MODEL: BRAINSTORMING

OBJECTIVES: Students help generate or create a broad list related ideas or words and all students feel that they have contributed.

MATERIALS:
For the teacher: An idea that you want students to think about and a chart or chalkboard to record lots of answers.

PLANNING: Very little planning is needed. You usually brainstorm when you want either a lot of words for a writing project (such as, "How many words can you think of that remind you of snow"), or a lot of different ideas on a content topic (such as, "What can we each do to help preserve our planetís resources?).

STEPS OF THE MODEL


 
SET Say, "Today I am going to record your ideas about something we are going to study. I want you to tell me every idea that you can think about. When we are finished, you will be using these words (or ideas) for an assignment, but let that be a surprise for now. (accountability)

LESSON

  1. Tell students the topic and ask for their responses. Encourage them to think creatively, and remind them that there are not any particular answers that they have to try and guess. 
  2. Students raise hands and you call on them equitably. Each answer is recorded so that the whole class can see. 
  3. All answers are accepted and written down during the brainstorm. (If some donít fit, the class can go back when the brainstorming is finished and move some of the responses to a different spot. Repeat answers are not allowed.
  1. 4, Some use is made of the list, preferably something that involves every student so that they see a purpose for their hard brainstorming work. For example: if you generated snow words you could teach student how to write a "snow" poem and they could use some of the recorded words, or ask students to list the words in alphabetical order; if you generated ways to preserve the planetís resources, you might ask each student to create and sign a personal pledge for the items he or she is willing to do.

EVALUATION:

Process only: There is no individual product for brainstorming, so evaluation is very difficult to do unless there is a follow-up project (see #4 above) that can be evaluated for understanding.

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