Whip Around - The Teacher Toolkit
Whip Around - The Teacher Toolkit is a prompted conversation exercise for divergent ideation: it helps participants open up more possible ideas before choosing a direction.
How to run it
- Pose a prompt that has multiple answers. Have students write down as many responses as possible.
- “Whip” around the room, calling on one student at a time. Have students share one of their responses. When called on, students should not repeat a response; they must add something new.
- After completing the whip around, have students discuss which ideas and themes showed up most in their responses.
- Students write down responses to a question or prompt given to them by the teacher and quickly share their responses with the class.
- Students have to pay attention and listen closely to their classmates’ responses to compare them to their own.
- Have students write down as many responses as possible.
- Have students share one of their responses.
- When called on, students should not repeat a response; they must add something new.
- Discuss After completing the whip around, have students discuss which ideas and themes showed up most in their responses.
Run this exercise live
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Materials:
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Prompts to use +
Pose a prompt that has multiple answers. Have students write down as many responses as possible.
“Whip” around the room, calling on one student at a time. Have students share one of their responses. When called on, students should not repeat a response; they must add something new.
After completing the whip around, have students discuss which ideas and themes showed up most in their responses.
Students write down responses to a question or prompt given to them by the teacher and quickly share their responses with the class.
Students have to pay attention and listen closely to their classmates’ responses to compare them to their own.
Have students write down as many responses as possible.
Run this with your AI assistant +
Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.
Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: Whip Around - The Teacher Toolkit. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: Pose a prompt that has multiple answers. Have students write down as many responses as possible.; “Whip” around the room, calling on one student at a time. Have students share one of their responses. When called on, students should not repeat a response; they must add something new.; After completing the whip around, have students discuss which ideas and themes showed up most in their responses.; Students write down responses to a question or prompt given to them by the teacher and quickly share their responses with the class.. Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.
Origin unverified
- Where we observed it: The current corpus has one observed source organization: The Teacher Toolkit. (1 source observed, including The Teacher Toolkit.)
- What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
- No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
- Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.