The more that students can use their imaginations, the more it improves academic learning and self-esteem. With The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™, free-thinking is rewarded. Creativity and brainstorming is the first step to so many kinds of thinking, problem-solving, and discovering new possibilities.

Students can play individual competition or in teams. The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ can be played with early learners, skilled readers teaming up with less-skilled readers, or, if the students are very young, the teacher can read questions for the students. The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ is the quintessential embodiment of "Out of the mouths of babes."

The Whole Brain Game...It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ can bring the element of challenge to your classroom as students make unusual and creative associations. The model of this game can be used for so many classroom activities, which are discussed here in this pamphlet.

Success at the game is based on how students use what they know to follow various convergence and divergence thinking paths. Previous specific knowledge or demonstrated past academic skill is only marginally important for game success. All students can participate, compete, and succeed. Because the The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ is not based on specific knowledge, it doesn't measure thinking styles narrowly. Instead the The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ helps students reach their own potential.

The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ rewards an abundance of answers, and evaluation of responses is liberal and delayed. This gives license and encouragement for creative thought. Ideas, no matter how far-fetched they might be, are rewarded. If on occasion these far-fetched ideas do not earn game points, far-fetched ideas bring up associations to ideas that will score points.

Students learn that their ideas have value. While having fun in the classroom, students incidentally learn strategy, foresight, planning, social skills, interaction, and prediction. They learn camaraderie, team skills, working together, and healthy competition.

While students participate in the The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™, teachers can take note of and assess the various styles the particular students have, leading to successfully constructed individual program plans. From the earliest days with the students, teachers can assess interpersonal communication, level of competitive or social participation, and many other aspects that impact learning.

After playing The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™, and students become used to the The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ model of thinking, the model can be used for discussion of literature or current events. For example, the "what if there were no ______?" The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ question can be posed when discussing Romeo and Juliet "what if there were no love at first sight?" Or for Ivanhoe, "what if there were no weapons?" Or, The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ question, "how are ____ and ____ alike, and/or how can they be used together?" How are Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story alike? How could they be used together? The possibilities are endless. Tests can even be modeled after The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ game questions.

The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ can be used in different learning contexts, such as for pre-writing, vocabulary development, math (simple tallying, probabilities and prediction), value of and the richness of culture, and connection between people and cultures (different cultures have different bents on answer streams), world languages and/or English as a second language, science, writing, reading, speaking, listening, literature, humanities, physical education and health, social studies, family and consumer science, business and marketing, computer studies, art, music, drama, and geography, among others.

One teaching example would be to encourage students to experience using metaphors while playing The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™. The game can be played for fun, meanwhile students pay attention to how many metaphors come up during game play. Later, students can use the metaphors to write a paragraph and turn it in as a classroom assignment.

Another classroom idea is to have a The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ corner. Students can design and hang their own The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ game board, and it can hang in The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ corner. When a student gets a good idea, they can be rewarded by being allowed to get out of their seat and go to The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ corner to write their idea. The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ corner could have large posters, one for each category. A student might think of how a helicopter is like a hat, and the student could have permission to go to The Whole Brain Game - It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ corner and write the idea on the large poster for that category. There might be an established time-period during the week for the students to review these together, and again discuss the unusual associations. The students could discuss how they process what they learned or relate ideas to current events. The teacher might find a way to reward the most creative responses of the week.

With a student/teacher designed The Whole Brain Game™...It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ game board, students could advance squares using dice. One roll of the 8-sided die could tell students how far they could advance, and the other roll of the die could tell the student how many responses she or he would need before he or she could advance. For younger players or alternative learners, the die determining number of responses needed could be 6-sided or even re-worked for fewer required responses.

Students could earn tokens while advancing on the game board, and use their token(s) to buy responses from others if the player runs out of their own ideas for responses. Students learn that their ideas have trade value.

The Whole Brain Game™...It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ is uniquely applicable to the new graduation standards. A pamphlet on this subject will be posted in the future. Teachers are thinking about making a paradigm shift, and using The Whole Brain Game™...It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ in the classroom will help capture demonstrated intelligence that may be missed in other settings.

I hope you will enjoy using The Whole Brain Game™...It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™ in your classroom. Please feel free to e-mail me at lisaogut@att.net with your feedback and ideas and/or how the game was used in your classroom. I would even appreciate hearing about the unusual associations your students came up with during play of the game. Thank you so much for your interest in The Whole Brain Game™...It's Not What You Think But How You Think It™. I hope to hear from you.

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