In many cases, college students worry to sound uninformed or even stupid during a brainstorming session. That’s why they avoid sharing their thoughts and ideas in public. However, there are a few ways to get originative juices flowing even from the shiest and most introverted students.
1. Brainstorm bad ideas first
A team leader plays a key role in motivating a team and achieving a comfortable and relaxed environment around. This person helps each member to become less tense or anxious and encourages them to share their thoughts freely. The best way to start out a brainstorming session is to spend 10 minutes generating bad ideas. The team leader throws one out that to show everyone how to do it. No doubt, this method will aid to create a casual and playful atmosphere in any team.
2. Break and build ideas
If students loosen up and start sharing their thoughts around a general topic, it’s a great time to break whatever they came up with into specific parts. Each member should jot down 2-3 ideas on a piece of paper, exchange them with another person and try to build new branches from their classmate’s ideas. Rotating papers a few times can definitely bear unsurpassed results.
3. Play word games
If a brainstorming team decides to experiment with formatting, word games will be the most powerful way to draw on some original and unexpected ideas. How to create a word storm? A team leader has to select one word and ask everyone to brainstorm oodles of various words that occur to mind from that first one. Later all members have to think about how each word relates to the other. Mind mapping can aid to crop up less evident thoughts as well.
4. Make a mood board
Another extraordinary way to come up with fresh ideas is by building a mood board. It can easily refine collective intelligence by gathering random inspirational text, pictures and textures. Visual components can be anything spreading out from the main topic.
5. Doodle
Uncommonly, but doodling is able to help stimulate originative insight, improve student’s memory and concentration skills. There are a few drawing exercises taken from Sunni Brown’s book “The Doodle Revolution. The first one calls “Atomization”. Each team member has to select a thing and visually break it down into its little pieces. The second doodling exercise is “Game Storming”. It’s necessary to take 2 unconnected objects, like boa and phone, draw them in their atomized parts, and then make random images that combine these pieces together. Both exercises help to rethink the habitual and create unsuspected ties.
Do you know any other creative ideas for effective brainstorming sessions? Share it in the comments below.