Engaging Middle School Students

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Cultivating Creativity in our Schools
ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015
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For more conversation

• Rick Wormeli
• 703-620-2447
• rwormeli_at_cox.net
• _at_rickwormeli2 (Twitter)

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q
p
c
d
Which letter does not belong, and why?
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Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not
because it has been sober, responsible, and
cautious, but because it has been playful,
rebellious, and immature. -- Tom Robbins
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• Processing Activity
• I used to
• think,
• but now
• I think

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In order for someone to accept feedback or take a
risk with your new idea, he must admit first what
he was doing was less effective than he thought
it was.
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We are hired for how we are similar to a company,
but we advance based on how we are different.
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Consider Rhodes Scholarship Candidate
struggles
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Transcend formulaic responses.
Please paint the transit buses in an interesting
way that breathes a little more life into our
city.
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• Video
• When There is a Correct Answer

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Our future depends on this one here.
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• Tenets
• It takes creative and critical thinking to
  achieve standards.
• Thoughtful classrooms create thoughtful students.
  We do not get creative students from
  non-creative classrooms.
• Students who think creatively and critically
  perform better on tests, standardized or not.
  

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If we find ways for colleagues and ourselves to
experience curiosity, awe, induction, deduction,
analysis, synthesis, resilience, empathy,
extrapolation, juxtaposition, and other mental
dexterities in their own development, they are
better thinkers of our discipline. They can
solve their own problems, connect with others and
among ideas, innovate their way to meaningful
contributions, and persevere in the midst of
challenge.
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All thinking begins with wonder.-- Socrates

• Our job is not to make up anybodys mind, but to
  open minds and to make the agony of
  decision-making so intense you can escape only by
  thinking. - Fred Friendly, broadcaster

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• Create a sense of wonder!
• Verbs
• Pronouns
• Newtons
• Laws
• Put on Scuba
• Gear and climb out
• of an eyeball
• Velcro props
• Compare
• Not-so-
• Pretend
• Constitutions

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• Embrace the fact that, learning is
  fundamentally an act of creation, not consumption
  of information.
• -- Sharon L. Bowman, Professional Trainer

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What Could We Do If We Were Creative Together?
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• (Sampling from Innocentive.com, page 1,
  downloaded June 24, 2012)
• Seeking Orthogonally Functionalized Cyclobutanes
• Navigating the Inside of an Egg Without Damaging
  It
• Cleveland Clinic Method to Reconnect Two Tissues
  Without Using Sutures
• Seeking 1H-pyrazolo3,4-bpyridin-3-amides
• Synthetic Route to a Benzazepinone
• My Air, My Health An HHS/EPA Challenge
• Mechanistic Proposals for a Vanadium-Catalyzed
  Addition of NMO to Imidazopyridazines
• Seeking Highest and Best Commercial Application
  for Breakthrough Innovation in Building
  Technology/Structural Optimization
• Desafio da Educação Como atrair pessoas
  talentosas para se tornar professor na rede
  pública brasileira

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• The problem solvers...were most effective when
  working at the margins of their fields.While
  these people were close enough to understand the
  challenges, they werent so close that their
  knowledge held them back and cause them to run
  into the same stumbling blocks as the corporate
  scientists. (p. 121, Lehrer)
• Check out InnoCentive at www.innocentive.com/ar/ch
  allenge/browse
• What would this look like in education?

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Could you teach the differences between
architecture in the Middle Ages and architecture
in the Renaissance period in such a classroom?
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How about the principles of algebra here?
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• Information Age is old school. Were in the High
  Concept Age, and we have the tech to pursue it
• Twitter and other social media
• Daily newspapers downloaded for analysis
• Museum school partnerships and Virtual Tours
• QR codes attached to classroom activities
• Student-designed apps
• Khan Academy and similar on-line tutorials
• Graduation in four states now requires one course
  taken completely on-line
• Google Docs
• Google Glass/Eyes wearables, implantables,
  augments

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• MOOCS Massive Open On-line Course
• Crowd-Sourcing
• MIT Open Courseware
• TED talks and ed.Ted.com
• Screencasts (ex. Camtasia Studio)
• Voicethread
• Moodle
• PBLs
• Prezi
• iMovie
• Edmodo

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(No Transcript)
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Make it fun.
Fun Theory -- Ice Skater http//www.youtube.co
m/watch?v1Bt1xm4w_CM
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We went to school. We were not taught how to
think we were taught to reproduce what past
thinkers thought.Instead of being taught to
look for possibilities, we were taught to
exclude them. Its as if we entered school as a
question mark and graduated as a period.
-- Michael Michalko,
Creative Thinkering, 2011, p. 3
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Its not an answer chase.
Consider
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• Its a question journey.

