Depth and Complexity: The Icons, the Framework, and How to Actually Use Them My biggest problem when implementing Depth and Complexity? I used them in a shallow and simple way!
“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.
Create A Civilization: The River Most humans want to live near fresh water, which means that most civilizations settled near a river! Let's add a river to your students' civilizations.
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!
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 will get students thinking.
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?"
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.
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.
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.
