11 Sep Plotting Your Knowledge Structures

How do you show what you know?

Introduction to plotting knowledge structures

• There is no one “right” way to plot your knowledge structure as long as it makes some kind of sense to you and you can explain it to others. The following presentation demonstrates some ways you could plot knowledge structures to show someone what you know or how you think about a topic.

• Note: this is also sometimes referred to as “mind mapping.”

Cars as a knowledge structure

Music as a knowledge structure

In this image we see a bubble diagram of music as a knowledge structure. The person who created this started with a circle near the middle and simply labeled it “music.” Then, six more circles were drawn around it. Each of them are connected to the central music circle by a line. Each of them has a different label. The one at the top is labeled Jazz. The next clockwise from the top is labeled Classical. The next is Rock and Roll. The next is Soul. The next is Rap, and finally, the last one is Country. Four lines then branch out from the circle labeled Rock and Roll and each end in another circle. The first of these is labeled Classic Rock. The next is New Wave Rock. Below this is Alternative Rock, and finally, the last of the four circles connected to Rock & Roll is 50s Do-wop. Clearly this person knows more about rock than the other forms of music they are at least aware of. How might they have branched these out still further? By artists? By songs? It is really up to the individual and how they structure this knowledge in their own mind!