Post-Up

Post-Up

Skills Descriptions: This is a smaller group strategy to get students engaged in ideas. They will do a variety of brainstorming and thinking while using post-it notes to organize their ideas.

Procedures: “Define the problem Define the problem in the normal way and make sure it is visible to all of the team. Prime the team Tape or pin up paper on the wall. Two or three flip-chart pages together, side-by-side give a good working area. Give everyone 3" x 5" Post-It Note pads plus fibre-tip pens. The pens should be thick enough so a posted-up note is readable from several feet away, but not so think that only a few words can be written. Tell them to always write one idea per Post-It Note. If you are doing this by yourself, you can scale the whole thing down by using mini-Post-It Notes and stick them on standard sheets of writing paper. You can even do it on the computer. Silent writing of ideas Start with everyone silently writing down ideas, one per Post-It Note. They should not at this time stick their Post-It Notes up on the wall (the focus is on capturing ideas). Post up ideas The team then posts up their ideas on the wall. A good way of doing this is to have each person take turns to post one idea.  The person posting up the idea reads it out and everyone else listens. If any posted idea triggers other ideas for anyone in the team, they can write them on more Post-It Notes and add them to their pile. When all ideas are posted, then you can also use other creative methods to generate even more ideas. Shuffling and exploration When you run out of ideas, you can move the Post-It Notes around to group together ideas into themes or otherwise explore further. Beware when combining ideas of ending up with a vague 'generalised' idea that loses the essence of some its more original constituents” (2010, Post-up).

Lesson Activities: This strategy would be great for students to use when they are discussing solutions to problems. There are many solutions that can be done for every problem. By giving students a more hands-on way to discuss the issues, they can support each other and create new ideas.

Reference: 2010., Post-up. CreatingMinds.org. Retrieved on November 18, 2012 from           http://creatingminds.org/tools/post_up.htm.