101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

Time

75 minutes

Related Activities

• Fairy Tale Time [40]


• Imaginary Mentor [42]


• Rolestorming [77]

Procedure

1. Distribute the Super Heroes Handout, review the different super heroes with the
   participants, and answer any questions they may have.


2. Tell each group member to select a character and assume that character’s identity.
   If group members really want to get into the spirit, they may don their characters’
   costumes; if not, each group member wears a sign around his or her neck with the
   name of the character on it.


3. Have individual group members read their character descriptions silently. Tell
   them to summarize these descriptions aloud, describing special powers, strengths,
   weaknesses, habits, and other special characteristics.


4. After hearing each character description, direct all the group members to use the
   descriptions as stimuli for ideas. For instance, Superman’s x-ray vision might sug-
   gest using hidden cameras to detect employee and customer theft in a store.


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

Debrief/Discussion

This is another role-playing exercise in which trying to view the world from another’s

perspective can create unique insights. Well-suited for drama kings and queens, Super

Heroes is sure to invigorate a lethargic group. To ensure that the role playing is sufficient

to help produce ideas, be sure to allow at least 10 minutes for the participants to learn

about their characters and think of ways to play them to help trigger ideas in themselves

and others. When you are reviewing the descriptions of Super Heroes, you might encour-

age participants to suggest other Super Heroes to use to generate ideas.

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?

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