Synectics

In 1961, William Gordon developed a model to stimulate creativity through the use of analogies or metaphors. Gordon’s premise was that creative people routinely use analogical thinking to support novel ways of looking at issues or problems. The key to a successful lesson that incorporates synectics is a task that requires individuals or groups of students to discover physical, symbolic, or behavioral connections between the familiar and the strange and the ability to describe these newly defined relationships.

A Synectic Trigger Mechanism is a task or question that promotes new ideas and thoughts. For example, in a study of form and function in biology, students are shown pictures of different types of vehicles, such as SUV’s, sports cars, sedans, etc. and pictures of animals with particular structural adaptations. In this case, pictures are used to trigger analogies between dissimilar things, such as a cheetah and a speedy sports car.

Implementation

1. Prepare a Synectics graphic organizer for every student.

2. This teaching tool is situation specific. Think carefully about the idea, situation, concept, event, or condition that you want students to explore.

3. Use a Synectic Trigger Mechanism such as a picture, poem, song, drawing etc. to jump start own your analogical reasoning.

· Use ideas from the natural or man-made world, connections with historical events, your school, etc.

4. Create a personal analogy for any of the above items.

· Note: Use ideas that are not directly related to the item.

· If an analogy is so obvious that everyone immediately “gets it” without any need for original thinking, then find another one.

5. Analyze the connections that you believe exist in your analogy.

6. Before beginning with personal analogies, practice analogy building with examples of things that have similarities that are easy to identify.

· A shark is a lot like a torpedo because …

· A wind turbine is a lot like a solar panel because …

7. Then, progress toward analogies that require more abstract thinking.

· Brewing coffee is a lot like having a brainstorm because …

· Driving an electric car is a lot like paying taxes because …

Classroom Management

1. If students are new to Synectics, you should model the process by presenting your own analogy and explaining the connections to the class.

2. Have students quickly place words in each of the four quadrants. There should be little forethought before selecting these words.

3. Ask students to enter the concept, idea, condition, etc. that you want to explore in the center box.

4. For each of the quadrants have students complete this sentence stem: The word in the center box is a lot like the item in the quadrant because…

5. Share random examples of student analogies with the entire class.

6. Suggested Formative Assessment: Plus-Minus-Interesting.