spell b-o-r-i-n-g?
However, help is at hand because teachers are discovering how mind maps speed up lesson planning, make it more enjoyable and encourage collaboration with other teachers. And they're using mind mapping programs such as NovaMind to do this, as an exciting alternative to traditional lesson planning software tools.
Creating lesson plans from mind maps is fast because it's so simple to assign the relevant keywords. Plus it's easy to edit, delete or move them round the map - try doing that with pen and paper or a text document. And where NovaMind mapping software really shines is in the personal creativity it allows you to bring to lesson planning. Contrast that with how menu driven, text-based lesson planning software often has teachers follow a specific and routine layout. Can you spell b-o-r-i-n-g?
Let's look at how mind mapping excels in creating lesson plans that cover three important areas: Goals, Preparation and Teaching Steps.
Are Your Lesson's Goals Up To Standard?
Mind mapping's perfect for easily showing how your lessons follow educational standards (a skill that'll do your future promotion chances no harm either!) Just add a branch labeled 'Goals' and then sub-branches such as Curriculum, Department, Module, Lesson and Students. Using NovaMind's point-and-click linking, you can add links to relevant documents (or web pages) that are on the Internet or on your school's local web server. And you can add, or copy and paste, text to an off map area for each keyword - this is great if you have to later export your mind mapped lesson plans into a text format, such as MS-Word.
Failing To Prepare Is Preparing To Fail
Mind Maps are great for stimulating "what if?" thinking as you prepare lesson plans. Such thinking is often a mix of associative and linear thought processes. For example, you want your lesson to start with a short video clip but then you remember that there's no video projector in the classroom you're assigned to. Can you swap rooms with someone else?
Such 'inner creativity' is unleashed when lesson-planning software makes use of mind mapping tools such as NovaMind. By listing these 'Prepare' items as specific keywords, you can start mentally associating the various steps you (and others) will need to complete for the lesson to go well. You can also hide details by nesting the sub-branches within a higher branch - and show their completion status using check boxes. This means that even complicated mind maps can be simplified and printed out as necessary.
Such 'inner creativity' is unleashed when lesson-planning software makes use of mind mapping tools such as NovaMind. By listing these 'Prepare' items as specific keywords, you can start mentally associating the various steps you (and others) will need to complete for the lesson to go well. You can also hide details by nesting the sub-branches within a higher branch - and show their completion status using check boxes. This means that even complicated mind maps can be simplified and printed out as necessary.
Teaching Step-By-Step
The third step is to structure how you're going to teach your lesson - and with NovaMind as your lesson planning software, it's a snap! For example, a teacher can start adding the Introduction, Main lesson, Summary, Follow-up and Special keywords as branches under the primary 'Teach' keyword. There might be a departmental standard for all lesson plans to use this specific structure - but with the individual teachers having the freedom to uniquely design their maps below this top level.
Innovative lesson planning software naturally encourages collaboration between teachers because it's so simple to link to other mind maps from within lesson plans. A great example is where assessments and homework are in the form of incomplete NovaMind mind maps for all teachers to use when their classes reach that module and lesson. It might be an actual NovaMind file for the students to update individually. Or perhaps an Acrobat PDF version that they can print out at home - less photocopying for you!
Educational software should be a joy to use - and not only for the children! NovaMind makes it easy to create inspiring and flexible lesson plans through the genius of mind maps. Oh, and fun too!
Innovative lesson planning software naturally encourages collaboration between teachers because it's so simple to link to other mind maps from within lesson plans. A great example is where assessments and homework are in the form of incomplete NovaMind mind maps for all teachers to use when their classes reach that module and lesson. It might be an actual NovaMind file for the students to update individually. Or perhaps an Acrobat PDF version that they can print out at home - less photocopying for you!
Educational software should be a joy to use - and not only for the children! NovaMind makes it easy to create inspiring and flexible lesson plans through the genius of mind maps. Oh, and fun too!
Useful Links
- Educational Mind Maps
- Mind Maps about education which you can download and use.
Some sample Mind Maps
Here are some links to sample Mind Maps which you can download and use.
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