This week my grade 7 students continued our exploration of creativity. I find myself thinking a great deal about the differences between involving students in creative activities such as drama or art or an engineering design challenge, and deliberately having conversations and structuring the environment so that learners become aware of how to become more creative and develop strategies for sparking new and better ideas.
Once again I have Josie Fung of the Ithink Initiative at U of T's Rotman School of Management to thank, as well as Jennifer Chan of Exhibit Change, who is doing some very interesting work in design thinking and education for my growth in understanding of the kinds of conversations we need to be having with learners about creativity. Thank you Jenn for the Oreo Cookie idea!
My grade 7 students were asked to sit in pairs and became extremely puzzled as I walked through the class and placed an Oreo-type cookie on their desks. I then asked them to discuss with their partner the correct way to eat an oreo cookie.
Next, I asked students to come up with as many ways as possible to eat an Oreo cookie.
I then asked students to eat their oreo cookies without hands which causes a great deal of laughter!
Finally we debriefed.
1. We tend to fall into patterns of behaviour that we don't really think about.
2. We stop finding new ways to do things because of habit.
3. To spark creativity and get new ideas we need to break our patterns of thinking and doing, and then deliberately try to think of new ideas.
4. We discussed how it felt to not be able to eat the cookie the way they had planned to. For some it was slightly stressful.
Finally I asked students to think of something they do in a habitual way and to come up with three new ways to do that task. These they shared with other students.
It was a fun 40 minutes of learning.
When we meet again, we'll revisit the activity to consider our ideas about the right way to do things.
Once again I have Josie Fung of the Ithink Initiative at U of T's Rotman School of Management to thank, as well as Jennifer Chan of Exhibit Change, who is doing some very interesting work in design thinking and education for my growth in understanding of the kinds of conversations we need to be having with learners about creativity. Thank you Jenn for the Oreo Cookie idea!
My grade 7 students were asked to sit in pairs and became extremely puzzled as I walked through the class and placed an Oreo-type cookie on their desks. I then asked them to discuss with their partner the correct way to eat an oreo cookie.
Next, I asked students to come up with as many ways as possible to eat an Oreo cookie.
I then asked students to eat their oreo cookies without hands which causes a great deal of laughter!
Finally we debriefed.
1. We tend to fall into patterns of behaviour that we don't really think about.
2. We stop finding new ways to do things because of habit.
3. To spark creativity and get new ideas we need to break our patterns of thinking and doing, and then deliberately try to think of new ideas.
4. We discussed how it felt to not be able to eat the cookie the way they had planned to. For some it was slightly stressful.
Finally I asked students to think of something they do in a habitual way and to come up with three new ways to do that task. These they shared with other students.
It was a fun 40 minutes of learning.
When we meet again, we'll revisit the activity to consider our ideas about the right way to do things.
Love this, Heidi, thanks! I'm about to use the exercise with teachers :)
ReplyDeleteIgnore earlier comment. I used your idea today in a learning team leaders meeting. After the cookie introduction and debrief, I asked them to think about new ways our multi talented librarian and elearning facilitator might benefit learning, rather than isolated whole class lessons - lovely creative ideas and possibilities. Thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteHi Edna, When I first experienced the oreo cookie activity it seemed such a simple way to make me see how much we fall into patterns of thinking and behaving. I am so glad you were able to use this successfully with your colleagues. I will pass that on to Jenn Chan the originator of the idea. Thanks for letting me know!
ReplyDeleteI am a student at the University of South Alabama. I want to begin by telling you how much I love this idea. I think this is a very great idea to get students to think more creatively. I hope to use this idea in my future classroom.
ReplyDeleteHi, I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. What a fun idea. I love an activity that includes the use of food. I think if you want to spark creativity, definitely use the sense of taste. I don’t know of anyone who hasn’t eaten an Oreo-type cookie before, breaking the “but I never…..” cycles sometimes children get on, who are not very confident writers. I may borrow this idea for my second graders, any tips? Thanks so much for the interesting post!
ReplyDelete