Day 4- Brainstorming and Decision Making

This week, my little OMers put in a lot of good work.  As always, we started the session with some Spontaneous practice with emphasis on SCAMPER.  Lately, we've been practicing a lot Verbal Spontaneous Problems (mostly because they are short and concise) and the kids seem to be really getting a hang of it.  The two problems we focused on today involved explaining why the Leaning Tower of Pisa was leaning and listing signs and their "directions".  During Spontaneous problems, students are given anywhere from one to two minutes of 'think time' (usually just silent, sometimes can talk with group members) with two to four minutes to respond.  Responses are also graded in a variety of ways.  Usually, common answers receive one point while creative answers receive 3 points.  Some questions offer highly creative/ humorous points which are 5 points per response.  Both questions the students did today offered all three levels and I am very proud to say that on both questions we averaged half common answers and half creative/highly creative!  Let me say that again,

HALF OF THE RESPONSES GIVEN SCORED AS EITHER CREATIVE OR HIGHLY CREATIVE!

That's a big deal!  Not only have the students really improved quickly, but they have been really developing some serious creative thinking skills.  In the sign question, Eminem-ily* kicked off the round with a highly creative answer!  Everybody is really thinking about their answers so they can get as many points as they can.

After Spontaneous, we went to the daunting task of deciding various pieces of our solution.  Last week, the kids had begun to narrow down their lists of possible characters, setting, and reactions to the "frightening haunted house".  Today, I wanted our goal to be decided our reaction.  The kids voted on the list we had brainstormed using the same basic scoring technique that is used for Spontaneous problems (1pt for common reaction, 2pts for creative reactions, and 3pts for highly creative reactions).  The team narrowed it down to two possibilities before deciding to take a vote.  After voting, it was three in favor in one and 4 in favor of the other.  While that's not technically a gridlock, I decided it was probably best to have each side "make their case" to help the kids decided more unanimously.  Two kids performed a short skit for their side, while two other kids performed their short skit for their side.  The three neutral students were left to discuss which mini-performance could work for our solution.  Needless to say, time was running out and the students were still discussing.  I called another vote that would stand as final.  Unfortunately, the results were the same- four for one reaction and 3 for the other.  However, we got something decided which helps moves us forward and provides us with a starting point for next week!

*Eminem-ily is a nickname since I have two Emilys!