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• Do they know how to ask good questions?
• -- Tony Wagner, The Global Achievement Gap, 2008

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Techniques and Elements that Cultivate Creativity
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Creativity is making connections between
dissimilar things in such a way as to create
something new.
Its often about recombining old ideas and things
for new purposes or perspectives.
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• From Professor Alane Starko in her book,
  Creativity in the Classroom
•  
• Gutenberg developed the idea of movable type by
  looking at the way coins were stamped.
• Eli Whitney said he developed the idea for the
  cotton gin while watching a cat trying to catch a
  chicken through a fence.

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Pasteur began to understand the mechanisms of
infection by seeing similarities between infected
wounds and fermenting grapes.
Einstein used moving trains to gain insight into
relationships in time and space.
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Consider Einsteins Theory of Relativity.
He did not invent the concepts of energy, mass,
or speed of light. Rather he combined these ideas
in a new and useful way. -- Michael, Michalko,
Creative Thinkering, Machalko, 2011, p. xvii,
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Combination and Re-Combinination

• Hall duty and Teacher Advisory
• Service Learning and Students in danger of
  dropping out
• Miniature Golf and lesson sequence
• Students cafeteria behavior and architecture
• Unmotivated faculty and farming, astronomy, or
  marble tabletops.
• Parental involvement and medicine

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Grades are compensation.
communication.
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• Tomlinson If I laid out on my kitchen counter
  raw hamburger meat still in its Styrofoam
  container, cans of tomatoes and beans, jars of
  spices, an onion, and a bulb of garlic and told
  guests to eat heartily.My error would be that I
  confused ingredients for dinner with dinner
  itself.

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• Tomlinson One can make many different dishes
  with the same ingredients, by changing
  proportions, adding new ingredients, using the
  same ingredients in different ways, and so on.

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• Creativity is making mistakes.
• Art is knowing which ones to keep.
• - Scott Adams, The Book of Positive Quotations

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Our greatest Compass Rose
Doubt
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Its not what you dont know that gets you into
trouble, its what you know for sure that aint
so. - Mark Twain
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• Writer and educator, Margaret Wheatley, is
  correct
• We cant be creative unless were willing to
  be confused.

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Do I dare disturb the universe?
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Teams and individuals need clear vision for how
to fail, even in multiple attempts, before
succeeding. Be realistic Wow, this is taking
longer than I thought it would, and
constructive, Thats one thing Ill never forget
the next time I do this!
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Taking Positive Risks

• The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his
  orders from one who does.
• -- Herbert Prochnow
• If I had been a kid in my class today, would I
  want to come back tomorrow?
• -- Elsbeth Murphy
• Nothing ventured, something lost.
• -- Roland Barth

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Negating Students Incorrect Responses While
Keeping Them in the Conversation

• Act interested, Tell me more about that
• Empathy and Sympathy I used to think that,
  too, or I understand how you could conclude
  that
• Alter the reality
• -- Change the question so that the answer is
  correct
• -- Thats the answer for the question Im about
  to ask
• -- When student claims he doesnt know, ask,
  If you DID know, what would you say?

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Negating Students Incorrect Responses and While
Them in the Conversation

• Affirm risk-taking
• Allow the student more time or to ask for
  assistance
• Focus on the portions that are correct
• Remember Whoever is responding to students is
  processing the information and learning. Who,
  then, should be responding to students in the
  classroom? Students.

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Tenets for a Positive Culture for Failure

• Academic struggle is virtuous, not weakness.
• Failure can teach us in ways consistent success
  cannot.
• Initial failure followed by responsive teaching
  that helps students revise thinking results in
  greater long-term retention of content.

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When providing descriptive feedback that builds
creativity and perseverance,
comment on decisions made and their impact, NOT
quality of work.
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• The amount of risk someone takes in the work
  place is directly proportional to his sense of
  strong relationship with the person in charge.

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More than okay! After 10,000 tries, heres a
working light bulb. Any questions?
Re-Dos Re-Takes with students and their
teachers Are They Okay?
Thomas Edison
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F.A.I.L. First Attempt in Learning
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• Recovering in full from a failure teaches more
  than being labeled for failure ever could teach.
  
• Its a false assumption that giving a student an
  F or wagging an admonishing finger from afar
  builds moral fiber, self-discipline, competence,
  and integrity.

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Difficult Difficult Difficult Difficult Difficult
Difficult
Rigor versus
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Does providing more support mean its less
rigorous? On the contrary, providing support for
complex, multi-faceted applications is MORE
rigorous.
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One way to embrace creativityis to let go of
comparison. If you are concerned about conforming
or about how you measure up to others successes,
you wont perform the risk taking and
trailblazing inherent in creative endeavors. --
P. 57, Creative Confidence, Kelley and Kelley,
2014
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• Build instructional versatility.
• We cant be creative with what we dont have.
  Remember?

