Resource 4: Effective brainstorming

For brainstorms to be effective you need to:

• define the purpose of the brainstorm
• encourage all students to participate, letting ideas ‘come into their heads’
• write down the students’ contributions – it is important to emphasise that all contributions are recorded
• discuss and decide suitable categories with student help, if possible, to organise the information
• select a method of recording the information from the brainstorming session using the categories discussed
• discuss the information recorded then decide on areas requiring further research (‘What do we want to find out more about?’)
• write down the questions that still need to be answered
• plan how these question or areas for development can be answered in the classroom in ways that allow students to experience aspects of sound that make sense to them
• plan how you will organise your students and how you will support their learning – which students will need more support than others, and how will you do this?