Let’s create an MC Escher-style tessellation art (and math) project with nothing more than an index card, a marker, and paper.
Content Area: Cross Curricular
Concentric Circles – Getting Students to Think Bigger (and Smaller!)
This differentiation technique is called “Concentric Circles”. You use it to move students up and down the ladder of abstraction, applying a single idea in multiple contexts.
From “Summarize” to “Synthesize”
Even what seems like a low-level “summarize” task can become beautifully high-level when we climb Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Don’t Jump Straight to “Create”!
When we jump from “this kid likes board games” straight to “I’ll have them create a new board game”, we leave out important steps in the creative process and set kids up for disappointment (and end up with a lot of unfinished projects). Here’s how to scaffold a truly creative task.
Focus on Thinking, Not the Product
When I was a new teacher, you would have seen some pretty fancy products hanging in my room, but if you stopped to consider how my kids thought about the content… well, often my students just restated facts that I had already told them.
Combining Depth and Complexity Prompts into a Generalization
Let’s start with a puzzlement, ask kids to generate an abstract statement, and then find evidence that their statement works across several different areas.
Concept Formation: A Model for Inductive Thinking
Here’s are the steps for running an inductive lesson based on Hilda Taba’s model of Concept Formation. Plus a sample lesson about the Nile River.
Synthesize: Make A Change, Explain The Effect
I love the term “Synthesize” from the classic Bloom’s Taxonomy, but it can be hard to know exactly what it looks like. My favorite “Synthesize Recipe” is to ask students to make a change to existing content and then explain the effects of that change to me.
What could we do with this Wax Museum event?
How one might revamp a “Wax Museum” project into something that focuses more on thinking than product.
Students Need More Than Independent Work
It’s so easy to just ask advanced students to work by themselves in a corner. But, the more advanced the kid, the more they need advanced instruction and adult guidance.
Evaluate with Academic Tournaments
The bracketed tournament isn’t just for college basketball. Set up a tournament to determine best president, state, element, or literary character and challenge your students to make interesting judgements.
Which One Is Not Like The Others
When we ask kids “which one is not like the others”, our cleverest students love to find ways to pick the non-obvious answer. So why not use this as a framework for pushing students deeper into our content.
Creating Seemingly Unrelated Analogies
Want to encourage students to find unexpected connections across content? Here’s a quick framework based on the most important terms from both bits of content.
Make A *Better* Calendar!
The calendar is a source of fantastic factoring problems with many social studies add-ons. Why 12 months? Why 30 (or 31 or 28) days? Why are weeks 7 days long? Why don’t they fit into the months (or the year!)? Why did we do this to ourselves!?
Running A Curiosity Project
Merlin Mann stated that employees’ motivation increases when they get to “build a robot” once in a while. That is, do something creative beyond regular work. Can we do this at school? Offices have “casual Fridays,” can we have “curiosity Fridays?”
“Engagement” isn’t BAD, but…
“Engagement” is a nice by-product of a well-designed lesson, but it sure isn’t our actual goal as educators.
Enrichment Must Prompt Thinking
Enrichment is not merely about doing fun things. It should never be just a project-of-the-week. It must be about getting students thinking in new and interesting ways. Here’s how!
Thinking From *Anything’s* Perspective
How a small change, with very little effort on the teacher’s part, leads to a delightfully complex task that can suitably challenge students of all ability levels.
Beware “Real World Problems”
Why I stopped looking for “real world” problems and started aiming for “interesting.” The real world is often tedious and annoying. Interesting never is!
Thinking Hats and Lunar Survival Skills
How Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats helped me solve a problem with my favorite group discussion task.
Phrases to Open Up a Discussion (Lunar Survival Skills Part 2)
One of my favorite open-ended, creative activities becomes even better with careful phrasing on my part. These three questions will help you be the facilitator of a discussion, rather than the authority.
First Levels: Sentence Starters
As silly as it may sound, providing sentence stems or “fill in the blanks” can give your kids the scaffold they need to achieve a higher level of success.
Start A Lesson With A Music Video
I love collecting intriguing images and videos – things that stop me in my tracks and pique my curiosity. I always figure that if it fascinates me, students would probably be interested also. Often, these visuals work as wonderful hooks for a lesson you need to teach.
Create A Holiday
Take students beyond the decorations and ask them to identify what a holiday reveals about a culture’s values. Then, push them further as they develop their own holidays.
Get Students Out Of Creative Ruts
Sometimes students need a little structure to force them into a more creative state of mind. Here are a few ideas for interesting writing prompts