Using X-mind to guide graduate students' knowledge construction in historic scientific concept development

摘要

Xmind is a free mind-mapping tool for knowledge construction. It is easy to use, easy to share ideas with others, good for team-members to conduct brainstorming, and it is easy to manage tasks. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the feasibility of teaching graduate students to use Xmind in constructing knowledge regarding to the historic development of a science concept. The author took a "demonstration -cooperative learning - discussion practice" approach to show a new way of integrating history into science teaching. The author guided of 13 graduate students collaboratively in four small groups to investigate the history of certain scientific concept development, and then use Xmind to do knowledge construction regarding to the scientific concept development along the time line. The results showed that graduate students can explicitly construct their knowledge in a structured way, and express their understanding of the historic development of certain scientific concept creatively. Moreover, the instructor can understand what information sources were used by students, how much efforts students put to integrate information and construct their knowledge, and what possible errors they made during knowledge construction.