Affinity Diagram

Purpose:

Making Connections

Additional Purpose(s):

Generating and Sharing Ideas

Overview:

Learners generate ideas and then collaboratively group ideas to identify big ideas.

Procedure:

1. Learners respond to an open-ended question by recording their ideas on individual sticky notes.  
2. They work together to affix their sticky notes to the wall or a window in small groups, clustering ideas that are similar. 
3. New ideas are placed close to clusters they are similar to, which sorts the sticky notes into groups that are related.  
4. As more sticky notes are added, learners can sort and regroup the ideas. 

Materials:

Sticky notes

Source:

Knight, J. (2011). Unmistakable impact (p. 193). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.