Jill Hammonds - National Facilitator - CORE Education

It is about creating an effective teaching and learning environment . . .

. . . where the use of information, thinking and communication tools

supports the learning that is occurring.

It is about more effective teaching

of curriculum

and the key competencies

through provision of a wider range of tools and resources.

It is about students being more involved

and empowered

to make more of the decisions about how they will learn

Howard Gardner – Multiple Intelligenceshttp://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr054.shtml http://www.tki.org.nz/r/gifted/pedagogy/gardner2_e.php

Art Costa – Habits of Mindhttp://www.habits-of-mind.net/

Learning Styleshttp://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm

De Bono’s Thinking Hatshttp://www.edwarddebono.com/

Bloom’s Taxonomyhttp://www.tki.org.nz/r/ict/ictpd/current_events_blooms_e.php

http://www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/thinking/Bloom/blooms.htm

To become a good runner you have to run regularly.

To become a good thinker you have to think regularly.

You need to get “thinking fit”.

5 - 10 minutes a day will achieve it.

Become a thinking fitness coach in your classroom.

Students need to have a scaffolded process to initiate their thinking, or a task to complete and resources (thinking pathways) to follow to get them there.

•Make your own list of all the things that are essential to have in a restaurant.

•Tell your partner the third item on that list.

•Each design a restaurant that does not have your partner’s component.

•Share your restaurant with your partner.

So what do you do when you are thinking?

What is going on in the brain?

Website link

What If Key

What If Key

What if Little Red Riding Hood had been a boy on a motorbike. Retell the story.

Question Key

Here is the answer. Make up 10 interesting questions that might have been asked.

Commonality Key

What might these two things have in common?

Chalk and cheese Roses and

motorbikes

Tennis and parachuting A parking metre

and a painting

Alternative KeyWork out three ways to clean your teeth without a toothbrush.

Work out three ways that an orchard can sell its produce without selling the fruit.

Work out three ways to have tidy lawns without using a lawnmower.

How could you run a school athletics sports without using any athletics gear?

Brainstorm KeyYou have two minutes to brainstorm ideas for using the Brick Wall Key in the classroom.

The Brick Wall Key

Make a statement which could not generally be questioned or disputed, and then try to break down the wall by outlining other ways of dealing with the situation.

Eg.  Governments need to collect taxes in order to provide necessary services.

SUBSTITUTEThink about substituting part of your product/process for something else. By looking for something to substitute you can often come up with new ideas.Typical questions: What can I substitute to make an improvement? What if I swap this for that and see what happens? How can I substitute the place, time, materials or people?

COMBINEThink about combining two or more parts of your probortunity to achieve a different product/process or to enhance synergy.Typical questions: What materials, features, processes, people, products or components can I combine? Where can I build synergy?

ADAPTThink about which parts of the product/process could be adapted to remove the probortunity or think how you could change the nature of the product/process.Typical questions: What part of the product could I change? And in exchange for what? What if I were to change the characteristics of a component?

MODIFY/DISTORTThink about changing part or all of the current situation, or to distort it in an unusual way. By forcing yourself to come up with new ways of working, you are often prompted into an alternative product/process.Typical questions: What happens if I warp or exaggerate a feature or component? What will happen if I modify the process in some way?

PUT TO OTHER PURPOSESThink of how you might be able to put your current solution/ product/process to other purposes, or think of what you could reuse from somewhere else in order to solve your own probortunity. You might think of another way of solving your own probortunity or finding another market for your product.Typical questions: What other market could I use this product in? Who or what else might be able to use it?

ELIMINATEThink of what might happen if you eliminated various parts of the product/process/probortunity and consider what you might do in that situation. This often leads you to consider different ways of tackling the probortunity.Typical questions: What would happen if I removed a component or part of it? How else would I achieve the solution without the normal way of doing it?

REVERSEThink of what you would do if part of your probortunity/product/process worked in reverse or was done in a different order. What would you do if you had to do it in reverse? You can use this to see your probortunity from different angles and come up with new ideas.Typical questions: What if I did it the other way round? What if I reverse the order it is done or the way it is used? How would I achieve the opposite effect?

Eliminate:

Design a train that has no wheels.

How could you build a house without using any nails or screws?

How could you send a no cost message to someone on the other side of the world when that person does not have a computer?

Reverse:

Tell your favourite fairy tale to a partner by starting at the end and working back through the story.

