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It s a free-association way of finding great answers to problems or questions. It s not word- association, though it s something like it. It s that first thought or memory which comes up that SEEMS unrelated so we usually ignore it. Instead of ignoring it, let s notice it instead and see how it just might answer the question from a deeper level of your mind than you are used to using. Game to try it? (Elicit agreement before proceeding.) It ll be actually the first THREE such free-associations which come to mind. While you are telling me one, another will pop into mind seemingly unrelated to the first thought or to the original question or problem, and while you re telling me that one, a third will come to mind. 29 BRAIN BOOSTERS Success in this experiment rides on whether you can notice and identify these seemingly unrelated thoughts and memories when they happen, and whether you can relate enough detail about each of these that we can discover the points which one of these free-associations has in common with another. So much else about these three free-associated thoughts or memories is different, but if we can then discover the aspect or aspects which these three seemingly unrelated free associations have in common, we may find a great answer. Game for this? Good while telling me your until-now unsolved question or problem, please be alert to and notice that first seemingly unrelated thought or memory when it appears, and develop that awareness by detailing it to me. Let s start now. Please describe to me what you ve chosen on this occasion as your question or problem. Similarly fish for the second and third such unrelateds, find their elements-in- common, then how those common elements just MIGHT, in what ways, somehow relate to or answer the problem or question. Below is a descriptive article about Final Exams taken from Winsights Index Part #52 on the www.winwenger.com website: Part #52 Final Exams A Special Procedure for Teachers and Trainers (but the rest of you can also sneak a peek!) by Win Wenger, Ph.D. Those of you who are well familiar with brainstorming and Freenoting know that the best ideas are generated near the end of the brainstorming session, after the fluff and trite stuff has been gotten out of the way. Those of you who have read Betty Edwards famous book Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain, and tried her famous exercise of drawing a picture upside down, know that our perceptions and responses are far more accurate once we ve gotten out of our way the fluff, the trite and stock responses we have for nearly everything, our short-cuts in perception and thinking. Once we ve gotten past these, we can become remarkably perceptive, effective and creative. In addition to these, the Final Exams procedure below makes a truly wonderful way to review much of the contents and context of a course, especially a successful one like those Win enjoys teaching at the National Institute for Teaching Excellence, a master s degree program for teachers conducted each summer by Cambridge College. Dr. Wenger first invented this procedure Friday, July 27, 2001, and used it to good effect the same day. You might as well have its use for your courses as well, if you so please. Enjoy. BRAIN BOOSTERS 30 For courses without final exams, to reduce anxiety, and to supplement finals in courses which have exams and tests. A major end-of-course booster and review. Tell your students: 1. Each of you make a list of five of the things you ve learned from this course. Especially things you d like to highlight. Number these five. Pause for two to three minutes, enabling your students to write their items. Now turn them into questions. Appropriate two to three minute pause to enable your students to turn their items into written questions, numbered one to five. 2. Please pair up as partners. 3. Decide very quickly which of you goes first as Hotseat and which of you goes first as Listener. OK, Hotseat, have your Listener partner call out a number between one and five. 4. Hotseat: whichever of your own questions matches that number from among your five, tell, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |