Carousel Brainstorm

Either divide students into group, or have them work individually. Assign students a topic, and have them brainstorm on the board. After a certain time, tell everyone to rotate to the next station.

A good way to get lots of information on the board first, which can be useful if you want to do comparisons. Having students/groups use different colored markers/chalk enables you to track group contributions.

Another way to do this is to set up multiple wikis (say, in moodle) and use those for the brainstorm. The advantage is that the information is then preserved and accessible.