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Playlist: Bookmarks

How Many Will There Be? Desks

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

Complex Task: Subjective Graphs

For Teachers

What would it be like if students graphed characters from stories? Historic leaders? Elements from the period table? Objects in space?

Difficult vs Complex Tasks

For Teachers

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

Who Asks The Questions? And Who Answers?

For Teachers

What would the pie chart look like for these three situations: the teacher asks the students, a student asks the teacher, or a student asks another student a question? I can tell you my pie chart would have been very lopsided.

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!

The Pros and Cons of Producers and Consumers

Sure, students might know the difference between a producer and a consumer… but have they considered how they feel about each other? What, in a producer’s opinion, are the pros and cons of a consumer?

Not Like The Others: Natural Disasters

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

Notice, Wonder: A Long Line

A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!

Holiday vs Holiday (from a Mascot’s Perspective)

Want something to do during the holiday season that is both fun and involves thinking? Get students writing about what a snowman would think about Halloween or what a ghost would think about Thanksgiving.

Generalization: Problems Lead to New Rules, Which Lead to New Problems

Problems create rules. Rules create new problems. Can you trace the cycle in history, stories, and your own life?

Generalization: Systems Are Made up of Other Systems

A clock is a system. So is a rainforest. So is your school. Once you see systems inside systems, you can’t unsee it.

Invisible Power Can Have Visible Effects

Can you think of times when power is unseen, but we can clearly see its effects?

Complex Task: What Would X Think of Y?

For Teachers

Here’s a simple task that will add complexity to any content from any grade level!

SCAMPER: Scaffolding Creativity

Asking students to “think creatively” won’t get you far. They won’t know how to start, they’ll get stuck with simple ideas, or they’ll just go completely wild. SCAMPER is a tool for scaffolding the process of creativity.

Disneyland Parking Structure Math Project

Your students will use estimation strategies to figure out how many parking spots are there in the parking structure at Disneyland? And you bet I reveal the real answer!

Exposing Students to Classics

For Teachers

Some kids hear Mozart at home. Others don’t. Let’s make sure every student gets exposed to the classics — art, music, and film.

Depth and Complexity – An Introduction for Teachers

For Teachers

Depth and Complexity is the most powerful framework most teachers have never heard of. Here’s what it actually is — and isn’t.

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.

Improving Wait Time

For Teachers

How much time do your students get to think after a question? Probably not enough. Here’s how to fix that.

The Tournament of Biomes

Want to move beyond memorizing the characteristics of biomes? In this lesson, students work through a Tournament of Biomes, explaining which biome wins in each round (based on criteria you choose). In the end, they crown a 👑 Champion Biome!

The Personalities of Rocks

What would an igneous rock be like? Would it get along with a sedimentary rock? Could they handle the hot personality of a metamorphic rock?

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!

Math Curiosity: The Coloring Problem

No video gets me more email from students! How few colors can you use to color in any map so that no two, neighboring regions are the same color?

Game: Notakto

What if you only played Tic-Tac-Toe with Xs and you could play on multiple boards?

The Resiliency Tournament

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

More Specific than “Smart”

When students are told that they’re “smart”, what does this word actually mean to them? (Psst. It isn’t what we intended.)

Upgrading Compare and Contrast Writing

Upgrade compare and contrast writing with just a couple of key words.

Building Creative Analogies

We’ll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.

Finding The Volume of Laptops

How has the volume of laptops changed over time? You know you want to check out how huge those first versions were!

What Does it Cost to Fill a Car with Other Liquids

Is gas actually that expensive? What if we filled a car up with… orange juice?

Investigating Cost of Living

Would you save money if you lived in Las Vegas and commuted every day to San Francisco?

Doubling Dollars

Say you have a dollar. Say you can double that dollar each day: $1, $2, $4, and so on. How long will it take to reach… one million dollars? Not as long as you might think!

Fractals: Koch Snowflake

You could keep zooming in on this snowflake forever!

