Brainstorming

Brainstorms, mindmaps, and visual Venns

Brainstorming is a way to think creatively, whether individually or in groups. The idea is that you start with a key concept or idea and then write down anything that occurs to you in relation to that concept or idea. The only rules are: don’t keep ideas to yourself, and don’t 'block' or judge other people’s ideas. Collaborative brainstorming works well when you know and trust the people you are working with although it is sometimes equally important that you

have quite different points of view! For more information, try online resources such as www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html.

Visual Venns are an adaptation of Venn diagrams, as used in logic and mathematics. Venn diagrams are a visual representation of the way that items are grouped by shared characteristics. Where items in a group share some properties with items in another group, the Venn circles overlap (see MYP Sciences by Concept 1, Chapter 6, for an example).

Visual Venns can help you sort and organize ideas, without necessarily structuring them.

Mindmapping is a tool for structuring ideas. Again, start with a central concept or idea it often works best to represent this as an icon or image of some kind. Then use ’branches' out from the central idea to introduce related concepts or ideas that are perhaps subsidiary to (less important, but related to) the central idea. You can then break these branches down again into ’twigs'. Mindmapping takes you from a big picture to details in a structured way and can be a good way to organize arguments. Find out more by searching mindmapping online.