Chalk talk

A discussion carried out, in silence, through writing. The teacher writes a question on the board. Students come up, individually to write responses, to the teacher's question or each other. Students can circle others' points for emphasis, or draw lines to make connections.

I used this on the Day of Silence, when three-quarters of my class were keeping silence. It enabled us to have a good "discussion" of the Chinese Revolution without saying a word. If you do it on-line via technology, you'd even have a permanent record. I don't think Google docs could do it, but perhaps some of the online whiteboards. But a regular old chalkboard worked just fine.

A good summary can be found here.

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.