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• Participate in the larger profession.
• Professional inquiry via personal action research
  projects, Professional Learning Communities,
  subscriptions to professional journals,
  participation in on-line communities listervs,
  Twitter, Blogosphere, Webinars, Nings, and
  Wikis professional conferences, instructional
  roundtables in the building
• We get more ideas/tools, and creative people are
  inspired by people around them.

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• Read professionally and personally
• Write in the margins, make personal reactions to
  text. Share text/comments with colleagues.
  Occasionally do intense, focused time immersed in
  one topic via Literature, blogs, videos,
  lectures, and other resources.

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• Practice looking at objects, situations, ideas
  from different perspectives
• Argue from opponents point of view
• Re-tell the story from a different characters
  point of view
• Imagine a day in the life of(animate, inanimate)
• If decision is made, imagine the response of
  different groups of stake-holders
• Pursue methods to achieve empathy

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• Suspend judgment.
• Humans naturally categorize and judge. Fight
  the urge to label or automatically dismiss
  something which are both hard to do when in
  survival mode, agreed. Discern between exploring
  and judging, and lean toward exploration only.
  Tell me more about What would happen if we?
  Have you considered? Choose Yes, and over,
  Yes, but. comments.

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Practice Complex-ifying. Really. A lot.

• Practice turning regular and advanced education
  objectives and tasks into even more complex
  objectives and tasks.
• Be careful to change the nature of the
  content/task, not the difficulty or workload.

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To Increase (or Decrease) a Tasks Complexity,
Add (or Remove) these Attributes

• Manipulate information, not just echo it
• Extend the concept to other areas
• Integrate more than one subject or skill
• Increase the number of variables that must be
  considered incorporate more facets
• Demonstrate higher level thinking, i.e. Blooms
  Taxonomy, Williams Taxonomy
• Use or apply content/skills in situations not yet
  experienced
• Make choices among several substantive ones
• Work with advanced resources
• Add an unexpected element to the process or
  product
• Work independently
• Reframe a topic under a new theme
• Share the backstory to a concept how it was
  developed
• Identify misconceptions within something

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To Increase (or Decrease) a Tasks Complexity,
Add (or Remove) these Attributes

• Identify the bias or prejudice in something
• Negotiate the evaluative criteria
• Deal with ambiguity and multiple meanings or
  steps
• Use more authentic applications to the real world
• Analyze the action or object
• Argue against something taken for granted or
  commonly accepted
• Synthesize (bring together) two or more unrelated
  concepts or objects to create something new
• Critique something against a set of standards
• Work with the ethical side of the subject
• Work in with more abstract concepts and models
• Respond to more open-ended situations
• Increase their automacity with the topic
• Identify big picture patterns or connections
• Defend their work

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• Manipulate information, not just echo it
• Once youve understood the motivations and
  viewpoints of the two historical figures,
  identify how each one would respond to the three
  ethical issues provided.
• Extend the concept to other areas
• How does this idea apply to the expansion of the
  railroads in 1800s? or, How is this portrayed
  in the Kingdom Protista?
• Work with advanced resources
• Using the latest schematics of the Space Shuttle
  flight deck and real interviews with
  professionals at Jet Propulsion Laboratories in
  California, prepare a report that
• Add an unexpected element to the process or
  product
• What could prevent meiosis from creating four
  haploid nuclei (gametes) from a single haploid
  cell?

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• Reframe a topic under a new theme
• Re-write the scene from the point of view of
  the antagonist, Re-envision the countrys
  involvement in war in terms of insect behavior,
  or, Re-tell Goldilocks and the Three Bears so
  that it becomes a cautionary tale about
  McCarthyism.
• Synthesize (bring together) two or more unrelated
  concepts or objects to create something new
• How are grammar conventions like music?
• Work with the ethical side of the subject
• At what point is the Federal government
  justified in subordinating an individuals rights
  in the pursuit of safe-guarding its citizens?

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Williams Taxonomy

• Fluency
• Flexibility
• Originality
• Elaboration
• Risk Taking
• Complexity
• Curiosity
• Imagination

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Frank Williams Taxonomy of Creative Thinking

• Fluency We generate as many ideas and
  responses as we can
• Example Task Choose one of the simple machines
  weve studied (wheel and axle, screw, wedge,
  lever, pulley, and inclined plane), and list
  everything in your home that uses it to operate,
  then list as many items in your home as you can
  that use more than one simple machine in order to
  operate.
• --------------------------------------------------
  --------------------------------------------------
  -----
• Flexibility We categorize ideas, objects, and
  learning by thinking divergently
  about them
• Example Task Design a classification system for
  the items on your list.

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Frank Williams Taxonomy of Creative Thinking

• Originality We create clever and often unique
  responses to a prompt
• Example Task Define life and non-life.
• --------------------------------------------------
  -----------------
• Elaboration We expand upon or stretch an idea
  or thing, building on previous thinking
• Example What inferences about future algae
  growth can you make, given the three graphs of
  data from our experiment?

