Professional Documents
Culture Documents
BRAINWRITING
Brainwriting is an upgraded technique to share ideas and come up with solutions. This
is an even more productive way to generate ideas where each person writes down what
they think before sharing it with the team. Brainwriting is an effective method because
no one gets interrupted. You don’t get cut off by someone else shouting their views at
you. You can take your time to jot down your ideas without the pressure to satisfy
others. Brainwriting is especially ideal for brainstorming sessions to encourage creativity
in groups.
MIND MAPPING
The children’s vocabulary game ‘pass the story’ starts with “Once upon a time…”. Then,
each child builds on this phrase by adding lines. Mind mapping is a similar strategy
where one member throws in a general idea, which leads to connecting sub-ideas. The
first idea may not be the perfect one but it still ignites a row of potential ideas. It’s
effective because it jolts your creativity by giving you a certain direction. Visual
representations of a mind map are often used when you are dealing with extensive
research. It helps to filter information and categorize it.
STEPLADDER TECHNIQUE
The stepladder technique is an effective decision-making strategy that was developed in
1992. It’s suited for smaller groups of five or six members. Here, two members are
invited to a room to brainstorm, with a facilitator present. Then, a third member enters
and shares his or her ideas before being introduced to the ideas shared by the other
two members. Brainstorming continues this way until everyone is in the room. This
technique promotes new and fresh ideas that aren’t influenced by others.
VISUALIZATION
Visualization is a strategy where each member is asked to picture their ideas. It gives
everyone a starting point to build upon. Visualization can be a stepping stone to
successful ideas, especially in product design. It’s also helpful when you are trying to
improve existing strategies. You can also turn it into an activity. For instance, the first
person can be asked to draw an outline. Each subsequent member then adds
something to it. By the time it reaches the last person, you will likely have a working
model.
1. Choose a simple subject for this experiment. You will do two studies of the
subject you have chosen.
2. Use dark paper and a dry medium such as crayon or pastel for the first study.
3. The second study of the same subject will be on a light, textured paper, and you
will use a wet medium such as tempera or watercolor.
4. Describe your style in writing and discuss it in class. Be sure to use appropriate
art terminology to describe your style.
This approach helps in forming the right attitude, skill as students imbibe the power to
thrive and succeed. Exploration-based learning develops hands-on and minds-on skills.
As an ongoing pedagogical approach, the natural, inherent drive to seek out challenges
and newer possibilities is nurtured and developed meaningfully.
Art is a natural activity to support this free play in children. The freedom to manipulate
different materials in an organic and unstructured way allows for exploration and
experimentation. These artistic endeavors and self-directed explorations are not only
fun, but educational as well. Art allows youth to practice a wide range of skills that are
useful not only for life, but also for learning.
Fine motor skills. Grasping pencils, crayons, chalk and paintbrushes helps
children develop their fine motor muscles. This development will help your child
with writing, buttoning a coat and other tasks that require controlled movements.
Cognitive development. Art can help children learn and practice skills like
patterning and cause and effect (i.e., “If I push very hard with a crayon the color
is darker.”). They can also practice critical thinking skills by making a mental plan
or picture of what they intend to create and following through on their plan.
Math skills. Children can learn, create and begin to understand concepts like
size, shape, making comparisons, counting and spatial reasoning.
Language skills. As children describe and share their artwork, as well as their
process, they develop language skills. You can encourage this development by
actively listening and asking open-ended questions in return. It is also a great
opportunity to learn new vocabulary words regarding their project (i.e., texture).
T-Chart
A T-Chart helps organize ideas into two columns and examine two components of an
object, concept, or event. For instance, T-charts can be used in any content area to
examine the pros and cons of something, advantages, and disadvantages, or facts and
opinions.
Students can select two things to compare (ideas, characters, events, etc.) and write
them as headings for the two columns. From there, comparisons or contrasts can be
made in both columns.
Concept Map
A concept map shows relationships between the main idea and other information.
Concepts or ideas are represented in circles or boxes and are linked to related ideas
with arrows.
Most concept maps represent a hierarchical structure with the most general concepts or
ideas presented at the top of the map and the more specific or sub-ideas presented
below.
Venn Diagram
A Venn diagram is used to compare and contrast two or more groups of things by
visually displaying their similarities and differences in two or more circles that overlap.
Similarities between topics are presented where a circle from one category overlaps
with a circle from another category.
Features that do not fit in both categories are placed where the two circles do not
overlap. Venn diagrams can serve to increase understanding of a relationship between
two or more concepts.
Sequence Chart
A sequence chart (or flow diagram) presents a series of steps or events in order. Many
learners need a visual aid to help clarify a sequence of events in a story or to come to
conclusions about different cause and effect (or problem and solution) relationships
between multiple events in a text.
Students can use this type of organizer as a flowchart to organize thoughts as a
prewriting activity or as part of a classroom activity that makes students responsible for
a portion of a classroom assignment (e.g. jigsaw technique).
A cycle diagram is a type of sequential chart that is used to represent a sequence of
stages, tasks, or events in a circular flow. This kind of diagram accentuates the flow and
interconnection between things, rather than emphasizing the actual stages or steps.
