Byrdseed

From Dull To Creative With One Simple Trick

To me, the ultimate goal when crafting a differentiated task is something that:

  1. Scales easily, for students who struggle all the way up to our experts. (Read low floor, high ceiling for more explanation)
  2. Requires little teacher prep (of course).
  3. Works across many grades and content areas.
  4. Students do lots of thinking (and talking).
  5. Final products can be different for all students.

A simple way to meet these requirements is to ask students to think from another perspective. If you’re a user of the Depth and Complexity framework, you’ll recognize Multiple Perspectives as a prompt of complexity.

From Dull To Creative

In my presentations, I give this example of a very close-ended and very boring (but very common) question:

What is Brian, from Hatchet’s, main character trait?

  • It’s close-ended because everyone will answer with the same word: perseverance (or a handful of synonyms).
  • There’s no room for creativity or fun final products. Åt most, kids will “back it up with evidence.”
  • It’s boring because students who have mastered this already know how to do the thinking. They’ve done it since 1st grade. There’s nothing making their brain sweat.

Add A Point Of View

One simple trick:

What would Darth Vader think about Brian?

Suddenly we have a question with many right answers. Students who want to go deeper can go deep. There’s suddenly the possibility for lots of cool products (imagine a comic book, a skit, a piece of art, or a short movie), not just a one-word answer.

Bonus: switch Vader to another character (or real person) and the question reinvents itself! What would Hamlet, Susan B. Anthony, or Katniss Everdeen think about Brian?

I’m getting excited just thinking about it!

Not Just People

This actually becomes more interesting when you ask kids to think from the point of view of things that don’t really have points of view.

  • What would Ancient Rome think of Ancient China?
  • What would kinetic energy think of potential energy?
  • What would tangent think of sine or cosine?
  • What would fractions think of decimals?
  • What would a cumulus cloud think of a cirrus cloud?

These are interesting questions that will stop students in their tracks. They require deep and creative thinking. They leave the door open for complex products that build on students’ talents. Best of all, you don’t have to write up six pages of directions!

Check out this example, shared by Brandi on Twitter the day after a workshop I gave in Ohio.

What would dividends think about divisors?

(Click through in case the embed doesn’t work)

Look at all that creativity in a seemingly non-creative content area! Every kid can craft a different (but still correct) response. Expert students have room to go deep, but not everyone has to go as deep. And Brandi was able to successfully implement this idea the very next day!

Let me know what you try with your class. I’d love to see what they come up with!

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