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Frank Williams Taxonomy of Creative Thinking

• Risk Taking We take chances in our thinking,
  attempting tasks for which the outcome is unknown
• Example Write a position statement on whether
  or not genetic engineering of humans
  should be funded by the United States government.
  
• --------------------------------------------------
  -----------------------------
• Complexity We create order from chaos, we
  explore the logic of a situation, we integrate
  additional variables or aspects of a situation,
  contemplate connections
• Example Analyze how two different students
  changed their lab methodology to
  prevent data contamination.

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Frank Williams Taxonomy of Creative Thinking

• Curiosity We pursue guesses, we wonder about
  varied elements, we question.
• Example What would you like to ask someone who
  has lived aboard the International Space Station
  for three months about living in zero-gravity?
• --------------------------------------------------
  -----------------------------
• Imagination We visualize ideas and objects, we
  go beyond just what we have in front of us
• Example Imagine building an undersea colony for
  500 citizens, most of whom are scientists, a
  kilometer below the oceans surface. What factors
  would you have to consider when building and
  maintaining the colony and the happiness of its
  citizens?

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• Steal, borrow, and steal some more.
• Incorporate others work and ideas in your own.
  From T.S. Eliot Immature poets imitate. Mature
  poets steal.

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• Share freely.
• We are often better served by connecting ideas
  than we are by protecting them. (P. 22, Johnson)
• P.61 Instead, most important ideas emerged
  during regular lab meetings, where a dozen or so
  researchers would gather and informally present
  and discuss their latest work. If you looked at
  the map of idea formation., the ground zero of
  innovation was not the microscope. It was the
  conference table.
• The Fox televsion show, House, used this model
  frequently.

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• Children are creative because their filters and
  censors havent activated yet.
• You are seven years old, and school is
  canceled. You have the entire day to yourself.
  What would you do? Where would you go? Who would
  you see? Two groups, one with these
  instructions and one with the same instruction
  minus the first sentence. Both groups wrote
  ideas for ten minutes.
• Then given various tests of creativity, such as
  generating alternative uses for an old car tire
  or a brick. The group that experienced imagining
  being seven years old came up with twice as many
  ideas a the other group. (P. 110, Lehrer)

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Discern the Pattern and Fill in the Last Row of
Numbers

• 1
• 1 1
• 2 1
• 1 2 1 1
• 1 1 1 2 2 1
• 3 1 2 2 1 1
• 1 3 1 1 2 2 2 1
• 1 1 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 1

- From, Creative Thinkering, 2011, Michael
Michalko, p. 44
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• Regularly do automatic tasks and let the mind
  roam.
• Walk, run, drive a long distance without
  listening to music, take an extended shower or
  bath, wash a lot of dishes, mow the lawn, weed
  the garden, paint a room, crochet, clean gutters,
  shovel snow, stare at the ocean, watch birds for
  45 minutes, swim freestyle, water walk, or tread
  water for an extended time. All of these put us
  in a more associative state.

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• Do activities that have no extrinsic reward
  associated with them.
• In Drive, Daniel Pink reminds us that, Rewards,
  by their very nature, narrow our focus. (p. 44)
  Creativity happens more often because people are
  curious, not because it satisfies financial
  incentives. Yes, we do some things in order to
  increase our salary step or receive a bonus, but
  creativity is usually a casualty of such
  approaches.
• Teachers can write articles and blogs on topics
  they enjoy, not just on topics that get pay. As
  we have time and interest, we can mentor new
  teachers, sponsor a club or sport of interest,
  write articles and blogs on topics of interest,
  and we can participate in training and teach a
  class about ELL, gifted, technology, coding,
  library/media services, learning disabilities,
  and drama.

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• Ask the larger questions of what we do and why we
  do it.
• Whose voices arent heard in our deliberations?
• How are our current structures limiting student
  achievement?
• What does this classroom incorporate what we know
  about how the mind best learns?
• What is the role of homework? Grading?
• Do teachers feel valued?
• Will time on task increase achievement or is it
  the type of task we assign that increases
  achievement?

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• Publicly declare your teaching philosophy and
  Invite professional critique.
• Come across as accessible and inviting of
  critique. Enjoy the interaction between teacher
  and critic. This is where most of the
  transformation occurs not only in the
  information offered by the one critiquing, but in
  the back-and-forth between the two people
  involved. This is hard, of course, because in
  order to accept a new idea teachers have to first
  admit what they were doing was ineffective or
  wrong.
• What goes unlearned by students because we
  werent open to critique?

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• Challenge assumptions.
• Get your personal Socrates going. Why cant
  students re-do final exams? Look at limitations
  of the research study, and ask to see the raw
  data from which conclusions are drawn. Are we
  sure the classic was symbolizing mans inhumanity
  to man? Develop data analysis skills. Look for
  what the writer/speaker is NOT saying just as
  much as for what he IS saying. Ask colleagues to
  articulate positions thoroughly Dont let them
  get away with generalizations. Explore layered
  meanings, consider the source of information and
  possible bias.

