101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

(Joyce) #1

162 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving


35. Word Diamond


Background
Hot new ideas shine and sparkle with radiant brilliance. They illuminate their surround-
ings and blind lesser ideas. Everyone wants a shiny, multifaceted new idea, but you can’t
always get what you want. Sometimes you have to settle for a so-so idea.
The Word Diamond technique won’t ensure that all your ideas will sparkle. It will,
however, provide you with another systematic approach to idea generation. And it’s a
breeze to implement.
This technique originally was developed by VanGundy (1983) as a simple combina-
tion procedure using elements of a problem statement. Thus, it is similar to Bi-Wordal
[22]. Instead of using alternative word meanings, however, Word Diamond generates
ideas by combining words in the problem statement in different ways.

Objectives



  • To help participants generate as many creative ideas as possible

  • To help participants learn how to use the activities to generate ideas


Participants
Small groups of four to seven people each

Materials, Supplies, and Equipment



  • For each group: markers, two flip charts, and masking tape for posting flip-chart
    sheets

  • For each participant: one sheet each of three different colors of sticking dots
    (^1 ⁄ 2 ” diameter) and one pad of 4 x 6 Post-it®Notes


Handout



  • Word Diamond Handout


06 VG 119-166b 10/5/04 5:03 PM Page 162

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