Productive Thinking: 5

My sister Christine, a veteran teacher like me, and I were discussing math teaching this morning. I told her how I emphasized the fact with students that when we learn math we develop our thinking/learning skills and abilities. Then she responded by telling about a great productive thinking exercise she uses with her class to develop deep thinking and creativity skills. She learned the lesson from a productive thinking workshop. I outlined the lesson below:

1. Pose your grade level number.
2. Ask students to think about what they could create on paper beginning with that number.
3. List students' ideas.
4. Then ask students to take that number and create an image that's different from any of the ideas on the list. 
5. Let students work on their creations, then hang their masterpieces up for all to see and examine.
6. Make the connection that good collective process helps one to develop wonderful ideas and creativity.

I can't wait to try out this idea as one way to build students' ability to think deep and wide. Nice!