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The Answer for Growing Creative Thinkers

4/26/2016

The Answer Is…a square. What is the question?

Many of you might think something like, “What is a four-sided shape with four right angles?” If so, you are correct! But you would also be correct if you thought,

“What was an old-fashioned, boring person called in the 1960s?”
“What shape is used in the game of hop-scotch?”
“What shape are Wheat Thins?”
“What word rhymes with rare but starts with sq?”

Now consider this one.

The Answer is …jumping. What is the question?

“What do you call a Mexican bean that moves?”
“What is the boy doing on the trampoline?”
“What was she doing when she won the award?”
“How does a frog move from lily pad to lily pad?”

Creative thinking comes naturally to some of us, but for others it takes practice. The Answer Is… Strategy is easy to integrate into any class to get your students to think “out of the square box.” Simply laminate a small poster and leave sticky notes or dry erase markers nearby. Students can share their answers whenever they have a free moment.

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Motivate and Activate Learning with this Simple Game

4/12/2016

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When I was a child, my father and I would play Scrabble on Sunday afternoons. It was a quiet time for us to share our love of words and be engaged with each other. In my mind, I was really great at the game – often beating my father. Now that I am a parent myself, I realize that he probably let me win occasionally.

My daughter’s generation is more inclined to play Words with Friends on their devices, but I still prefer the immediacy and face-to-face engagement of Scrabble. Whatever your preference, these word games are an effective way to activate our learners’ prior knowledge and vocabulary about our class content. Simple to play, familiar to most, and easy to integrate into any course – what more could a trainer ask for?

Here’s my favorite way of doing it:

Obtain chart-sized graph paper and hang it on the walls around your room.
Ask everyone to stand by a chart in groups of 4, and then divide into two teams of two.
Direct participants to write a word, related to your content, in the middle of the chart. For example, if I am teaching a course on presentation skills, I might assign the word “engagement.” If I am teaching a course on communication skills, I might assign the word “communication.” Long words make it easier for participants to get started.
Each team takes a turn adding a word to the grid, following rules similar to those of Scrabble or Words with Friends, i.e. adjacent letters have to form a new word.
Let the game progress for a few minutes and then discuss with the large group some of the common words and unusual words you see on the charts.

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Boil It Down to Summarize

4/2/2016

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Analogies can boost engagement and understanding for many common tasks. One of my favorite analogies for summarizing is Boil It Down.

How to:

Ask students if they have ever watched a parent or friend boil down a sauce or gravy on the stove. Discuss how the sauce simmers, steam rises reducing the liquid, and the sauce becomes thicker, more intense – leaving the essence of flavor.
Once students make this connection, compare boiling it down to summarizing – how we get rid of the excess and retain the essence.
Post or draw a saucepan picture on the board.
Ask a student to summarize the lesson (or book, video, etc.) and write their entire statement on the board in the pot.
Then provide each student with paper circles and ask them to write a word on the circle that is not necessary – that could evaporate.
Post the circles above the pan, crossing them out in the pan.
Continue until the words left in the pan represent the most important parts or the essence of the lesson. This becomes your summary statement.

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The Answer for Growing Creative Thinkers

Motivate and Activate Learning with this Simple Game

Boil It Down to Summarize

Anne M. Beninghof

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