🗑 Hexagonal thinking, NotebookLM and more

💼 What if your whole unit was already done?

What if planning a full unit didn’t take hours? What if everything you needed—lessons, activities, presentations, assessments—just appeared, scaffolded and ready to teach?

That’s what TeachAid does.

It’s the only AI tool that creates complete, classroom-ready units in minutes. Not just a lesson. Not just a worksheet. A full, aligned, adaptable unit with:

 ✅ Daily lesson plans
 ✅ Clear learning goals
 ✅ Engaging presentations
 ✅ Interactive student activities
 ✅ Final assessments
 ✅ Scaffolds for IEPs, ELLs, and enrichment

Try it free now → TeachAid.ca

TeachAid doesn’t replace your judgment—it supports it. You stay in control. The AI just handles the heavy lifting.

No more Sunday nights spent reinventing the wheel. No more piecing together disconnected materials. Just log in, generate, tweak if you want, and teach.

Tens of thousands of teachers are already using TeachAid to plan smarter and reclaim their time.

🎯 Want to save 5–10 hours a week?
🎯 Want to walk into class with everything ready?
🎯 Want to spend more time teaching, less time Googling?

Start now at TeachAid.ca — no credit card, no commitment. Just everything you need to teach your next unit.

You teach. Let TeachAid build the foundation.

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

💭 Try hexagonal thinking to make creative connections

It was 2014, and I had been invited to Google Teacher Academy in Austin, Texas. (Nowadays, they call it Google Innovator Academy.)

We had to develop a project — something big we could imagine and implement that would support students and/or teachers.

To help us open our minds to new ways of thinking, they introduced us to hexagonal thinking.

We just wrote a new post about it — Hexagonal thinking: Creating connections in the classroom. This post includes:

• A video overview

• Four ways to create hexagons

• A step-by-step process for implementing hexagonal thinking

• 10 ways to use hexagonal thinking in class

How hexagonal thinking works

Here’s the idea:

• Create hexagons (paper cutouts work; so does a digital version on Google Slides)

• Write ideas related to your topic

• Put them together if they connect

The trick: Because they’re hexagons, it lets you connect ideas in more ways — because a hexagon has six sides. That makes six potential connection points for any one idea.

We used paper cutouts at Google Teacher Academy, and I remember seeing my project in a whole new light when I started moving them around and adding new ones.

Bonus: A hexagonal thinking activity — with paper or digitally — can be a great collaborative activity for students AND for teachers.

A hexagonal thinking example with coffee

Here’s a quick hexagonal thinking activity I did as I enjoyed my morning cup of coffee. I used our super basic hexagonal thinking template in Google Drawings … and I just dragged the hexagon shapes all over the screen.

A few things I noticed …

• I started with coffee, but I quickly saw connections that went beyond coffee.

• I could have followed the “business” and “food truck” and “ice cream” connections on a route I never expected.

• “Tasting notes” created its own branch that was more like a traditional mind map / word web.

• The more I connected ideas in multiple points, the more creative I had to get.

What can I use to make hexagon shapes?

• I made mine digital. You could use Google Slides, Google Drawings, PowerPoint … even a free digital whiteboard tool like FigJam.

• Kami has a hexagonal thinking template for students. They suggest using the voice comment tool to explain how each idea connects.

• Amazon has a ton of hexagon paper punches that’ll create hexagons for you (all the way up to 3 inches). Here’s one on sale that’ll make 2-inch paper hexagons.

• Use this printable hexagons template to print out hexagons that students can cut out themselves.

Using hexagonal thinking for student and adult learning

How could you use hexagonal thinking?

• Kickstart new units with students, connecting prior knowledge with new concepts

• Review content students have studied, connecting what they’ve learned

• In literature, students can explore themes, characters, and plot points

• Show how scientific concepts and processes are interrelated

• Do creative brainstorming with students (or teachers!) about ideas you want to explore

Use AI to get ideas for hexagonal thinking

If you like the idea of hexagonal thinking but just aren’t sure how it would fit with what you teach, copy/paste this prompt into an AI assistant like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot or Anthropic Claude.

• Note: Replace the items in brackets to customize to what you teach.

I used this prompt with Google Gemini, asking for ideas for a middle school science class studying mitosis. Here’s what it came up with!

Try out hexagonal thinking with your learners

If you want your learners — either students or adults — to do some creative thinking about the relationships among ideas you’re studying, I highly suggest hexagonal thinking.

It can be a fun tactile activity with paper cutouts. Or it can be quickly done with Chromebooks or laptops with some simple digital manipulatives like our hexagonal thinking digital template.

Want to learn more about hexagonal thinking? Check out our post below …

💻 TECH TIP 💻

📓 NotebookLM adds mind maps, customized audio overviews

If you haven’t checked out Google’s NotebookLM (notebooklm.google), it’s pretty amazing.

• It lets you add several sources (PDFs, audio files, Google Docs, Google Slides, website links, YouTube videos, copied text, etc.) … up to 50 sources.

• It analyzes those sources — then lets you ask questions about them in a chat.

• In its responses, it footnotes where it found answers in the original sources.

• You can create a podcast-style audio overview, briefing docs, Q&A, and more about your sources.

We created a summary for educators with 10 things teachers should know about NotebookLM.

I copied a chapter about tissues out of an open source anatomy textbook and put it into NotebookLM. Watch the results in this quick video (0:54).

Now, NotebookLM has new features …

• Create mind maps about your sources. Just click “Mind Map” in the chat window. You can expand or collapse additional levels and sublevels using the arrows next to a concept.

• Customize your audio overview. It’s like slipping the podcast hosts a notecard with a couple things you want to make sure they talk about (or don’t talk about). Use the “Customize” button before creating a new audio overview.

You can read all about NotebookLM in our updated post …

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!