Rose, Bud and Thorn

Rose, Bud and Thorn

The aim is for the students to identify the positive, the negative and the unexplored areas of the challenge.

The teacher distributes coloured post-its to the students that represent the following:

• Red – Rose   Green – Bud    Blue – Thorn

1. The Students reflect on their challenge experiences and make notes on the appropriate coloured post-its. 

1. ROSE - Students reflect on the positive experiences and write their answers on red post-its.  They could think about the following:

• What was the highlight of your experience?
• Describe efforts that blossomed.
• Explain have you been successful?  

2. BUD - Students reflect on the unexplored areas and write their answers on green post-its.  They could think about the following:

• What are you looking forward to tomorrow? 
• Describe opportunities that energize you. 

3. THORN - Students reflect on the negative experiences and write their answers on blue post-its.  They could think about the following:

• What went wrong during your day? 
• What was the most stressful part?
• Identify anything that caused difficulty. 

2. Students place all their post-its on the whiteboard.
3. The teacher uses the Affinity Diagram (or Affinity Mapping) strategy to group the post-its to identify the positive, promising and problematic areas of the challenge.
4. The students reflect on the Affinity Diagram’s findings and identify key trends from their experience.             

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

Inspired by: Atomic Object (https://spin.atomicobject.com/2018/04/03/design-thinking-rose-bud-thorn/).