Mind maps are a useful tool for helping students to build links between the different aspects of physics. They help students to visualise physics as an interconnected whole, rather than a linear narrative. The act of creating a complex mind map, creating links between different aspects, and moving things around until they make sense can be a powerful aid for students.
There are many mind mapping sites and apps out there, but the one that I have found fits best for my classes is MindMup. My school uses a lot of the Google Education Suite, and so an app that integrates easily with Classroom and Drive is a significant bonus for us.
In the attached video, I briefly explain how I have been using MindMup with my classes and in particular, how I think it might be of benefit whilst we are distance learning with our classes.
The video here is one that was initially made for teachers within my school, but will hopefully be useful to the wider Physics teaching community. One thing that I didn’t mention in the video that will be particularly useful to users of Google Classroom is that you can start a mind map, save it to your Drive, and then set the students each a copy on Classroom. The big advantage to this is that the maps are all then automatically stored in one folder on your drive and you can keep track of students’ progress over the term.
A note on pricing: the basic MindMup is free, but the full package for a whole Google Domain is about $100 per year for the whole school. I am lucky enough to have access to the full package, but the basic is still very good.
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