Brainstorming

summary	gather ideas and keywords
time	10’
preparation time	5’
group size	2-25
material	board, pens, 1-3 cards per student

How it is done

Ask an open question on your topic, e.g.:

Why would you want to use a database?

Write the question on the board or use a prepared slide. Give the students 1-2 minutes to chat to each other and think.

Then ask for their ideas. Write them to the board.

At the beginning of a lesson, this method is a powerful opener, because it connects to existing knowledge. The question allows you to add context to earlier concepts. Just make sure your question triggers more than one possible answer.

Variation: Brainstorming with cards

If you want to work further with the students’ ideas, you might collect the ideas on cards instead. This takes a bit longer.

First, state the questions. Then, share 3 moderation cards to pairs of students. Give them time to collect and write down ideas. Then collect the cards, read them aloud, and attach them on the board. If you get duplicates, put them up as well (to avoid trashing someones input). You can ask a volunteer to help you with the attaching.

Possible continuations are to cluster the cards on the board, explore a few of them deeper, or add a new conceptual layer to them. For instance, if your new topic in the above example were “lesson planning” you could connect the above example to a new topic with the question “In what parts of a lesson are the methods applicable?” The cards can be nicely sorted into categories of the new topic.

Collecting cards is a basic, very formidable facilitation method. You can also use it to find about your students’ expectations or simply to introduce everybody. Handling the cards is not completely straightforward, there are small pitfalls such as getting your students to write readable. As a moderator, you can write the cards yourselves, but to activate your class it is better if they get moving.