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Tournament of Not-So-Famous Inventors

Which inventor and invention will win the tournament?

Math Curiosity: Magic Triangles

Can you make each side of this triangle add up to 9 using the digits 1-6?

Create A Civ: Capital City

Every great capital is part geography, part human design. Research real ones, then build your own from scratch.

Think Like a Disciplinarian (or an Expert!)

For Teachers

Here’s how I got better at using the Think Like An Expert technique.

Famous Structures

The Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House — group them, pick the best from each group, then design your own.

Not Like The Others: Types of Diseases

Four diseases. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.

Brain Needs or Heart Needs

For Teachers

We think of gifted kids as only having academic needs, but – in their own words – they also have many needs of the heart.

New Uses for a Paperclip

So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?

Create A Civilization: Design A Flag

What makes for a good flag? What makes a bad flag?

Difficult vs Complex Tasks

For Teachers

What separates difficulty from complexity? And why do complex tasks lead to much more natural differentiation?

Creating Sequences of Questions

For Teachers

High-level questions on their own simply aren’t enough. We must create sequences of questions!

Complex Task: Academic Tournaments

For Teachers

Who would win in the Tournament of Least Useful Geometric Shapes or Bravest Shakespearean Characters? Create an academic tournament and watch your students’ brains sweat!

Developing Questions that Prompt Thinking in Math

For Teachers

Math is a particularly tricky subject for asking higher-level questions. Here are a couple of techniques I’ve used to prompt students to think, not merely calculate.

Writing Technique: Opposite Adjectives

A specific technique to help students add some spice to their writing. We’ll be using antonyms to describe the same topic!

Virtue or Vice?

Aristotle noted that positive traits and negative traits are often the same thing, but just in different amounts. The right amount is a virtue, but too much or too little and it’s a vice.

Asking Questions That Make Students Think

For Teachers

Most classroom questions test memory. These questions test thinking. There’s a difference — and your students will feel it.

Fraction Ordering Tournament

Which set of fractions would be the trickiest to order from least to greatest? Let’s have a tournament!

Same Perimeter, Different Area For Rectangles

Can two rectangles have the same perimeter but… different areas!?

Upgrade Research Questions With Depth and Complexity

Ever ask students to create research questions? Were their ideas a bit… blah? My own students had a very hard time writing questions they didn’t already know the answer to! This video is how I solved that problem: upgrade research questions with depth and complexity.

Student Introductions with Complexity and Frames

How have you changed over time? Students introduce themselves through the lens of change — and learn a Depth and Complexity tool in the process.

Student Introductions With Depth and Frames

Want to introduce the tools of Depth and Complexity and learn more about your students and introduce the Frame graphic organizer? Have I got the activity for you!

Rounding Numbers (But Not To 10)

What could we possibly do to make rounding more interesting for students who already get it? In this series, students consider how they might round to values other than “the nearest 10.” How, for example, do we round to the nearest 9? 7? 15?

Place Value (Beyond Base 10)

Place value is something we cover in elementary school. It seems simple, but I’d wager that very few adults really understand the topic. I sure didn’t until I worked with non-base-10 number systems in college. Your students can get a taste of this mind-boggling experience by imagining what it would be like if we didn’t have the number 9. What would each digit represent then?

The Resiliency Tournament

Your students will set up a tournament to determine which person or character best demonstrated resiliency.

Math Curiosity: Finding Primes

Prime numbers are unpredictable! How can we possibly find them all? An Ancient Greek mathematician found one way!

Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea

Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.

Create A Civilization Introduction

Your students build a civilization from scratch — rivers, flags, calendars, currency, government. Social studies, science, and writing woven into one year-long project.

Inductively Analyze Website Reliability

For Teachers

Rather than giving students rules to apply to websites, let them analyze websites to create rules.

Create A Creature

Create a new creature based on the adaptations of existing creatures from the same biome.

Response to Lit: An Inductive Approach

For Teachers

Here’s how one teacher uses inductive thinking to help students respond to literature.

Ethics In The Young Elementary Classroom

For Teachers

Can kindergartners discuss ethical issues? Yes. Here’s how to weave multiple-perspective problems throughout your curriculum.