The Challenge and Group Formation

The Challenge and Group Formation

The aim is to identify engaging challenges and create appropriate groups for the challenge.

1. The students identify ideas for challenges and write these on the post-it notes and place them on the left-hand side of the whiteboard.  The students read aloud each others’ post-its from the whiteboard.
2. The students categorise the post-its and place them together on the right-hand side of the whiteboard. They then create appropriate headings for each of the groupings on A2 paper.
3. The students place the post-its under the appropriate heading on sheets of A2 paper.
4. The students move around the room from one A2 sheet to another - ‘Shopping for ideas’ - discussing the post-its with other students using a “Yes and ...” strategy to develop their thinking about the challenges.   (This stage should take approx. 30 minutes).  
5. The students identify the challenge which they are interested in working with. Their choice should be based on the ‘possibilities’ that the challenge offers and not the solution to it.
6. Students write their chosen challenge on a post-it and place it under a challenge heading on the whiteboard.  This will form working groups for each challenge.  If several students choose the same challenge, they should be divided into smaller or subgroups for the challenge.

Students will develop their ideas for challenges by finding inspiration acknowledging others’ ideas and thoughts. Project groups will contain students who share a similar passion for the same challenge which will create good working relationships.

The activity could be done using online tools such as Padlet, virtual whiteboard and breakout rooms in Teams/Zoom.