101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

Idea Links Handout

If your problem is to improve a table fan, you might set it up as follows:

Improve ___________ ___________ ___________ ____________ ____________ fan

Next, begin free associating by filling in the blanks:

Finally, use the free associations to think of ideas. For instance, you might put a fan on

wheels to roll around on a table (from “car”) or design a fan that blows air in pulses, like

a cough (from “congestion”).

Here’s another example:

These words prompt ideas such as putting a chemical on the blades to blow scented

air (from “butter”) and making a fan with gold blades (from “dough”).

Note:Although the connection between the words may not appear to be logical, that is

O.K. Free association does not have to “make sense.” For instance, in the example imme-

diately above, the word “butter” follows the word “better.” When I thought of butter, it

was because that is what saying a word similar in sound made me think of. The connec-

tions between “butter” and “bread” and “dough” are more transparent. However, follow-

ing “dough” with “blow” was based only on rhyming.

192 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving

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

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