5. Flashcards / Mindmaps
How to Make Mindmaps and Flashcards
There are lots of effective ways to make study notes but the most important thing to remember is that most of your learning comes from making the notes rather than reading over them afterwards (or being given them by a grind school). Actively figuring out what the important concepts are and how they are connected is what its all about. Some popular and effective types of notes are:
Outline notes
Mind maps
Flashcards
This workshop focuses on Mindmaps and Flashcards.
Mindmaps
Mindmaps are a visual way of organising information. They can be hand drawn or done on a computer. If you don't like drawing, try the online mindmap tool Coggle.
Examples from our own students
Click on each image below to see a gallery of mindmaps produced by 3rd Year Science students in St Colmcille's CS.
Biology
Chemistry
Physics
Flashcards
Flashcards are small cards that can be used to write notes on, however the real power of flashcards is to write a question on one side and the answer on the other. This way they can be used to both make notes but also to test yourself later.
As well as straightforward questions to ask like the example above, you can also try more challenging combinations such as:
What's the difference between red blood cells and white blood cells
If you were to get a cut, order the parts of the blood in order of most to least important
Be creative!