From Knowledge Organisation to Knowledge Application: Designing Mind-Mapping Instruction for Senior High School Regional Geography in China

Senior high school regional geography in China requires students to compare regions, explain relationships and consider development problems. Mind mapping can organise knowledge, but a complete diagram does not demonstrate independent knowledge application. This conceptual article develops a four-stage instructional framework through a purposive synthesis of curriculum and geographical education research, mapping literature, and theories of engagement, transfer, scaffolding and formative assessment. Sources are organised by their contributions to learning purposes, representation, learner responsibility and feedback. The framework comprises guided preparation, collaborative inquiry, independent reconstruction and contextual transfer. Its contribution lies in linking contextualised knowledge application with the progressive transfer of responsibility for selecting evidence, explaining relationships and revising judgements. Assessment informs changes in support by examining both the quality of reasoning and whose decisions it represents. A summary table and hypothetical regional development inquiry illustrate the alignment of purposes, teacher roles, learner responsibilities and assessment evidence. The discussion considers curricular adaptation, representational limitations and classroom feasibility. The framework offers a theoretically informed design proposal that requires classroom evaluation; it does not establish instructional effectiveness.