Strategy Submission

The purpose of this in-class mind mapping activity is to introduce nursing students in a nursing course to explore a variety of concepts of nurses’ ways of knowing in professional practice in a collaborative learning and teamwork environment. Students come to class prepared to synthesize a mind map after completing assigned readings, viewing a mind map You-Tube video, and reviewing the student self-assessment instructional rubric for the activity. Discussion of what mind mapping is and its implementation is facilitated by the instructor at the beginning of the class to ensure students understand this creative activity. A three step collaborative structure is used to illustrate the concept of critical thinking (or substitute any assigned course concept): (1) formulating groups, (2) sharing ideas related to critical thinking, and (3) developing a mind map. (Note: Critical Thinking was chosen as an exemplar from one of many concepts used by nurses as a way of knowing in clinical practice). Students work in teams of 5-6 to create a mind map reflective of what thoughts and actions are essential components of critical thinking used by nurses during their daily clinical practice. Each team is instructed to reflect silently about the posed query. Next, the students exchange thoughts, shared responses within their groups, and lastly share the synthesis of their mind maps with the class. Each team synthesizes a mind map on a 36x48 Post-it paper. The central concept, critical thinking is placed in the center of the Post-it paper and the team works outward from this focus to create a mind map incorporating safe evidence-based practices. Forty-five minutes is provided for the activity and 10 minutes for each group’s presentation and summative assessment by the instructor. The use of mind mapping activity allows varying levels of nursing students to develop an understanding of critical thinking (or the assigned nursing concept) using a collaborative team approach. This activity allows students to reflect and share effective safe quality clinical practices. Bulleted steps for the Mind Map Activity • •Students are to complete the reading assignment and video prior to coming to class (link below). • A brief discussion occurs about the assigned topic for concept of choice (exemplar: uses critical thinking). • The day of creating the mind map, students review the following video as a class. This is to reinforce the process of mind mapping. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLWV0XN7K1g • The instructor initiates a short discussion about mind mapping, encouraging feedback from the students to determine their understanding of the activity. • Formative (while in groups) and summative (class discussion) classroom assessment techniques are implemented for this strategy. • Upon completion of the activity the instructor facilitates team(s) discussion. The teams share the chosen concept related to ways of knowing used in their mind map based. • Materials for activity: markers, crayons, Post-it paper. • After completion discuss the mind maps as a group and identify commonalities based upon the central nursing concept. • Materials for activity: markers, crayons, Post-it paper. How Mind Mapping Contributes to Patient Safety: Although the effect of mind mapping is indirect, it has the potential to have significant value on the patient’s wellbeing and safety executed by nursing students. The synthesis of a mind map using the concept of critical thinking promotes the nursing student to problem solve, to reason, to think in a systematic way when making clinical decisions. Thinking critically and in a logical manner, which can be illustrated in a mind map, enables the nursing student to reflect how to appropriately use the reasoning process and what should be considered in this process to ensure the delivery of safe nursing practice and quality care.