What's Important?

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Session Four

1. Language taster lesson (Japanese or Russian)
2. Brief discussion: describe your feelings when learning something completely new. What is it like to learn alongside staff learners? What thinking skills are required when learning another language? What similarities/differences are there between the new language and your mother tongue?
3. Languages evolve alongside and intertwined with the culture/s within which they are spoken. It is therefore natural for the languages themselves to reflect different values and priorities. Look at "What's Important" above, and move the priorities around to show the strengths and shortcomings of languages you know about.
4. Now pick a priority and invent the beginnings of your own language in a small group. Give it a name, and then prepare the following message:

I'm called ........... I'm ........ years old. Woldingham is my school. Happy New Year!

You will need to make decisions about grammar (how the meaning fits together) as well as vocabulary. Remember it doesn't need to work in the same way as any language you know - and don't forget your chosen priorities!
5. Plenary: Read and record the messages, with a brief explanation of what decisions you made.

Einstein's problem

Here is a problem set by Einstein. He estimated that only 2 % of the general population would be able to work this out, but actually it is more a matter of persistence than great genius. Give your brain some candy this Christmas and have a go!

5 men of different nationalities live in 5 houses of different colours. They smoke 5 different brands of cigarettes, drink 5 different drinks and keep 5 different types of animals. The question is: who keeps fish?

Here are the clues:

1. The Norwegian lives in the first house
2. The Englishman lives in the red house
3. The green house is to the left of the white house
4. The Dane drinks tea
5. The man who smokes Rothmans lives next to the one who keeps cats
6. The man in the yellow house smokes Dunhills
7. The German smokes Marlboroughs
8. The man in the middle house drinks milk
9. The Rothman-smoker has a neighbour who drinks water
10. The Pall Mall smoker keeps birds
11. The Swede keeps dogs
12. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house
13. The man who keeps horses lives next to the yellow house
14. The man who smokes Philip Morris drinks beer
15. Coffee is the drink in the green house

Session Three

1. Ice-breaker: odd one out exercise. Try this question from a SATs paper:

Which of the following is the odd one out?

house cave tractor stable tent

2. Making your own odd one out: create a verbal odd one out exercise with 4 words (of which one doesn't fit), then a version with 5 words, then a version with 6. If you had an odd one out exercise with 20 words of which one didn't fit, could you guarantee an indisputably correct answer?



3. Logic: patterns, persistence, foundations and frontiers.

A couple of quotes from Einstein are interesting in relation to this:

"Imagination is more important than knowledge, because knowledge is limited"

"If people only talked about things they really understood the world would be a very quiet place"

4. Logic games. You will notice that of the sprqs values, persistence features highly in these logical games!

Safara rush hour
Mastermind
Sudoku
Einstein's challenge (see above)

5. Plenary: What skills are you using to play these games? Try to break down your description of what goes on in your head into the smallest steps you can.

How might you use these steps in school subjects (all of them - even the less obviously logical ones)?

How might you tackle Einstein's challenge?

A lateral thinking challenge?

A boy living on a drought-stricken farm knows his family will die if they don't manage to grow more food. He has little education, no means of communicating with the outside world, and no money at all. What can he do?

Maybe start asking questions until a solution starts to become clear...

Watch the video clip below to find out.

Inspiration for young thinkers

Session Two

1. Register and ice-breaker: the cheesegrater (how many alternative uses can you think of for a cheesegrater? How many questions can you formulate about cheesegraters?)
2. TED video (see above). What kinds of thinking can we see here (think about sprqs)?
3. Lateral thinking challenge: can you solve these mysteries? Ask as many questions as you can (whether they seem likely to help or not) to find out more about each scenario, until you begin to see what the answer might be. The questions may only be answered with "yes" or "no".

a) A girl walking along a railway track sees a train thundering at high speed towards her. Instead of immediately jumping off the track, she charges directly at the train for about 5 metres and only then gets off the track. Why?

b) A man is working hard when he recognises an old friend approaching him. Despite both men being fit and well, they cannot speak and have to use hand movements to communicate. Why is this?

c) A young male is lying dead. He has an iron bar across his back and some food lying in front of him. How did he meet his sorry end?

4. Plenary: write on a post-it note the most useful, and the most surprising things you have learnt over the first two sessions

Online Intelligences Diagnostic

If you would like to find out where your learning strengths may lie, try out this online quiz and print out the results.

Online quiz

Answer as honestly and thoughtfully as you can.

Remember this is just something to think about (braincandy)! Your strengths can provide a "way in" to subjects or activities you usually find difficult, and it is also extremely rewarding to pursue your strengths to the point of real excellence!

After you may wish to post a comment with some of your thoughts.

Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles

Style to Mind

Session One: getting to know one another, yourself, and the aims of the group.

1. Icebreaker. Give each girl a letter at random around the room. The task is to find someone in the room that has something in common with you, starting with that letter, and then hold hands with them. Keep going until the whole club is "connected". Might be an idea to move the chairs first!
2. Name badges.
3. What are our group values? Note the blog address blog and discuss SPRQ. Look at the picture: colour, variety, connections. Caveat: no elitism.
4. Banana challenge: how could you SPRQ with a banana? (small groups)
5. What is intelligence? How many ways are there to be clever? (whole group brainstorm)
6. Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences (teacher input, see PowerPoint slides above this post).
7. Online diagnostic and print-out. Partner discussion: are you surprised? How could this knowledge affect the way you approach lessons (and life)? File in document wallets.
8. Plenary: what did you learn today (graffiti wall)?