Rocks

I introduce mind-mapping in my first lesson with a class. I build up a mind-map about myself on the smartboard as a way of introduction – all my students now know I hate dogs and banks, support Nottingham Forest, love Physics and listen to Bruckner and RUSH. I then get students to do their own mind-map in the front of their books about themselves – making sure they use colour and illustrations to make them think and make the mind-map more memorable.
For this Rocks lesson you can use their mind-mapping skills by putting notes on a PowerPoint set to “loop” and students have to organize the notes into a mind-map. Go to “Set-up slide show” and check the “loop continuously until ‘esc’” box. Then go to “Animations” and click on “Advance slide automatically” and put 10 seconds between each slide. It normally takes about 4 or 5 repetitions of the loop for students to complete their maps. This is especially useful for topics which are content heavy and where students need to remember facts such as Rocks or Radioactivity.