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Reframe the question or endeavor. Instead of
trying to invent a better mousetrap,look at
other ways to mouseproof your home. Maybe the
mousetrap isnt really the problem. People
dont want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want
a quarter-inch hole! (p. 101, 102), Creative
Confidence
What would this look like in schools?

• Re-frame
• How can I get students to pay attention to the
  lesson?
• How can I get parents off my back?
• How can I find the time to teach these standards?
• How can I teach this many students in one
  classroom?

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• Sleep.
• Seriously, a lot. Sleep aids creativity in many
  ways It creates the relaxed, associative state
  of mind. It improves alertness, working and
  long-term memory, and positive, Can do
  attitude. It may be one of the most influential
  factors in thinking.

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• Creativity is Powerful, but Meaning also Matters!
• An English professor wrote the words, A woman
  without her man is nothing, on the blackboard
  and directed the students to punctuate it
  correctly. The men wrote A woman, without her
  man, is nothing, while the women wrote, A
  woman without her, man is nothing.
• ----------------------------------------------
• Lets eat, Dad!
• Lets eat Dad.

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Meaningful Arrangement and Patterns are Everything

• d-a-o-o-u-i-d-y-v-l-e

I love you, Dad.
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• To a person uninstructed in natural history,
  his country or seaside stroll is a walk through
  a gallery filled with wonderful works of art,
  nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to
  the wall.
• -- Thomas Huxley, 1854

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• Expertise increases engagement and
  understanding. (Physics students example)

Put another way
Chance favors the prepared mind. -- Pasteur
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Yes, teach students to memorize content.
We cant be creative with what we dont have.
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Which one leads to more learning of how
microscopes work?

1. Kellen plays with the microscope, trying out all
   of its parts, then reads an article about how
   microscopes work and answers eight comprehension
   questions about its content.
2. Kellen reads the article about how microscopes
   work, answers eight comprehension questions about
   its content, then plays with the microscope,
   trying out all of its parts.

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• Worthy they were,
• Rafael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello.
• Theirs a chromatic and plumed rebirth,
• A daring reflection upon man.
• Beyond Hastings and a Wifes tale in Canterbury,
• Galileo thrust at more than Windmills,
• He, Copernicus Gravitas.
• And for the spectre of debate,
• religion blinked then jailed,
• errant no more,
• thereby errant forever.
• Cousin to Pericles, Son of Alexander,
• The cosmology of Adam fanned for all,
• feudal plains trampled by trumpeters,
• man and woman lay awake --
• calves on wobbly legs,
• staring at new freedom
• and Gutenbergs promise.  

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Creating Background Where There is None

• Tell the story of the Code of Hammurabi before
  discussing the Magna Charta.
• Before studying the detailed rules of baseball,
  play baseball.
• Before reading about how microscopes work, play
  with micros copes.
• Before reading the Gettysburg Address, inform
  students that Lincoln was dedicating a cemetery.

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Creating Background Where There is None

• Before reading a book about a military campaign
  or a murder mystery with references to chess,
  play Chess with a student in front of the class,
  or teach them the basic rules, get enough boards,
  and ask the class to play.
• In math, we might remind students of previous
  patterns as they learn new ones. Before teaching
  students factorization, we ask them to review
  what they know about prime numbers.
• In English class, ask students, How is this
  storys protagonist moving in a different
  direction than the last storys protagonist?
• In science, ask students, Weve seen how
  photosynthesis reduces carbon dioxide to sugars
  and oxidizes water into oxygen, so what do you
  think the reverse of this process called,
  respiration, does?

92

• Chess masters can store over 100,000 different
  patterns of pieces in long term memory. Chess
  players get good by playing thousands of games!
• Experts think in relationships, patterns, chunks,
  novices keep things individual pieces.
• Physics experiment in categorization
• Solid learning comes from when students make the
  connections, not when we tell them about them.

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Exposure to a wide array of experiences creates
is the basis for creative solutions. Insulation
embalms the sentiment that the world we know is
the only one that matters.
94

• To create meaning in students learning
  experiences
• Connect new learning to previous learning
• Connect new learning to students backgrounds -
  Sousa If we expect students to find meaning, we
  need to be certain that todays curriculum
  contains connections to their past experiences,
  not just ours.(p. 49)
• Model how the skill or concept is used
• Demonstrate how the content or skills create
  leverage (how it gains us something) in other
  subjects
• Include a, So, why should we learn this?
  section in every major lesson
• Increase the emotional connections
• Create more access points in the mind
• Prime the brain
• Separate and combine knowledge analyze,
  synthesize

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The Inner Net - David Bowden
96
Finger Mitosis
97
Vividness

