This lesson is about great inventors and how these inventors got their ideas to create their inventions. During the lesson students will be learning and analyzing some creativity tips which help them to come up with their own ideas.
Objectives:
Content:
- to develop inventive thinking and imagination.
- to improve knowledge about the world.
Language acquisition: by the end of the lesson students will be able:
- to practice their analyzing and speaking skills on the topic
- to develop listening and reading skills to understand the main idea
- to demonstrate their personal creative ideas making the presentations
During Preliminary Lessons:
- Read the stories about great inventors in class or let students read themselves as a home task.
- Arrange for display of Inventive Thinking and Creativity Gallery.
- Ask Students prepare Power Point Presentations about the Great Inventors of the World.
Material Required:
Video: Profile of Igor Sikorsky (the inventor of the Black Hawk helicopter)
Demonstration of “Inventive Thinking and Creativity Gallery”.
Texts: “Creativity Tips” “The cartoon by Rube Goldberg” [see Supplementary Materials]
Students’ Presentations
Procedure
In order to guide your students through the inventive process, a few preliminary lessons dealing with creative thinking will help set the mood.
Stage 1. Greetings. The layouts of the lesson.
Stage 2. Warming up
- Examine Inventions
Ask the students to look at the things in the classroom that are inventions. One such item is probably the pencil sharpener. Let the students brainstorm a list all of the inventions they discover. What is the unique item to you mind? What is the most useful for you? Do you know who the inventor of your favorite item was? What personal qualities do you need possess in order to create any innovations?
Stage 3. Vocabulary activities
- Building Vocabulary Net [see Supplementary Materials]
- Read, translate and drill the words
- Match the words to their definitions:
- Invent
- Imaginative
- Remarkable
- Brainy
- Engineer
- Functional
- Upgrade
- Device
- Ability
- Up-to-date
- practical and useful; having a special purpose; especially for a machine, an organization or a system working; able to work
- a level of skill or intelligence; the fact that somebody is able to do something
- to produce or design something that has not existed before
- having or including the most recent information; modern fashionable
- unusual or surprising in a way that causes people to take notice
- an object or a piece of equipment that has being designed to do a particular job
- a person whose job involves designing and buildings engines, machines, bridges etc.
- having or showing new and existing ideas
- very intelligent
- to make a piece of machinery, computer system etc. more powerful and efficient
- Make up your own sentences with these words
Stage 4. Watching and discussing the Video: Profile of Igor Sikorsky
Want to learn about aviation pioneer and inventor of the Black Hawk helicopter?
Before watching:
- Demonstrate a picture of a helicopter Do you know who invented a helicopter?
While watching:
- Watch this and answer the Questions: Who invented a helicopter? When was a helicopter invented? What was the reason to invent a helicopter at that time?
After watching:
- Open class discussion: Is it a useful invention to your opinion? Why?
Stage 5. Reading [see Supplementary Materials]
Pre-reading
- Write the words spinning wheel and saw on the board
- Have students look at the first drawing in the reading and describe what is happening. Ask students:
What is the woman doing? What are the men outside doing? When do you think this is taking place?
- Have students read the title. Explain that a tip is a helpful piece of advice. Ask what advice they would give a friend who was having trouble being creative. Have the class brainstorm a list of suggestions.
In order to be more creative everyone should:
- have vivid imagination
- be curios
- be interested in something
- gain more knowledge about the world
- be determined
- take risks
While reading
- Read carefully and answer the questions: What is brain storming? How did Tabatha Babbett invent the circular saw? How did Eli Whitney invent the cotton gin? How did Nolan Bushnell invent new pinball games?
Post-reading
- Comprehension and discussion: What is the main purpose of the article? According to the article how did the inventors get their ideas for their inventions? Do you know any other techniques for creating problem solving?
Stage 6. Practice and Performance
- Direct students’ attention to the cartoon by Rube Goldberg and ask them to describe the device. Ask: What happens when the sun comes up? What happens next? What is the purpose of the device? [see Supplementary Materials]
- Practicing Creativity with the class
For practice in elaboration, have pairs or small groups of students choose a particular idea from the brainstorming list of invention ideas and add the flourishes and details that would develop the idea more fully.
- Practicing Inventive Thinking with the Class
Before your students begin to find their own problems and create unique inventions or innovations to solve them, you can assist them by taking them through some of the steps as a group.
- Finding a Solution: If you could invent something to make your life easier, what would you invent? What does not work as well as you would like it to work? What problem(s) would you like to see solved? What is the most annoying problem you find (at home? at school? on the road? at the supermarket?)
- Brainstorming for Creative Solutions
Allow students to present their own ideas. They can present their devices to the class in a drawing with a written or oral description.