Students tend to take notes in a linear fashion, recording points in the order in which the information was provided. This approach is familiar to most people but it’s often time-consuming and isn’t always useful in creating an understanding of a syllabus or committing key information to memory. Non-linear note-taking, using tools like Mindmap, helps students to take fewer, more meaningful notes and deepens their appreciation of the connections between concepts and topics, improving knowledge and understanding. This activity introduces students to digital mindmapping as a creative, playful and impactful approach to note-taking. 

LEARNING OUTCOMES

On completing this activity, students will: 

• Appreciate non-linear notetaking with mind maps as a stimulating, playful and creative approach to notetaking.
• Understand the basic rules and concepts of mind mapping in physical and digital formats, and the benefits of using a digital too.
• Be able to apply structure their mind maps so they can get a useful outcome from the notes takes. This also supports memorisation and understanding of a subject area.

HOW TO DELIVER THIS ACTIVITY

In this activity, students practice by transferring linear notes taken on texts or in lectures into non-linear notes using a digital mind map. This helps them to: create a visual overview of contexts, relationships, and networks in a given topic; organise and structure knowledge from previous notes; and link knowledge to reduce complexity.

BEFORE THE ACTIVITY  

Ask students to bring to class the following: an article, notes they have made from a previous lesson, PowerPoint delivered during a previous less, lesson plans / reading lists and links to relevant online sources.