If you’re a student in the weeks before finals, preparing to submit your projects, essays and exams can seem like an enormous task. Overwhelmed? Don’t worry! Mind mapping can help you organize, visualize and outline the work you need to complete. In this post, we share four ways MindMeister can help you end the school year on the right note.
Regardless of what you’re studying and when your finals take place, it’s never too late to get organized. Mind mapping in MindMeister can help you arrange your study materials, learn effectively and prepare your essays and projects. Here, we explain what mind mapping is and how you can use this powerful method to submit your best work.
What is Mind Mapping?
Mind maps are visual diagrams that present information and ideas and are great educational aids. Mind mapping builds association skills and helps you draw connections between important bits of information: even the process of creating a mind map can be beneficial. In fact, studies show that mind mapping can help students comprehend information faster and retain more information. In short, they’re the perfect tool to help you manage the chaos of finals week.
Find out more about why you should mind map in this informative blog post.
While you might have already tried mapping on paper or whiteboard, online, collaborative mind maps can boost the benefits even further. By including images, videos and links to explain complex concepts, you can stimulate your brain, include quick access to far more information and share your plans with classmates.
Ready? Let’s look at four great ways to use MindMeister and maximize your potential in finals week.
#1 Use MindMeister to Develop Your Study Plan
Even if you’re already hyper-organized, you’ll only have so much time to study for your exams, write essays or work on projects. Planning your hours effectively is key to allocating enough time to each subject and thus work towards the grades you want. Fortunately, MindMeister is the perfect tool for visualizing your study plan and can help you allocate your time in the best way possible. While we can’t promise you’ll avoid late-night cramming sessions entirely, your study plan mind map will help guide you through finals week.
MindMeister offers several templates, including our exam preparation template, to help you get started.
Get Started
Create a mind map with “Finals Study Plan” as the central topic. From here you can create branches for each assignment or exam you’ve got coming up — make sure you add a date to them. Then, create one subtopic for each day leading up to the exam and either link to your separate study map for that topic, or add a short description of what you plan to study that day.
#2 Centralize Your Exam Materials
Over the course of a year, you’ll have built up a library’s worth of materials on each of the subjects you’ve studied. However, when you’re revising for final exams, it can be a chore to sort through them all. Don’t panic: by creating simple, well-structured mind maps for each exam you need to sit, you will organize your notes into a logical order that prepare you perfectly for examination day.
An exam materials mind map in MindMeister can do just the trick — centralizing all your notes, readings and helpful resources into one place.
Get Started
We recommend building a map for each exam you intend to sit. To prepare a practical exam materials mind map:
- Start a new map — write the name of your class in the center.
- Make branches for each subject covered throughout the semester.
- Add subtopics for your class notes, study guides and presentations.
Link websites or online documents to your topics so you can retrieve more detailed information easily.
- Attach pictures and videos to subtopics so you can visualize complex concepts.
- Create relationships between two related topics.
To help you memorize and recall information, you can collapse subtopics and quiz yourself. When you’re ready to check your answers, expand them again and see how you did. After a few of these study sessions, you’ll be amazed at how much information you can remember quickly and easily.
#3 Collaborate with Your Classmates
Final group projects can be tough. They’re not only challenging to complete — because teachers tend to expect more work from group projects — but students also have to depend upon others for the grade they’ll receive. The whole group must be on the same page regarding the subject of the project and the level of quality expected. Mind maps are a great platform to collaborate efficiently within your group, because you can work within the map simultaneously, vote on topics and comment directly within the mind map.
Get Started
First, start a brainstorming session to generate input about what your group project will focus on. You can use MindMeister to do this — each person can add their ideas to the map in real time as they think of them. Once you’ve collected all the ideas, set a deadline for each group member to vote on their favored project topic within the mind map. Once you know what your project will concern, gather your group to discuss the details and detail everything that needs to be done.
You can use our task management tool MeisterTask to create a project for your group work. Then, use the MindMeister <> MeisterTask integration to convert your map topics into trackable tasks. In MeisterTask, assign group members tasks to complete and set deadlines. Everyone can add related documents as attachments directly to each task, so you know exactly where to get everyone’s contributions. With MindMeister and MeisterTask together, your group will know what needs to be done and when.
#4 Outline Your Essays
During finals, one of the most common assignments is an extended paper that covers a topic related to your course. Although staring at the blank page can be daunting, MindMeister is here to help. Mind mapping your essay before writing can help you organize your thoughts and build a compelling argument.
If you still need inspiration, create a separate mind map to brainstorm different ideas, then write your topic in the center of your essay outline mind map. From there, create branches for each part of your essay, like introduction, body and conclusion. Add subtopics that link to citations as you flesh out your argument. You could even color code topics depending on whether they support or refute your hypothesis. If you need to move subtopics to reorganize your argument, you can easily drag and drop them on another topic or subtopic.
With your essay clearly outlined in your mind map, you’ll have your plan laid out in front of you when it’s time to write it. You’ll spend less time trying to figure out what to say, and you’ll hopefully not lose focus with unstructured arguments. This will increase the quality of your writing, and your grade will reflect that. If you need more inspiration, our handy essay writing guide can set you on the right path.
The Finals Push
Remember, preparation is key to finals success: mind mapping is a tried and tested method to get ready for exams and assignments. Using MindMeister to mind map your study plan, exam materials, group projects and essay outlines, you can finish the semester with flying colors and have the grades to show for all of your hard work.