Yesterday during an INSET day, we were treated to an informative session from Jane Simister on active learning techniques we can employ with our students. As is my wont, when each activity was introduced, I couldn’t help thinking how ICT might be employed … not that that would always be appropriate or desirable.
One of the techniques helpful in drawing out the essential significant points in a topic is using a Mandala; a framework to scaffold students’ interrogation of what they know. These can be completed independently or in pairs/groups. Using a blank Mandala, the central topic is written in the core, then sub-topics in the next ring and so forth, gradually teasing out the important points which describe the topic as a whole. Useful as a revision technique; useful for planning extended writing activities.
On the fantastic Classtools website, Russell Tarr has an interactive Mandala creator, although described there as a Target diagram, and this completed version gives you an idea of what a finished product might look like:
Useful though that is, it has the drawback of a fixed number of sectors which might not be appropriate for all topics. Having been unsuccessful in finding anything which might address that, I wondered if it might be possible to create my own customisable Mandala creator. Since it look very similar to the doughnut charts found in Excel, it was to that that I turned. After a little mental huffing and puffing I got to something which works.
By inputting the number of sectors you want in each ring, a blank chart template is automatically created which can then be printed off for writing onto … or for the more adept, maybe even annotating on screen. What I couldn’t quite figure out was how to have different numbers of sub-sections in different segments, if you needed it. As it stands, the finished product will always be symmetrical.
So there’s your challenge: how might this be adapted to increase its flexibility? I’ve left the sheet which performs all the calculations visible if you want to interrogate and/or adapt that … or maybe you have a slicker method?
Practically In the pICTure 