Objective:
- To develop students' abilities in effective project planning.
- To provide students with opportunities to identify and explore multiple solutions to problems.
- To provide students with opportunities to reflect upon the implications of actions and decisions taken.
Overview:
The ability to produce and utilise timelines is of great use to the enterprising student.
Timelines allow students to identify the discrete steps which lie between a given problem and a given solution, and to explore the order in which these steps can be taken to reach that solution as effectively as possible. They allow students to plan and track their progress, to consider the implications each given action has upon the next, and to appreciate that many problems share a number of equally valid solutions.
This simple activity introduces students to the concept of time-lining. It can be used as an activity to support the planning of a given project or enterprise, or as an activity exploring the nature of problem solving in its own right.
In its most basic form it can be delivered as a 5 – 10 minute activity, with ample room for extension and further exploration.
Activity:
Introduction
- Introduce students to the concept of time-lining.
- Frame the activity around a given problem / task which requires solving / completing for students.
- This could be a real or hypothetic problem to be addressed by the whole group, or students may be asked to identify a real-life problem
- encountered in their own projects and endeavours.
Main Activity
- Instruct students to work as individuals, or in small groups.
- Provide individuals / groups with a set of Post-It notes.
- Instruct studentsto write down one action (i.e. action required to complete the task / solve the problem) on each Post-It note. For example, if the timeline was relating or organising an event, actions may include booking a venue, selecting a time and date, drafting a press release etc.
- Once students have identified all of the actions required to solve the problem / complete the task, instruct them to arrange the Post-It's into an order in which actions need to be taken. They must ensure that this order is logistically and logically coherent. For example, you couldn't book a venue for an event, without knowing the time and date on which you need it.
- Once students have completed their timelines, instruct them to record the steps (for example, by taking a photo of the timeline using their phones), and then to re-arrange them, to look for alternative valid solutions. The steps involved in these solutions should be recorded in a similar fashion.
Conclusion / Reflection
- The whole group can discuss and reflect upon their conclusions form the exercise.
- Questions may include;
- Did every problem have multiple solutions? If not, why? Can these problems be categorised?
- Which order did you identify as the most effective? Why?
- Were all timelines linear? Did some actions need to be taken simultaneously?
- Was their particular place in the order unimportant for any actions? If so, how did you decide where to place these actions?
- If relating to a real-world problem / task, students are looking to solve, they may be encouraged to keep and display their Post-It timeline. They can then change their order / add actions as required, and by removing notes as actions are completed, effectively monitor and represent their progress.
Skill Development:
This activity should improve students' ability to conceptualise problems, and to plan and visualise the solutions to them. It should improve their ability to reflect upon the implications of the actions they take, and to think strategically whilst planning projects. It should improve students' ability to conceive of problems, and to select appropriate solutions from a variety of possible options.
Resources:
- Post-It notes
- Pens
- For an example of time-lining in action, see Forensic Science Case Example 'The use of time-lining to identify and analyse multiple plausible solutions.'
References:
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