Photo Gallery
The Bubble
Create a simulated learning environment as students travel into space or submerge in a "bubble" deep into the sea to observe underwater life. Experience this strategy! The connections to the curriculum are endless.
Community Puzzle
Synectics
Synectics is an approach to creative thinking. It can be used with all ages and in all content areas. Its main tool is analogy and metaphors. This strategy, which can be implemented in collaborative groups, helps students to develop creative responses to problem solving, to retain new information, to introduce a new unit, and to explore social and disciplinary concepts. The above examples are products from an introduction to a Holocaust Unit in a 10th grade social studies class. The program Tangul was used to create the images.
Tableau
A Tableau is a French term for a "living picture." Brainstorm visual scenes from a book, historical moment, current event, character education theme, or scientific breakthrough. Students select a scene and pose theatrically to create a display. Throughout the duration of the Tableau the people do not speak or move. Other students try to guess the theme of the created Tableau. Increase the effect by turing off the lights and using a spotlight to illuinate the Tableau.
Teachers create a Tableau dipicting the Olympics
Using Art to Teach Inferences
Discussing the work of Salvador Dali, and the idea of surrealism, help students apply the skill of making inferences to content with a more conceptual framework. Students can also create metaphors and similes, as well gaining a better understanding of the meaning of surrealism found in such novels as Shakespeare's Midsummers Night Dream. Present the idea that an artist uses a canvas to portray thoughts, description, and meaning, where an author uses words to do the same.
While discussing a Salvador Dali painting, teachers draw inferences and create similes and metaphors.
