C3 Education

This activity teaches students the value of understanding the big picture of a project and the part that task prioritization plays in the process.

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Each team will need some wall space or other surface that they can use to stick their notes on.

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Step 1 – Individually list the morning activities (5 minutes):

Ask your students to write on sticky notes the activities they do on a school day from the moment they wake up until they leave for school.  There should be only one activity on each sticky note and students should work independently.

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Step 2 – Collaboratively group the activities (5 minutes): 

In teams of up to 5 people, instruct your students to work together to group their stickies into common themes and remove any redundant sticky notes.  For example, a goal of “washing” can include activities such as brushing teeth, taking a shower, going to the toilet, etc. Each team should place their sticky notes on the wall and organize the activity notes under the themes. 

 

Step 3 – Order the group of activities by time  (3 minutes): 

Instruct the teams to order the groups of activities from left to right sequentially, in a way that the order makes sense as a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.  For example: wake-up, wash, breakfast, and prepare to leave.

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Step 4 – Order the activities by criticality  (5 minutes):

Ask teams to prioritize the activities in each group by criticality, ordered from top to bottom with the most important activities on top.

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Step 5 – Drama! (5 minutes):

And now for the drama… Tell the teams that their alarm clock didn’t go off on time and they only have 15 minutes to get out of the house.  They will need to cut back their routine so that they only do the minimal activities that will allow them to leave on time.

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Have the teams draw a line with tape, where the prioritized activities appear above the line and the remaining items are below the tape line.

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Step 6 – Compare plans (5 minutes):

Have students walk around the room and look at the plans from the other teams.

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1. Were all of the plans the same across teams?  If not, why? 

2. What would have happened if you tried to get all of your morning activities completed in 15 minutes?

3. What can happen when you treat all tasks equally or spend too much time on one task?

4. ​​​​How can you apply the story mapping process to your school work and personal life?

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