Universal Themes

For Teachers

Universal Themes are an easy way to connect lessons, units, and content areas, even going across grade levels, and into students’ personal interests.

Climbing Bloom’s with Depth and Complexity

For Teachers

Bloom’s tells you how high to aim. Depth and Complexity tells you where to look. Combine them and things get interesting.

Content Imperatives: Paradox

How can one idea pull in opposite directions, being both true and false or right and wrong at the same time? It’s time to explore Paradoxes!

Content Imperatives: Convergence

Add complexity by considering how multiple factors 🔄 Converge within one topic.

Content Imperatives: Parallel

Get students thinking broadly by exploring similarities across multiple topics. Combine with Depth and Complexity for bonus points!

Content Imperatives: Contribuition

Pull on one thread and watch the whole topic move. Contribution asks: what single factor is quietly shaping everything else?

Content Imperatives: Origin

Take students back to the beginning by using the Content Imperative ⏺️ Origin.

Running A Group Investigation Lesson

For Teachers

Learn to lead a lesson that is built entirely on student curiosity.

Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea

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

Depth and Complexity: 🌻 Details

Get kids focusing on the small, but essential, details of a topic.

Differentiate With Frames Across Disciplines

For Teachers

One topic, four angles. The Frame graphic organizer gives every student a different way in — without you creating four different lessons.

Curriculum Acceleration: Step by Step

For Teachers

Your advanced students already know half the material. Here’s how to move them forward instead of making them wait.

Percents and Credit Cards

Let’s buy something expensive with a credit card and then make only the minumum payments!

Creating A Realistic Flower and Pollinator

Your students will create a new flower, designed to attract a specific pollinator.

Curriculum Compacting

For Teachers

Shrink the curriculum down to what students actually need to learn. Then use the freed-up time for something better.

Discovering Pi With Sticky Notes

Pi is mysterious and strange! Why not let students discover it on their own?

Running A Curiosity Based Research Project

Skip the assigned topics. Let students research what they’re genuinely curious about — here’s how to structure it so it actually works.

Analyze and Create Misleading Graphs

Let’s make some intentionally bad graphs to learn how to spot poorly made graphs.

Characters’ Talents and Multiple Intelligences

How do characters from novels line up with Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences?

Create A Creature

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

An App For A Historical Figure

What kind of an app could have helped Abe Lincoln accomplish his goals?

Greekymon

Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.

A Nutrition-Based Math Project

Let’s create a parody ad attacking a surprisingly calorie-rich meal.

Multipotentiality: Excellent at Many Things

For Teachers

Why being good at many things can be a bit of a burden.

Asynchrony: Developing At Different Rates (For Students)

For students! In some areas, a student may be shockingly advanced, while in others… surprisingly average. This is asynchrony in action.

Motivation and Moral Development

Can someone do the right thing, but for the wrong reason?

Creating A Classroom Motto

Starting with specific examples of fantastic classroom behavior, your class will end up with one sentence summing up their expectations. It’s a classroom motto!

Teach Non-Fiction Writing Structure With Fractals

Did you ever notice that the structure of an essay is very similar to the structure of a paragraph? Hmm…

Furnishing A Hotel

Design and furnish hotel rooms on a budget. Real math, real constraints, real decisions. Then pitch your hotel to investors.

An Inductive Exploration Of Geometry

For Teachers

With inductive thinking, students will work from parts to whole, discovering big ideas along the way!

Introduction to Watercolor

For Teachers

A mosaic technique that makes watercolor approachable. Students walk away with something they’re proud of.

Math Project: What If I Bought Apple Stock Instead?

What if you had an original iPod and sold it compared to if you had bought the equivalent amount of Apple stock and sold that?

Response to Lit: An Inductive Approach

For Teachers

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

Intellectual Intensity

Do you know someone who becomes a bit overexcited by ideas?

Impostor Syndrome

For Teachers

The student who breezes through school may hit a wall in college. Here’s why — and what to do about it now.