Innovative Strategies

Mind Mapping

“The soul never thinks without a mental image.” -Aristotle

Mind Mapping helps students visually organize information and shows relationships among content knowledge.

Helps with ideas:

- Analyze
- Comprehend
- Synthesize
- Recall
- Generate

Mind Maps are easily completed through sketch-noting with paper & pencil; however, if you want to try online options Coggle and Popplet are recommended.

The Mind’s Eye

Uses background knowledge to imagine a setting, events, feelings, and make predictions. This strategy also strengthens vocabulary making it great for ALL learners.

This strategy is great for K-8 and can be adapted for any content. The two videos provided demonstrate the strategy in action in an ELA classroom and a Math classroom.

Use the template below as needed. The template works best when printed.

Mind's Eye Template

Socratic Seminar

Socratic Seminars are formal discussions that are student led and based on content in the classroom. Students are encouraged to ask open-ended questions to one another which strengthens their active listening and critical thinking skills.

The two videos to the right showcase the strategy in an elementary school and a high school as this strategy is ideal from upper elementary through college.

Genius Hour

Genius Hour is based on Google's 20% Time where Google employees are encouraged to pursue a personal passion for 20% of the work week. Gmail, Google News, and Google Glass along with many other innovations were the result of the company providing employees time for self-directed research in the work week. Genius Hour in the classroom follows the same principal...allow students one hour a week to discover other passions outside of the content.

The video below is meant to introduce Genius Hour to students.

What is Genius Hour?

Novel Engineering

Novel Engineering is a way to Integrate engineering and literacy. Students identify a problem from the text being read and work to engineer a solution. To understand this strategy better, please watch this Introductory Video from the National Science Foundation.

Novelengineering.org is a great resource as you get started looking for books to use with this strategy. The books listed provide an overview of problems and potential solutions students may be able to develop, of course we know our students may be able to develop some very out-of-the-box solutions, so the suggestions listed at novelengineering.org are just that - suggestions.