Learning & thinking · a life skill
Simple Concept Mapping
one question, a few boxes, a word on every line
Draw what you know as boxes joined by lines, and write a word on every line. The map then reads as sentences, and the line you can't label shows you what you don't understand yet.
- Easy to start
- Medium impact
- Learn it in 1 week
- One sheet, twenty minutes
Every line carries a word, so the map reads as sentences: roots draw up water. A line you can't label is something you don't know yet.
Start with one sheet
Try it now.
A pencil, a sheet of paper and a few sticky notes. Each step below is one part of the map.
-
Write one question at the top
A question you want answered, not a topic. “How does a plant feed itself?” tells you what belongs on the page. “Plants” doesn't.
the question -
Put the ideas in boxes
Six to ten things that answer it, one per sticky note. Short nouns, not sentences.
the boxes -
General on top, specific below
Put the biggest idea at the top and the details underneath. Move the notes until each one sits under the one it belongs to.
a plant → the details -
Write a word on every line
Join two boxes that relate, and write how on the line: has, makes, needs, causes. Read it out. It should be a sentence you could check.
roots — draw up → water -
Find one cross-link
Look for two boxes on different branches that relate, and join them too. That line is where it starts to make sense.
water — rises to → leaves
For example: new at work and lost in the jargon? Ask “How does an order reach a customer?” and put the team's words in boxes: order, warehouse, invoice, courier. The line you can't label is your question for tomorrow.
Same words, two drawings
The words on the lines do the work.
Both drawings use the same six boxes. The first only says they go together. The second says how, and so it can be wrong, which is what makes it worth drawing.
Says these go together. Nothing here can be checked, so nothing here shows a gap.
Says how. Each line is a claim you can check against a book, and the one you can't write is the gap.
- A plant has leaves.
- A plant has roots.
- Leaves catch sunlight.
- Leaves make sugar.
- Roots draw up water.
- Water rises to leaves.
The idea
Why it works.
Joseph Novak's group at Cornell drew the first concept maps in the 1970s, to see how children's understanding of science changed. They built on David Ausubel's idea that new learning holds when you tie it to what you already know.
Each box, word and box is a small claim, which Novak called a proposition. Writing the word makes you say exactly what you think the link is. When you can't, you have found the thing to read up on, before a test or a meeting finds it for you.
Make it stick
Keep it simple.
- Nouns in boxes, verbs on lines. A box that holds a sentence is two boxes and a line.
- Use a pencil. The first layout is always wrong. Sticky notes make moving a box free.
- Read it aloud. Every line should come out as a sentence. The ones that don't are the gaps.
Keep this going in the app.
HourLife turns these ideas into a daily system — goals, habits, focus, and reflection in one private place.