T-Chart
A T-Chart helps organize ideas into two columns and examine two components of an
object, concept, or event. For instance, T-charts can be used in any content area to
examine the pros and cons of something, advantages, and disadvantages, or facts and
opinions.
Students can select two things to compare (ideas, characters, events, etc.) and write
them as headings for the two columns. From there, comparisons or contrasts can be
made in both columns.
Concept Map
A concept map shows relationships between the main idea and other information.
Concepts or ideas are represented in circles or boxes and are linked to related ideas
with arrows.
Most concept maps represent a hierarchical structure with the most general concepts or
ideas presented at the top of the map and the more specific or sub-ideas presented
below.
Venn Diagram
A Venn diagram is used to compare and contrast two or more groups of things by
visually displaying their similarities and differences in two or more circles that overlap.
Similarities between topics are presented where a circle from one category overlaps
with a circle from another category.
Features that do not fit in both categories are placed where the two circles do not
overlap. Venn diagrams can serve to increase understanding of a relationship between
two or more concepts.
Sequence Chart
A sequence chart (or flow diagram) presents a series of steps or events in order. Many
learners need a visual aid to help clarify a sequence of events in a story or to come to
conclusions about different cause and effect (or problem and solution) relationships
between multiple events in a text.
Students can use this type of organizer as a flowchart to organize thoughts as a
prewriting activity or as part of a classroom activity that makes students responsible for
a portion of a classroom assignment (e.g. jigsaw technique).
A cycle diagram is a type of sequential chart that is used to represent a sequence of
stages, tasks, or events in a circular flow. This kind of diagram accentuates the flow and
interconnection between things, rather than emphasizing the actual stages or steps.
10. Jigsaw. The Jigsaw Method contextualizes many different elements of the artist’s
life, the piece of artwork, and the historical period
the artwork was created in. As an extension to the Close Read, it provides students with
a much deeper understanding of the artwork and encourages greater content
connections. In this way, the piece of art becomes a primary source document to be
used in core curriculum instruction.
STEP 1
Identify a piece of artwork that supports your lesson.
STEP 2
Research and read articles, books, and publications connected to the artwork.
Summarize the most important information (in light of the subject you teach) about the
artist’s life, the work of art, and the historical context in which it was made. The
collection of these materials will be used to develop an art history presentation to be
sequenced into your lesson.
STEP 3
As you read, keep a list of key vocabulary you come across as well as any questions
that occur to you or that you anticipate
your students having. As you are organizing and analyzing background information, it is
important to consider how well the piece of art work connects to your lesson.
STEP 4
Look for answers to the guiding questions provided below. If appropriate for your grade
level, have your students engage in
this process as much as possible. From your research, provide students with the most
relevant articles and ask them to respond to the following questions. Students can be
grouped into research teams (artist, artwork, and historical context).
STEP 5
Integrate the information you have obtained from the Jigsaw Method to revisit the
“Close Read” strategy. Your students will now be prepared to dive further into
observation, inference and contextualization.
STEP 6
Make curricular connections. Now that you have this background information, how does
it help your students better understand historical events, science concepts, literary
works, the fine arts, etc.
One suitable topic for a jigsaw activity is to give information on different aspects of a
person’s life to the expert groups, which can then be pooled in the jigsaw group so that
the second task can be biographical in nature, e.g. producing a PowerPoint
presentation giving information about the person or a short TV style documentary. This
could be a real person or a fictional character. An example of this is given in The Life
and Works of Charles Dickens, where (after doing a Dictogloss about Dickens’ life) the
different expert groups find out about the names of Dickens’ novels, some of his most
famous quotes and important characters from the books. They can then be re-organised
into jigsaw groups to produce mini posters about Dickens’ life and work.
Another example of a jigsaw activity is in The Black Death in Europe where learners
working in pairs read a text together with information about the causes of the spread of
the Black Death. There are two versions of the text containing different information. The
pairs are then re-organised into ‘jigsaw’ groups to pool their information and complete a
task where they have to give four reasons for the spread of the disease.
Divide the class into ‘expert’ groups of four to six learners (keeping the groups
the same size as far as possible). Give each group a letter, or a colour, or other
name. Then ask the learners within each group to number themselves one to four (or
one to six).
Give each group a section of text or information (this can be in pictorial form).
The group should spend some time reading, discussing and helping each other to
understand the text or information. Word banks and dictionaries (bilingual or English)
may be useful at this stage. For a more in-depth activity, the group may use ICT and
reference books to further research a sub-topic.
Learners, who are now ‘experts’ on the own section of text or information, then
move into ‘jigsaw’ groups, with a shared number, i.e. all the number ones work in
a group, all the number twos work in another group, etc.
Each ‘expert’ learner in turn shares with their ‘jigsaw’ group the section of text or
information they were originally given. The others ask questions to ensure all have a
good understanding.
The ‘jigsaw’ group together complete a task which requires them to understand
all of the information shared by each ‘expert’. This could be anything that requires
each learner to contribute their piece of expert knowledge: filling in a grid or table,
completing a diagram, designing a poster, devising a role play.