Teaching and assessing mind maps

Abstract

The purpose of literacy interventions in higher education is to develop students’ competencies so they could cope with the literacy demands of their academic studies. One such competency is mind mapping. The literature provides strong arguments that mind mapping provides students with valuable organisational and heuristic tools and offers guidelines on how to draw mind maps. The issue of assessing mind maps is, however, generally absent. This paper explores the characteristics of effective mind maps, their benefits and importance at all levels of education, as well as the issue of whether or not they should be assessed. It seems that too little attention has been paid to the value of mind mapping in higher education; and that the assessment of mind maps requires further debate by those with an interest in creative teaching at tertiary level.