• a lot Running to each wall to shout, a and
  lot, noting space between
• Comparing Constitutions Former Soviet Union and
  the U.S. names removed
• Real skeletons, not diagrams
• Simulations
• Writing Process described while sculpting with
  clay

98

• Have Some Fun Anything Can Be A Metaphor!
• An apple
• a star (the birth place of energy on our planet)
  in the middle (the seed pattern makes a star if
  we cut it the right way)
• we must break the surface to get to the juicy
  good parts
• the outside doesnt reveal what lies inside
• the apple becomes soft and mushy over time
• the apple can be tart or sweet depending on its
  family background
• its parts are used to create multiple products
• A cell phone
• lifeline to the larger world
• an unapologetic taskmaster
• an unfortunate choice of gods
• a rude child that interrupts just when he
  shouldnt
• a rite of passage
• a declaration of independence

99

• A pencil sharpener
• Whittler of pulp
• Tool diminisher
• Mouth of a sawdust monster
• Eater of brain translators
• Cranking something to precision
• Writing re-energizer
• Scantron test enabler
• Curtains
• Wall between fantasy and reality
• Denied secrets
• Anticipation
• Arbiter of suspense
• Making a house a home
• Vacuum cleaner antagonist

• Railroad
• Circulatory system of the country
• Enforcer of Manifest Destiny
• Iron monster
• Unforgiving mistress to a hobo
• Lifeline
• Economic renewal
• Relentless beast
• Mechanical blight
• Movie set
• A foreshadow of things to come
• A hearkening to the past
•  

100
Body Analogies

• Fingers and hands can be associated with
  dexterity, omnidirectional aspects, working in
  unison and individually, flexibility, or artwork.
  
• Feet can relate to things requiring footwork or
  journey.
• Anything that expresses passion, feeling,
  pumping, supplying, forcing, life, or rhythm
  could be analogous to the heart.
• Those concepts that provide structure and/or
  support for other things are analogous to the
  spinal column.

101
Body Analogies

• Those things that protect are similar to the rib
  cage and cranium.
• The pancreas and stomach provide enzymes that
  break things down, the liver filters things, the
  peristalsis of the esophagus pushes things along
  in a wave-like muscle action.
• Skins habit of regularly releasing old, used
  cells and replacing them with new cells from
  underneath keeps it healthy, flexible, and able
  to function.

102
Body Sculptures (Statues) Frozen Tableau

• At your table groups, identify one concept,
  principle, or idea from yesterday. Then, using
  every persons body, create a frozen tableau that
  symbolically represents the concept, principle,
  or idea.
• Evaluative Criteria
• Its comprehensive of the idea It represents
  all of it, not just a portion of it.
• Once viewers know what it is, nothing in the
  sculpture would create a misunderstanding of the
  concept, principle, or idea.
• Every member of your group can explain the
  different elements of the sculpture.

103
Metaphors Break Down

• You cant think of feudalism as a ladder
  because you can climb up a ladder. The feudal
  structure is more like sedimentary rock whats
  on the bottom will always be on the bottom unless
  some cataclysmic event occurs.
• -- Amy Benjamin, Writing in the Content Areas, p.
  80

104
Same Concept, Multiple Domains

• The Italian Renaissance Symbolize curiosity,
  technological advancement, and cultural shifts
  through mindmaps, collages, graphic organizers,
  paintings, sculptures, comic strips, political
  cartoons, music videos, websites, computer
  screensavers, CD covers, or advertisements
  displayed in the city subway system.
• The economic principle of supply and demand
  What would it look like as a floral arrangement,
  in the music world, in fashion, or dance? Add
  some complexity How would each of these
  expressions change if were focusing on a bull
  market or the economy during a recession?

105
Same Concept, Multiple Domains

• Geometric progression, the structure of a
  sentence, palindromes, phases of the moon, irony,
  rotation versus revolution, chromatic scale,
  Boolean logic, sine/cosine, meritocracy, tyranny,
  feudalism, ratios,the relationship between depth
  and pressure, musical dynamics, six components of
  wellness, and the policies of Winston Churchill
  can all be expressed in terms of food, fashion,
  music, dance, flora, fauna, architecture,
  minerals, weather, vehicles, television shows,
  math, art, and literature.

106
Common Analogous Relationships

• Antonyms
• Synonyms
• Age
• Time
• Part Whole
• Whole Part
• Tool Its Action
• Tool user Tool
• Tool Object Its Used With
• Worker product he creates
• Category Example
• Effect Cause
• Cause Effect
• Increasing Intensity
• Decreasing Intensity
• Person closely related adjective

• Person least related adjective
• Math relationship
• Effect cause
• Action Thing Acted Upon
• Action Subject Performing the Action
• Object or Place Its User
• Object specific attribute of the object
• Male Female
• Symbol what it means
• Classification/category example
• Noun Closely Related Adjective
• Elements Used Product created
• Attribute person or object
• Object Where its located
• Lack (such as drought/water one thing lacks
  the other)

107

• Creating and interpreting patterns of content,
  not just content itself, creates a marketable
  skill in todays students. A look at data as
  indicating peaks and valleys of growth over
  time, noticing a trend runs parallel to another,
  or that a new advertising campaign for dietary
  supplements merges four distinct worlds --
  Greco-Roman, retro-80s, romance literature, and
  suburbia is currency for tomorrows employees.
  
