Pick a thing

Why?

Instead of looking at the problem from outside, this method changes the perspective of the students by integrating them within the problem and its associations. Thus, while providing the students with new information to fuel their imagination, the method also enables the students to enhance their understanding of the problem.

How?

The teacher tells the students to follow these four steps:

1.Select an object that is connected to the problem and imagine yourself becoming this object.
(Example: If the problem concerns the reducing number of visits to libraries’ , the students could imagine themselves being a library, a book or a librarian).
2.Imagine, how you would feel if you were this object.
3.Imagine how you would react, if you felt this way and what you would do.
4.What solutions to the problem do you see from that point of view?

Tips

The teacher can also pick an object beforehand. For example, a famous piece of art, like the painting of the Mona Lisa, a trendy song, or a cartoon character that all the students know and can relate to. Based on this, the students are now challenged to generate new ideas from this point of view.

Literature

Byttebier, I. and Ramon, V. (2002), Creativity Today, Amsterdam: BIS Publisher