Synectics This fun and high-powered thinking activity was developed nearly 50 years ago by William Gordon and still carries its power today. The steps are as follows: • The teacher selects a piece of content, as narrow or broad as s/he chooses. For example, as narrow as “multiplying a binomial by a trinomial” or as broad as “Coordinate Geometry.” • The teacher then selects something that is totally unrelated to the topic AND is of great interest to students. For example, “Things to do at a Fourth of July Picnic.” Students generate responses to this as the teacher records them. • The teacher selects two or three or four of those responses for the next step. • The teacher presents the following sentence stem: “Coordinate Geometry is like a hot dog because…” Students are to fill in their responses • Students can be help as accountable as you like at this point, writing responses, offering specific, mathematical reasons, etc. The time, costs and responsibilities for the teacher are as minimal as they can be: practically zero! For more information on this and other strategies designed to motivate and engage students in academically rigorous content, please contact Kim Loucks at the OCM BOCES in Syracuse at 315.433.2662 or kloucks@ocmboces.org.