• To see this in a math curriculum, for example,
  look at algebraic patterns. Frances Van Dykes A
  Visual Approach to Algebra (Dale Seymour
  Publications, 1998)

108
A submarine submerges, rises up to the surface,
and submerges again. Its depth d is a function
of time t. (p.44)
d
d
t
t
109
A submarine submerges, rises up to the surface,
and submerges again. Its depth d is a function
of time t. (continued)
d
d
t
t
110
Consider the following graphs. Describe a
situation that could be appropriately represented
by each graph. Give the quantity measured along
the horizontal axis as well as the quantity
measured along the vertical axis.
111
Descriptions With and Without Metaphors

• Friendship Family
• Infinity Imperialism
• Solving for a variable Trust
• Euphoria Mercy
• Worry Trouble
• Obstructionist Judiciary Honor
• Immigration Homeostasis
• Balance Temporal Rifts
• Economic Principles Religious fervor
• Poetic License Semantics
• Heuristics Tautology
• Embarrassment Knowledge

112
4-Square Synectics

• Brainstorm four objects from a particular
  category (examples kitchen appliances, household
  items, the circus, forests, shopping malls).
• In small groups, brainstorm what part of todays
  learning is similar in some way to the objects
  listed.
• Create four analogies, one for each object.
• Example How is the human digestive system like
  each household item sink, old carpet, microwave,
  broom
• Example How is the Pythagorean Theorem like
  each musical instrument piano, drum set,
  electric guitar, trumpet?

113
Great Resources on Metaphors

• From Molecule to Metaphor A Neural Theory of
  Language by Jerome Feldman
• Metaphor A Practical Introduction by Zoltan
  Kovecses
• Poetic Logic The Role of Metaphor in Thought,
  Language, and Culture by Marcel Danesi
• Metaphors Analogies Power Tools for Teaching
  any Subject by Rick Wormeli
• I Is an Other The Secret Life of Metaphor and
  How It Shapes the Way We See the World by James
  Geary

114
Great Resources on Metaphors

• Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff
• The Political Mind Why You Can't Understand
  21st-Century American Politics with an
  18th-Century Brain
• by George Lakoff
• A Bee in a Cathedral And 99 Other Scientific
  Analogies by Joel Levy
• On Metaphor (A Critical Inquiry Book) edited by
  Sheldon Sacks

115

•  Analyze Construct
• Revise Rank
• Decide between Argue against
• Why did Argue for
• Defend Contrast
• Devise Develop
• Identify Plan
• Classify Critique
• Define Rank
• Compose Organize
• Interpret Interview
• Expand Predict
• Develop Categorize
• Suppose Invent
• Imagine Recommend

Change your verbs.
116
One-Word Summaries

• The new government regulations for the
  meat-packing industry in the 1920s could be seen
  as an opportunity,
• Picassos work is actually an argument for.,
• NASAs battle with Rockwell industries over the
  warnings about frozen temperatures and the
  O-rings on the space shuttle were trench
  warfare.
• Basic Idea Argue for or against the word as a
  good description for the topic.

117
Summarization Pyramid
__________ ______________ ____________________ ___
______________________ ___________________________
___ ___________________________________
Great prompts for each line Synonym, analogy,
question, three attributes, alternative title,
causes, effects, reasons, arguments, ingredients,
opinion, larger category, formula/sequence,
insight, tools, misinterpretation, sample,
people, future of the topic
118
3-2-1

• 3 Identify three characteristics of Renaissance
  art
• that differed from art of the Middle Ages
• 2 List two important scientific debates that
  occurred
• during the Renaissance
• 1 Provide one good reason why rebirth is an
• appropriate term to describe the
  Renaissance
• 3 List three applications for slope,
  y-intercept
• knowledge in the professional world
• 2 Identify two skills students must have in
  order to
• determine slope and y-intercept from a set
  of points
• on a plane
• 1 If (x1, y1) are the coordinates of a point W
  in a
• plane, and (x2, y2) are the coordinates of
  a different
• point Y, then the slope of line WY is what?

