“I’m Bored!” Experiments the Possibilities

Most overused verb used by students in school: Bored.
Least favorite word teachers want to hear: Bored.

In order to bring teachers and students together to explore what could happen when people are bored, look at the the hypothesis of Dr. Sandi Mann. She has been seeking to prove that boredom leads to creativity. Her research with other psychologists at the University of Central Lancashire was explained in an article on the Psychology Blog. In an experiment, she asked one set of participants to copy numbers out of a telephone book for 15 minutes; the other set of participants were immediately engaged in a standard creative task-inventing as many different uses as they could for a polystyrene cup. (Mann & Cadman, 2013).

The group that had been bored for 15 minutes of copying came up with the most uses.

“Boredom at work has always been seen as something to be eliminated, but perhaps we should be embracing it in order to enhance our creativity.

In order to put Mann’s hypothesis to a less scientific test, the writers at the Blog New Tech City posted an article demonstrating a variation on Mann’s experiment using “Post-It notes, sponges, plastic forks (and maybe a little bit of wine).”  The results are seen on the video posted on YouTubeVideo: What Happened When We got 130 People Really, Really Bored:

In New Tech City’s re-staging, one group copied the phone book; one group read the phone book; one group went to the bar. These tasks are not dissimilar from “traditional” classroom activities.  Copying can be tedious, such as copying words from a dictionary, especially if students do not see the purpose in the activity. Reading should never be boring, but there are some textbooks that should carry a prescriptive warning: “May cause drowsiness.” What about the bar? Well, consider the lunchroom. The grouping in New Tech City’s experiment is easily transferred to a school setting.

Teachers could first analyze the procedure from Mann’s or New Tech City’s experiments to get some ideas on how to generate creative thinking or problem solving from the “boredom” of sitting in class. Since both experiments were “low-tech”, the process could be replicated easily. Here is the analysis:

1. Mann posed a problem that had not one but multiple solutions;
2. In both experiments, there were cheap, ordinary, familiar objects to use (post-its, forks, sponges, styrofoam cups);
3. Once placed in a group, participants could sit where they chose;
4. Ideas between people were shared because talking was permitted;
5. Results (by group) were visual using post-it notes;
6. Peer feedback was given.

This example of moving from a state of to boredom to a state of creativity could be reconfigured as a class activity by providing students a challenge to offer a solution to a prompt using similarly innocuous items. Their creations could demonstrate their understanding or interpretation in a creative way. Teachers could use the collaboration and cooperation in the classroom to stimulate ideas and support peer to peer feedback as well as formatively assess what students know, or more important, what students are capable of doing.

There could be some interesting combinations:

• Paper plates and coffee stirrers illustrating …..Shakespeare’s scenes?
• post-it notes and yarn ……elements in the periodic table?
• popsicle sticks and napkins …..for highlights in American history?

Or teachers could just let students create and then reflect on their inventions.

Dr. Mann’s experiments show that boredom is a fertile ground for creative expression. Teachers could use this research in lessons that could benefit their students.

Someday, “I’m bored” might even be the best thing a teacher might hear.