101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

144 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving

Related Activities

• Parts Purge [31]

Procedure

1. Distribute the handout, review it with the participants, and answer any questions
   they may have.


2. Read aloud the following instructions: “Think of any noun (person, place, thing,
   quality, or action) and a word to modify it. These words should not be related
   directly to the challenge. Include some contradictory or just plain silly combina-
   tions. For instance: flying geese, glowing apples, silent springs, intelligent shrimp,
   falling stars, rising elephants, quivering rocks. Write down these combinations on
   a sheet of flip-chart paper.”


3. Tell them to select one of the noun-modifier combinations and free-associate from
   it, writing down whatever comes to mind, with each idea leading to the next.


4. Direct them to use the noun-modifier combinations and all the associations as
   stimuli to generate ideas.


5. Tell them to write down any ideas on Post-it®Notes (one idea per note) and place
   them on flip charts for evaluation.

Debrief/Discussion

This exercise easily can provide unique perspectives by the word combinations as well as

a spirit of “silliness” the combinations might provoke within a group. It will work espe-

cially well with individuals who are relatively uninhibited verbally and/or can free-asso-

ciate with little concern for the “correctness” of their associations.

Also consider having participants debrief using the following questions:

• What was most helpful about this exercise?


• What was most challenging?


• What can we apply?


• How would you rate the value of this exercise to helping us with this issue?


• Will this exercise be helpful in the future for other sessions?


• What did you learn?


• What will we be able to use from this exercise?


• What ideas were generated, and which ones were most interesting?

06 VG 119-166b 10/5/04 5:03 PM Page 144