119
Unique Summarization Formats/Products

• A soap opera about valence among chemical
  elements
• A Wanted Dead or Alive poster about
  Preposition Pete (He was last seen in the
  OverHillnDale Saloon, at the table, in the
  dark, under close scrutiny of other scalawags)
• Compose a ballad about the cautious Massasoit
  tribe coming to dinner with Governor Bradford and
  his colony in 1621.
• Interpret the Internet for Amazonian inhabitants
  that have never lived with electricity, let alone
  a computer.
• Argue for and against Democracy as a healthy way
  to build a country Provide at least two
  arguments for each position.
• Classify the Greek gods and goddesses according
  to three different criteria.
• Predict the limiting factors for this habitat
  twenty-five years from now.
• Retell a fairytale of your choosing with one of
  the following concepts as its central theme
• Courage is not the absence of fear, but the
  judgment that something else is more important
  than that fear. -- Ambrose Redmoon
• A setback is preparation for a comeback.
• The one who never makes mistakes takes his
  orders from one who does.

120
Unique Summarization Formats/Products

• A comic strip about the mantissa (the
  decimal-fraction part of a logarithm)
• A mysterious yet accurate archeological map
  concerning the quadratic formula
• A field guide to the asymptotes of a hyperbola
  (the diagonals of the rectangle formed by the
  lines x a, x a, y b and y -b in the
  hyperbola x squared over a squared y squared
  over b squared)
• A coloring book about Amendments 1, 2, 3, 4, and
  10 to the Constitution
• A rap song that expresses the order of
  Presidential succession
• A grocery list for Taiga biomes
• A mural that accurately expresses the checks and
  balances nature of our Federal governments
  three branches judicial, legislative, and
  executive
• A sculpture or mobile that teaches observers
  about latitude and longitude
• A pop-up book on liquid and dry measures

121
Word Link

• Each student gets a word.
• In partners, students share the link(s) between
  their individual words.
• Partner team joins another partner team, forming
  a word cluster.
• All four students identify the links among their
  words and share those links with the class.
• -- Yopp, Ruth Helen. Word Links A Strategy for
  Developing Word Knowledge, Voices in the Middle,
  Vol. 15, Number 1, September 2007, National
  Council Teachers of English

122
Ropes Course Games
123
Ropes Course Games

• Electric Fence (Getting over triangle fence
  without touching)
• Spider Web (Pass bodies through webbing withot
  ringing the attached bells)
• Group Balance (2X2 platform on which everyone
  stands and sings a short song)
• Nitro-glycerin Relocation (previous slide)
• Trust Falls (circle style or from a chair)

124
Line-up

• Groups of students line up according to criteria.
  Each student holds an index card identifying
  what he or she is portraying.
• Students discuss everyones position with one
  another -- posing questions, disagreeing, and
  explaining rationales.

125
Line-up

• Students can line-up according to
• chronology, sequences in math problems,
  components of an essay, equations, sentences,
  verb tense, scientific process/cycle, patterns
  alternating, category/example, increasing/decreasi
  ng degree, chromatic scale, sequence of events,
  cause/effect, components of a larger topic,
  opposites, synonyms

126
Human Continuum
A
D
127
Human Continuum

• Use a human continuum. Place a long strip of
  masking tape across the middle of the floor, with
  an "Agree" or Yes taped at one end, and
  "Disagree" or No at the other end. Put a
  notch in the middle for those unwilling to commit
  to either side. Read statements about the days
  concepts aloud while students literally stand
  where they believe along the continuum. Be pushy
  ask students to defend their positions.

128
Resources

• Mindware www.mindwareonline.com
  (1-800-999-0398)
• Fluegelman, Andrew, Editor. The New Games Book,
  Headlands Press Book, Doubeday and Company, New
  York, 1976
• Henton, Mary (1996) Adventure in the Classroom.
  Dubuque, Iowa Kendall Hunt
• Lundberg, Elaine M. Thurston, Cheryl Miller.
  (1997) If Theyre Laughing Fort Collins,
  Colorado Cottonwood Press, Inc.
• Rohnke, K. (1984). Silver Bullets. Dubuque, Iowa
  Kendall Hunt.
• Rohnke, K. Butler, S. (1995). QuickSilver.
  Dubuque, Iowa Kendall Hunt
• Rohnke, K. (1991). The Bottomless Bag Again.
  Dubuque, Iowa Kendall Hunt
• Rohnke, K. (1991). Bottomless Baggie. Dubuque,
  Iowa Kendall Hunt
• Rohnke, K. (1989). Cowstail and Cobras II.
  Dubuque, Iowa Kendall Hunt

129
Petals Around the Rose
The name of the game is, Petals Around the
Rose. The name is very important. For each
roll of the game, there is one answer, and I will
tell you that answer.
130
Petals Around the Rose
Answer
6
0
10
131
Petals Around the Rose

• Clues to give students if they struggle
• All the math you need to solve this problem you
  learn in kindergarten or before.
• The sequence of the dice patterns has no
  bearing on the answer.

132

• Processing Activity
• I used to
• think,
• but now
• I think