Metacognition
Protective Shield From Boredom
Lynne Bruschetti
Evolution of a Teacher
“THINK!”
Evolution of a Teacher
“I will give you time to think.”
Evolution of a Teacher
“You now have a graphic organizer to think.”
Synectics
Six Steps That Must Be Followed
Step One
Journal entry describing an abstract noun.
Step Two
Providing analogies.
Step Three
Make one of the analogies personal.
Step Four
Provide tension; conflict.
Step Five
• Students are finally ready to write an original metaphor.
Step Six
Students compare their new writing with their original definition of an
abstract noun.
Poetry
Students are now ready to look at metaphors written by professional
poets and see their inventive comparisons.
Thematic Units
Students now have an important skill necessary to approach thematic
units. Whether reading Fahrenheit 451, Romeo and Juliet, or Lord of
the Flies, students will see how metaphors intentionally used help
readers understand theme.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
“I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I
would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”
Design is highly personal, yet disciplined by a
common purpose and a common language.
• “Teachers are taught to make rational selections among alternative
activities rather than to create new alternatives. They are
encouraged to use predetermined formats and structures rather than
to think metaphorically, creatively, and reflectively about the work
they are trying to get students to do” (Schlechty, 2011, p 50).
Synectics
• Creating something new.
• Making the strange familiar.
Models of Teaching
Bruce Joyce, Marsha Weil, and Emily Calhoun
• “Synectics is designed to increase the creativity of both individuals
and groups. Sharing the synectics experience can build a feeling of
community among students” (Joyce, Weil, & Calhoun ,2004, p. 177).
Creative Writing
Exploring Social Problems
Problem Solving
Creating a Design or Product
Broadening Perspective of an Abstract
Concept
Phase I: Description of the Present Condition
• Teacher has students describe the situation or topic as they see it
now.
• I Forgot My Phone - YouTube
Phase Two: Direct Analogy
• Students suggest direct analogies, select one, and explore (describe)
it further.
How is a cell phone like a bathtub?
How is it like a book?
How is it like ballroom dancing?
How is it like a pair of scissors?
Phase Three: Personal Analogy
• Students “become” the analogy they selected in phase two.
Be the cell phone in the video. You’re at the attempted marriage
proposal. You’re at the birthday party. You’re with your owner when
he goes to bed. How do you feel?
Phase Four: Compressed Conflict
• Students take their descriptions from phases two and three, suggest
several compressed conflicts (oxymorons), and choose one.
Phase Five: Direct Analogy
• Students generate and select another direct analogy, based on the
compressed conflict (analogy).
Phase Six: Reexamination of the Original Task
• Teacher has students move back to original task or problem and use
the last analogy and/or the entire synectics experience.
• (Sanders & Sanders, 1984).
• Write a paragraph about the use of cell phones,
So what can we learn from Socrates?
Socrates used synectics.
Synectics
• Socrates compared himself to a gadfly, the horsefly that stings the
intellectually and morally sluggish citizens of Athens with his
questioning.
Synectics
• “Good teaching traditionally makes ingenious use of analogies and
metaphors to help students visualize content” (Gordon, 1961).
Synectics
• “My art of midwifery is in general like theirs [real midwives]; the only
difference is that my patients are men, not women, and my concern is
not with the body but with the soul that is in travail of birth.”
Synectics
• “And the highest point of my art is the power to prove by every test
whether the offspring of a young man’s thought is a false phantom or
instinct with life and truth.”
Synectics
• “Those who frequent my company at first appear, some of them,
quite unintelligent, but, as we go further with our discussions, all who
are favored by heaven make progress at a rate that seems surprising
to others as well as themselves, although it is clear that they have
never learned anything from me.”
Synectics
• The many admirable truths they bring to birth have been discovered
by themselves from within. And the delivery is heaven’s works and
mine.”
So what can we learn from Socrates?
Barry Schwartz
• A wise person is made and not born.
Works Cited
• de Botton, A. (2000). The consolations of philosophy. New York: Vintage.
• Gladwell, M. (2010). Outliers: The story of success. New York: Back
Bay Books.
• Gordan, W. J .J. (1961). Synectics: The development of creative capacity.
New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.
• Joyce B., Weil M., & Calhoun, E. (2004). Models of teaching. Boston:
Pearson.
• Sanders, D. A., & J. A. (1984). Teaching creativity through metaphor.
New York: Longman.
• Schlechty, Phillip C. (2011). Engaging students. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.