Eight stations are set up around the room to mirror Williams' Taxonomy of Creative Thinking.

Each station will

challenge you in two ways:
1. Gather knowledge and understanding of what is meant by the specific level of creative thinking
2. Apply your new knowledge in your content area by developing three questions that could be asked of your students
to initiate creative thinking of that specific type.
Record your three questions to share.

GT TEACHING STRATEGY OF THE WEEK: WILLIAMS TAXONOMY OF CREATIVE THINKING

Williams Taxonomy of Creative Thought has eight levels arranged in a hierarchy. Fluency, flexibility,
originality, and elaboration relate to cognitive areas of intellectual development while risk-taking,
complexity, curiosity, and imagination relate to affective areas of personal development.
Fluency: generating a great many ideas, related answers, or choices. (Many)
Think of as many solutions as you can to the bullying problem.
How many figures can you use to build a home?
List everything in your home you could use to measure the width of your bedroom.
Flexibility: changing everyday objects to generate a variety of categories, by taking detours and varying
sizes, shapes, quantities, time limits, requirements, objectives or dimensions. (Adaptability)
Classify professions that use mathematics in as many ways as you can.
What questions could all have the answer, Martin Luther King Jr.?
If there were no phones or cell phones how many ways would life be different?
Originality: seeking new ideas by suggesting unusual twists to change content or coming up with clever
responses. (Uniqueness)
In what ways could you power your home without using electricity or natural gas?
What could you invent that would solve the problem of world hunger?
What might George Washington say to President Barack Obama?
Elaboration: expanding, enlarging, enriching or embellishing possibilities that build on previous thoughts
or ideas. (Adding on)
Explain why mathematics is a language.
What do you think this means, We should speak softly but carry a big stick?
Complete this story, She panicked, he hands flew across the cluttered desk liberating papers, pens, and
fast food wrappers
Risk Taking: dealing with the unknown by taking chances, experimenting with new ideas or trying new
challenges. (Exploration)
Rename your classmates to match their personality.
If you could do anything with absolutely no negative consequences what would it be?
What is more important to you, love or power?
Complexity: creating structure in an unstructured setting or building a logical order in a given situation.
(Intricacy)
Which is more intense, fear or pain?
Explain all the ways computers influence our lives.
List all the possible effects of ocean temperature rising 5 degrees.

Curiosity: following a hunch, questioning alternatives, pondering outcomes and wondering about options.
(Inquiry)
The results: A broken window and a crying baby. What happened?
What is more intriguing to you, a broken engine or a broken heart?
Pretend you are a bee. What would you want to know about humans?
Imagination: visualizing possibilities, building images in the mind, picturing new objects, reaching beyond
the limits of the practical. (Fantasize)
Imagine you invented a new energy source. What is it? What would you do about it?
Imagine how William Shakespeare would react to Hollywood films.
If you had no mouth, how would things be different?