Wooclap Brainstorming: 6 use cases

The word "brainstorming" can be scary. Some brainstorming sessions are unstructured and chaotic. You may have come up with a lot of ideas, but no real solutions to your problem. Yet every day we discover new creative ways of how to use our Brainstorming question. How do we do this? Thanks to our users, who show their creativity on a daily basis and reinvent their teaching practices with Wooclap. We have selected six original examples to go further in your use of the Brainstorming question according to three different approaches depending, on your educational objectives.

Ideating and finding solutions

One could say that the process of ideation is inherent to the concept of brainstorming. Indeed, this technique of finding original ideas is often used to find collective solutions, with everyone making suggestions spontaneously. Discover how to do this with two Wooclap use cases!

• The example: the event creator creates columns with the main topic of the reflection as a title, and asks participants to write down all their ideas on this given topic. 
• The aim is to generate as many instinctive ideas as possible quickly and to stimulate the creativity of the participants. The aim of this exercise is to overcome the blockage that plagues creative people at the beginning of a project, and is used by writers to overcome the famous blank page syndrome.
• The context of application: this exercise can be useful when launching a new project.
• The learning benefit: creativity and leadership. This exercise requires the participant to use his or her imagination to come up with ideas and generate more or less structured thoughts, which he or she should be able to defend in a discussion afterwards. 
• Our wootip: to vary the exercise, you can create a column per participant and add a timer to boost the efforts of your participants and generate a maximum of ideas.

• Example: you create three columns, each dedicated to a stage of the SKS scheme (Start, Keep doing, Stop).
• The objective: to debrief past actions and find ways to improve for the future.
• The context of application: in companies, SKS retrospectives are very useful at the end of projects or campaigns. In education, the SKS can be used to collect learners' opinions on an activity or a new course!
• The learning benefit: this exercise helps develop critical thinking skills, as participants have to analyse objectively what has been done, and then generate creative ideas for improvement.
• Our wootip: add a 3-5 minute timer to limit thinking time and stimulate creativity.

Testing overall understanding

While brainstorming is known for generating ideas, it can also be used to test overall understanding of a topic in a group. Here are two creative ideas for testing knowledge and developing critical thinking skills.

• Example: a topic is defined as the title of the brainstorming. Each category corresponds to a more specific level of detail on the subject in question.
• The aim: this type of brainstorming is used to test the learners' knowledge of a broad and complex topic. It allows the teacher to know at what level of complexity the learners are struggling.
• The context of application: all scientific disciplines in the context of explaining complex concepts.
• The learning benefit: consolidating the learners' knowledge.
• Our wootip: you can hide certain categories by clicking on the coloured circles on the left of the screen, and only display them one by one to create a visual evolution similar to the complexity of the subject.

• Example: a brainstorming session with 3 columns (Know-how, Know-about, Know-about).
• The objective: to identify the skills to be acquired in order to objectify the learning of a notion.
• The context of application: learners must identify the skills they will need to acquire at the end of a course (or a training block). 
• The learning benefit: this exercise allows the participant to reflect on the objective of his or her learning and thus to develop critical thinking.
• Our wootip: beforehand, prepare a second brainstorm with all the answers that were expected. This will allow the audience to compare their answers with an ideal corrective.

Brainstorming in small groups

Is your group of learners too large to share ideas easily? Have them work in sub-groups to better analyse their performance and encourage group thinking.

• Example: a column is assigned to a group, in which the group should add its ideas.
• The objective: to put the groups' ideas into visual perspective. This will allow them to debrief, argue, and explain their ideas in the light of other reflections.
• The context of application: either all the groups reflect on the same subject in a small group, and then present the results of their reflections to the large group. Or each group reflects on a specific part of a project, topic, theme and then shares their reflections with the large group.  
• The learning benefit: learners develop communication and listening skills through this exercise. They learn to collaborate, to listen to each other, and to defend their ideas.

• The example: at the beginning, the brainstorming contains only one column which will accommodate all the answers in an unstructured way. As the answers appear, the event creator can identify major trends and create new categories/columns. 
• The objective: to think together, without barriers and without directing the answers beforehand.
• The context of application: the teacher can create a real discussion with his/her students and co-construct the brainstorming structure with them.
• The learning benefit: communication and collaboration are the key words of this exercise!