{"id":1747,"date":"2012-11-04T12:13:14","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T20:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stanford.edu\/group\/sdgc\/cgi-bin\/ycisl\/?p=1747"},"modified":"2012-11-04T15:22:37","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T23:22:37","slug":"exercise-name-scramble-for-warm-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/?p=1747","title":{"rendered":"Exercise: Name Scramble for Warm-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>For a middle school elective course on creative thinking that I am teaching, I came up with a (hardly unique) exercise to warm-up the students to the subject.<\/p>\n

On the syllabus sheet that was waiting for them at each seat was a “Hidden Message” puzzle. The benefit of such an approach is that a student can start on something when they enter the classroom (and when they come in at different times, it is good to have something ready for them to do – I learned this from Challenger School where students start on work that is on the board when they enter the classroom first thing in the morning – they go directly to the classroom from drop-off).<\/p>\n

There are no specific instructions; just the title “Hidden Message.” So, as expected, students are drawn to this puzzle (rather than the syllabus) and ask about it. I say that they should try to solve it. Some will ask what they should do; in response, I ask them what they think they need to do. To keep them on task and engaged, I provide hints as needed (maybe every 30 seconds or so).<\/p>\n

For this puzzle, I took the name roster and inserted letters that spelled “CREATIVE THINKING.” Then I added dots to make the puzzle into an even-width shape. The name roster uses the possibility that they know each others’ names already or recognize their own name first. For a mixed level class such as this, the students needed a hint that this involved their names; they asked whether they could ask each other for their names and I reminded them there were no specific instructions so were free to use whatever method they could think of. So, they started talking – but the social dynamics provided some foil where some students were not cooperative – so workarounds or negotiation became involved.<\/p>\n

The puzzle was solved within 15 minutes which is just right for a warm-up.<\/p>\n


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For a middle school elective course on creative thinking that I am teaching, I came up with a (hardly unique) exercise to warm-up the students to the subject. On the syllabus sheet that was waiting for them at each seat was a “Hidden Message” puzzle. The benefit of such an approach is that a student […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activity","category-ideas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1747"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}