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For over a decade educators have been encouraging independent thinking, which has been working to bring the best out of students and those who work with them. It is through education that our future leaders, economists, doctors, managers and entrepreneurs are created.
How can we ensure that each individual makes the most of the gifts they have and develop to their full potential? There is a growing desire to find out just what is needed to adapt and change education systems to make a substantial difference. Educationalists are realising that the vast amount of knowledge that we are expected to fill our students’ heads with is not as useful to them as an ability to understand their true potential via individual learning experiences that can be applied to life and work.
Recent interest in the brain’s plasticity abilities challenges ideas of fixed intelligence previously held by psychologists, and seems to suggest that if schools and teachers get it right anyone can learn anything. On the surface this creates a daunting prospect of a string of new initiatives, which may involve the usual endless bureaucracy and paperwork. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has provided much insight into how learning takes place. This work has lent weight to theories of learning, which educationalists worldwide have ignored for many years. These include theories of accelerated learning that build on the way the two hemispheres of the brain complement each other.
We need to examine the theories of how we learn to lead us to new practice in the classroom and reshape the curriculum to maximise the untapped potential of the human brain. The debate about whether we can nurture an expanding intelligence has been supported by recent MRI scans looking at the way specific brain activity grows our brains. London taxi drivers doing the ‘knowledge’ have clearly defined brain growth around the visual/spatial areas and violinists expand that little part of their brains that focuses on finger movement. These examples suggest that our brains are constantly changing as we build up connections and embed learning. The capacity we build through learning new skills or information is self-perpetuating, the more one learns the better one is at learning.
There is evidence from MRI scans that the best learning takes place when both sides of the ‘thinking’ brain are connected and working together. The rightbrain can be attributed to music, intuition and creative thinking, while the left-brain can be attributed to logical sequences, language and numeracy. The tendency to a hemisphere preference can have implications for teaching style and interventions for inclusions. Research indicates that rightbrained kinaesthetic learners find schools very challenging learning environments. In majority of educational institutions most of the curriculum suits a left-brain dominant ideology with the focus on sequential learning with literacy and numeracy skills underpinning all public examinations. Students need to understand how to develop both sides of the brain through a range of activities that promote whole brain learning.
Students with dyslexia utilise the right-brain much more effectively than their left brain, causing them to excel in creative and visual thinking. Although dyslexia can have tremendous strengths, literal, sequential learning environments do not play to their strengths. Students with dyslexia experience a variety of difficulties with learning, which may cause them to be excluded in a learning environment. Dyslexia can cause difficulties with the acquisition of reading and writing skills. Even after the acquisition of these skills, students can continue to experience difficulties with reading and writing tasks. Many students with dyslexia describe having difficulties with 'putting their thoughts into words' and more so when the words need to be communicated in writing. Other difficulties include poor short term memory and organisational skills.
Many people with dyslexia develop coping strategies by adopting techniques that use their strengths to overcome their weaknesses. One such technique is mind mapping. With the advances in technology there are also many devices and software that aid the learning process for students with dyslexia or Specific Learning Difficulties.
After learning mind mapping techniques many students utilise computer software to improve their use of mind mapping, which increases the speed that they can generate, organise and structure ideas. Mind mapping software can be used by teachers to effectively communicate almost any kind of information, which makes it an extremely useful tool for cross curriculum teaching. Students also benefit from using mind mapping software during private study.
Mind mapping can be used for several facets of the teaching and learning process:
• Brainstorming is a fantastic tool for developing creative solutions to problems, and is most effective when used by a group of people. It works by focusing on a concept/problem, and then deliberately coming up with as many ideas/solutions as possible and by pushing the ideas as far as possible. One of the reasons it is so effective is that brainstormers not only come up with new ideas in a session, but also spark off from associations with other people's ideas by developing and refining them. Mind mapping using Spark-Spark enables the ideas to be displayed in a spatial format rather than in a sequential (list) format. Presenting the ideas in a visual format prompts creativity and synergy within a group of students, sparking further ideas/solutions.
Many students can have difficulties with organising ideas and information, causing difficulties with writing documents that flow and clearly present ideas and concepts. Mind mapping, which utilises visio-spatial skills, can be much more effective than using sequentially driven skills. Mind mapping allows all the information to be viewed at once and utilises a 'big picture' approach.
• Students with good visio-spatial skills can be particularly good at devising solutions to problems. To enable good problem solving a person with dyslexia needs to use holistic problem solving techniques i.e. they need to view the whole information at once. Mind mapping software allows students to have a complete view of information and the ability to manipulate the information with ease, enabling them to look at the same data from multiple perspectives.
• Students with dyslexia may experience difficulties with time management and managing information. Mind mapping software enables students to manage time and information more effectively. l Students with dyslexia can often experience difficulties with poor short term memory, which greatly hinders their ability to remember new information. Mind mapping can be an effective method of transferring new information from their short term memory to their long term memory.
• People with dyslexia can often have difficulties understanding new concepts and ideas because information is often presented in manner that does not play to their strengths. Mind mapping software allows teachers to present information in a visual format, utilising the strengths of a dyslexic learner. Students with dyslexia can also better communicate their ideas using the visual representation available through mind mapping.
There are many software packages available,many of which are extremely good at presenting information in a visual format. Spark-Space idea mapping software is unique among mind mapping software packages in that it has been designed to provide a bridge between linear and nonlinear thinkers. Spark-Space has been designed for the dyslexic user, making it intuitive and beguilingly simple, yet extremely powerful and feature-rich. Spark-Space has a unique 3D viewing ability that allows the user to view information from any perspective. The most useful tool within Spark-Space is its ability to transform spatially represented (non-linear) information into a linear format. Spark-Space turns a mind map into a text document with ease.
Spark-Space is a relatively new piece of software, which has been on the market for around three years and is quickly growing in popularity. Promethean, the interactive whiteboard supplier, used Spark-Space as their choice of mind mapping software for use with their whiteboards, shortly after Spark-Space went to market. The software has been awarded the Promethean whiteboard friendly kite mark.
Teachers use Spark-Space for instructing students in a variety of subjects - in fact it can be used to teach any subject. Teachers may produce mind maps before the session and then utilise Spark-Space in its presentation mode, which allows students to see the mind map view and the linear view at the same time. Using the software in this manner enables students who prefer to view information holistically learn effectively. Furthermore, students who learn in a linear manner are also catered for within the same teaching session. Spark-Space therefore solves the difficulties often encountered by the use of PowerPoint presentations, where the holistic (non-sequential) learner is often disadvantaged.
Teachers may also choose to use Spark- Space as a tool within a session with students with the process of brainstorming and discussion. Ideas can easily be entered onto the 'canvas' and displayed on screen. Using discussion and brainstorming can greatly increase the effectiveness of a learning experience. After the production of a mind map the information can then be shared with the students who can take the map away in electronic format for further work and study. Spark-Space encourages teachers to analyse how students are going learn imparted information, rather than just simply passing on information. Teaching becomes differentiated differing learning styles are accommodated within session plans and delivery.
Spark-Space contributes to students expanding their ability to learn. It encourages both right and left-brain activity and bridges any gap in students’ ability to use both visual skills and language skills at the same time.
