101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

37. Doodles

Background

You’ve probably heard the expression “That’s usin’ the ol’ noodle!” It means, of course,

that you were able to apply your brainpower effectively. Well, noodle power can also help

us generate ideas with doodles.

You know how to doodle, don’t you? Just start scribbling on a sheet of paper and

express your creative urges. Let your pen or pencil take off and draw swirls, loops, cir-

cles, boxes, arrows, spirals, or whatever feels right. You already may have practice doo-

dling. Most of us doodle while talking on the phone or listening to a boring speech. (Did

you ever notice that there seems to be a direct correlation between how boring a speech is

and how elaborate your doodles are?)

Because doodles provide an outlet for creative expression, they also can help generate

ideas. VanGundy (1988) designed a technique known as Symbolic Representations, which

uses doodles as the basic idea generation mechanism. Although this activity is similar to

Ideatoons [26], there is one major difference: the doodles are based on one or more major

principles underlying the problem. This focus helps target the doodles a little more than

mere random scribblings.

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

Free Association Activities: “Blue Skies” 173

101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving.Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley &

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