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Creative Strategies for Thinking Obliquely
In “The Rules of Genius, Rule #9: Approach answers obliquely“, Marty Neumeier outlines a range of thinking strategies (italicised below) to explore a challenge in new ways. Such strategies are always...
View ArticlePractical Steps to Get Out of the Way of Children’s Thinking
Eleanor Duckworth’s work on Critical Explorers asserts that the combination of: teachers as curriculum designers and the focus on children’s thinking and not simply our own, is a powerful learning...
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5 Simple Questions To Encourage Student Voice
This is a recent resource I have shared on Twitter that has proven really useful and very popular with educators. Thanks to Rebecca Alber and Edutopia for sharing/creating the original. You should...
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Thinking about writing about Thinking
As we hit the midway point of this journey of a full month of blogging everyday, (#28daysofwriting) I am just looking back on where I started and some of the challenges that I faced establishing a...
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Convene your Classroom Creative Council
During some research on Thomas Edison I stumbled on the fact that he deliberately surrounded himself with a diverse range of expertise in order to generate new thinking and ideas, a creative council....
View ArticleToolset, Skillset, Mindset
Over the last few years I have developed three different lenses through which to see any creative inquiry process. When we are facilitating or planning with clients, schools and teachers we explicitly...
View ArticleThe ebb and flow between divergent and convergent thinking
I thought I would take the opportunity to return to an article I wrote a few days ago. My blog post outlined a few of the key issues for developing creative teams. The article that inspired it from...
View Article3 Activities to Help Your Team: Generate, Develop and Judge Ideas
There are literally hundreds of different activities you can use for generating and developing ideas. I thought I would share a trio that work well together. They each require a specific type of...
View ArticleChallenge the borders of your thinking
I know that a network map of the brain is a thing. I wonder if there is a way you could map your conceptual understanding beyond a simple mind map. Stick with me as I explore this idea of a “map of our...
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9 Ways to Think Divergently
Further to my post about thinking obliquely and divergently (First inspired by Marty Neumeier’s article on the Liquid Agency site) I have made this handy little graphic of the nine strategies shared. I...
View ArticleName Your Perspective
If you have spent any time with me in small group development sessions you will likely have heard me talking deliberately about perspective. I am always keen to make explicit what can often be an...
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Change your thinking, change your mindset
A maxim that I have been testing, applying and thinking about a great deal over the last few years is that “nothing changes unless mindset changes.” On reflection, admittedly it is a little extreme,...
View ArticleWriting as a way to process our experience
Despite over a decade of enthusiasm for blogging I realise that writing is not for everyone – but reflecting on our craft should be. Writing about my reflections forces me to make sense of my ideas....
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Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction
A mental model that I frequently use is the Ladder of Abstraction. It was developed by the American linguist S. I. Hayakawa in his 1939 book Language in Action. The model describes varying levels of...
View Article4 critical thinking mental models to use when exploring research
In a few recent weekly newsletters I have been exploring some mental models for interrogating research. These mental models are a handy set of structures and ideas to apply to any research you might...
View ArticleWill this cause harm?
I have been reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s brilliantly tangential book Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder. A concept and mental model he shares is iatrogenics. This is a medical term that...
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6 Protocols To Help You Run Better Meetings
One of the most effective strategies to run better meetings and development sessions is to establish a set of protocols at the start. These working working norms should be discussed and shared before...
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The Spaces You Need to Innovate
Innovation is a process with a range of other ideas nested within it. When you peer inside you see creativity, curiosity, feedback and taking action. All interdependent and collectively they might be...
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Learning Alignment Model
In this post, I want to introduce you to a Learning Alignment Model that I have developed with some of my partner schools over the last few years. It is not a step by step process to design learning,...
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Run a Pre-Mortem to Improve Your Strategic Planning
A Pre-Mortem is a strategic planning activity that imagines a project has failed. This type of thinking helps to identify and mitigate risks early on in the planning phase. Exploring the worst-case...
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