“You have 10 seconds to draw a clock on a piece of paper. Ready, go.”
We quickly scrambled to find paper & any tool that could pass as a writing utensil and sketched out our version of a clock starting with the basic shape & adding as many details as possible until the timer went off. After sharing our drawings the majority of our clocks actually resembled each other. Everyone can visualize a clock and it’s a fairly simple picture to actually draw, even for those who don’t deem themselves the artistic type. Without much discussion, just some observational comments… we were then tasked to draw another clock & this time we had 10 minutes. “Go.” Hmmm. He’s tricking us, what does he really want us to draw? What does he want to get out of us? So many different kinds of clocks…what kind should I draw? I’ll go with this kind of clock and just take my time. Man oh man, 10 minutes is a long time. Add some more details…Look to my neighbor, maybe they have a different kind of clock going than mine. Is the timer done yet? Add more details. Shading. “Ok pencils down.” As we shared our 10 minute clocks it was obvious all the variety of a simple icon a small group could produce. “A clock is a clock.” But is it? Two observations were shared… First, “A clock is still a clock, we could allow more time but the product could be viewed by our students/audience as the same.” If time is limited in the classroom, one area we could re-evaluate is…where are we putting value in our time? In what areas are we giving our students the most time? Are we giving them enough time to be creative? And second, "It was harder to even get started when the time was longer.” Decision paralysis is real. Sometimes more constraints help us make necessary decisions & allow us to see the core. If given 10 seconds we may see a circle with a minute & an hour hand…if we have enough time we may even get to add some numbers in there! But given 10 whole whopping minutes and whoa does that change the assignment. We can not only add all the details we visualize, but more than likely we’ll have time to spare…time to think, time to reflect. Time to think, in most situations, can only benefit the recipient. As leaders I believe it is important to remain aware of when those constraints are not only important but necessary as well as remain aware of times when it’s necessary to give ample time to think & add details to your simple clock.
2 Comments
|
Categories
All
Thanks for visiting!
Please let me know how I can continue to improve this resource. Archives
October 2018
|