{"id":976,"date":"2014-09-02T13:10:25","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T20:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/?p=976"},"modified":"2014-09-02T13:10:25","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T20:10:25","slug":"sticky-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/2014\/09\/02\/sticky-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Sticky notes as a teaching tool"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past week was our start to the semester. I was struck, once again, at how little I knew of the students' individual stories that led them to find themselves in my class. As the week ended, though, I celebrated what I was able to glean about them in that short of a time.<\/p>\n

A particularly useful tool in connecting with my students was the sticky note.<\/p>\n

\"mostcommon-sticky\"<\/a>
Sticky note exercise: Signs were created using the easy-to-use graphics editor called Canva.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I'm teaching three sections of Introduction to Business, in addition to one marketing elective. I've taught Introduction to Business\u00a0over twenty times, previously, just not three times in the same semester.<\/p>\n

We started out with an exercise designed to help them get to know each other and start to think about how entrepreneurs come up with ideas.<\/p>\n

I shared how many business ideas are the result of attempts to solve problems.<\/p>\n

There was recently a story from Wired Magazine about the invention of a gadget that helps solve the problem of doctors not washing their hands thoroughly enough<\/a>.\u00a0Another example came from college students looking to reduce date rape incidents through their creation of nail polish that changes color when exposed to date rape drugs.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I gave each of the students three sticky notes and asked them to write down a problem on each sticky that they had experienced since either coming or returning to our university.<\/p>\n

Then, they got in groups of three or four students and shared what they had each recorded on their notes. Finally, they selected one sticky note from their group, which best fit the following descriptions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Most likely to be a common problem shared by many others in the class<\/li>\n
  2. Most unique problem<\/li>\n
  3. Most easily tied to a solution they could conceptualize<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I've done a similar exercise in the past, but this time, I felt that there were some improvements to how I had previously conducted it.<\/p>\n

    The benefits included:<\/p>\n