Apply Critical Thinking
to Concept Mapping
Concept mapping is the visualization of a logical design. The purpose of this mapping is to make explicit what a certain concept or idea entails. In concept mapping, an idea is permitted to be "unpacked" of all its implicit or explicit content in a way that appeals to visual learners. Mapping can convey information that simple verbalization cannot.
Instructions
1. Choose a word, idea or symbol that the map should center around. This is the concept that is to be "unpacked" of all its content. If you are studying the causes of cancer, then cancer is then your central idea. Once the idea of cancer is laid out in visual form, each aspect of the disease can be further broken down into its proximate and indirect causes. Each of those causes can then be mapped out in terms of their causes. This can continue as long as necessary to exhaust the subject matter.
2. Approach the subject matter to be mapped in a top-down model. Going from the most general to the more specific is the easiest way to do concept mapping and apply critical thinking to the object. The general idea is cancer. One can break this down into causes, types, forms and treatments, for example. Each of these can further be broken down into more specific manifestations. This is a logical design, but it need not be a rigid design. Each category can be broken down almost infinitely, and therefore, there is lots of room for conjecture and creative thinking.
3. Keep in mind the distinction between unpacking concepts on the one hand, and what those concepts logically entail, on the other. Aristotle's four causes are essential here: efficient, formal, final and material causes. The efficient cause is what we could call a proximate cause, that which makes "x" happen. A formal cause is the form that a thing takes. A final cause is its purpose or end, and the efficient cause is what a thing is made out of. These four causes are essential in concept mapping, though it is not clear if each of these causes is logically entailed by the object under study (e.g. a statue need not be made of bronze, but bronze would be the statue's material cause. What the statue is meant to represent is its formal cause). Aristotle's four causes are important for the full "unpacking" of the content of an idea, object or logical design. These four causes are essential to thinking critically about the topic under study. Applying each cause to a central concept will bring up many critical questions and speculations.