Describe in reverse how to boil an egg.

Unpack how your students could find information on the internet and use it to solve a problem.

You have been commissioned to create an advertisement for a new product about to be released on the market.

In groups:

•Use Scamper or Ryan’s Keys to help you decide what your product will be.

•Sketch or make a prototype of your product on computer.

•Create an advertisement to present to the rest of the class.

NB. You have thirty minutes to complete the task and be ready to present!

• Creative

•Lateral

•Problem solving

•Alternative perspectives

•Critical

•Analytical

•Speculative

•Spatial

•Investigative

•IMAGINATIVE

•Memory

•Reflection

•Altruistic

•Debate

•Co-operative

•Adversarial

•Socratic

•Researching prior to point of view

•Caring

The method used to explore new programmes should be a thinking and discovering process, where students have to problem solve and work out for themselves how the programme works.

They will be guided in this process by the questions and scaffolds you give them from which to explore.

Children can learn new programmes by this method from their first few days at school.

Every new programme is an opportunity not to be missed!!!

You cannot provide students with a bank of lasting computer skills!

They need strategies to unlock new technologies as they are developed and become available!

•Every time we teach a computer skill, we miss an opportunity to develop problem solving skills and to make our students confident explorers of new technology.

•Every time we put students in a small group to teach themselves new computer skills, we create an opportunity for collaboration, risk taking and problem solving. When we share their learning we move forward at a greater pace. We create a community of learning.

Explore the word menus.

Explore all the toolbars.

Focus on the known features,

and then the new ones.

http://pbskids.org/sagwa/games/tangrams/

http://weboggle.shackworks.com/rules.html

Main Idea

http://cmap.ihmc.us/download/

Reason Ablehttp://www.goreason.com/For PC users only. Sadly no Mac version is available yet. This looks to be a most interesting programme designed to support kids with developing argument and different perspectives that would be ideal for learner-centered problem-based learning  requiring students to develop deep thinking about problem and to explore issues. Excellent for designing debate and reviewing all angles.

www.goreason.com

To answer these questions, you have to let your brain think in different ways than you may be used to. Here's an example:

Question: A girl who was just learning to drive went down a one-way street in the wrong direction, but didn't break the law. How come?

See if you can let your brain switch directions to answer these questions:

1. How can you throw a ball as hard as you can and have it come back to you, even if it doesn't hit anything, there is nothing attached to it, and no one else catches or throws it? 2. Two students are sitting on opposite sides of the same desk. There is nothing in between them but the desk. Why can't they see each other?

http://school.discovery.com/brainboosters/index.html

http://www.itrc.ucf.edu/conferences/fetc2004/thinking.html

Lateral Thinking

Outsmarting the Donkey Q Amir tied two sacks of salt to the back of his donkey and headed for the market to sell the salt. On the way, Amir and the donkey passed a stream. The donkey jumped in to cool himself. As a result, much of the salt dissolved into the water, ruining the salt for Amir but improving matters for the donkey because his load became much lighter. Amir tried to get to the market on the following days, but the donkey always ruined the salt. Finally, Amir decided to teach the donkey a lesson. He once again set out with the donkey and the two sacks.

What did Amir do differently this time so that after that day the donkey stopped taking a swim?

http://school.discovery.com/brainboosters/index.html

A Amir loaded the sacks not with salt but with sand. When the donkey jumped in the stream and got the sacks wet, they became much heavier.

Reasoning

Flat Tyre Q Two friends were driving on the highway when they got a flat tyre. First they took off the hubcap. Then they unscrewed the four lug nuts — the screws that hold the tyre in place. They put the inverted hubcap down on the road and carefully placed the lug nuts inside the hubcap. Then they removed the flat.

As they were in the process of putting on the spare tyre, another car came along, hitting the hubcap and scattering the four lug nuts where they could not be found. The driver of the other car felt sorry, so he stopped to help. The two friends followed his advice, and in a little while they were back on the road again. What did the man tell them?

http://school.discovery.com/brainboosters/index.html

A The man told the two friends to take one lug nut off each of the other three tyres and use them to hold the spare tyre in place. (Later they could buy four more lug nuts so that each tyre would have four again.)

Logic

Catching the Bus Q Every morning when Aldo, Brenda, and Cory line up at the bus stop, they can choose between two buses — one yellow and one blue.

1. Whenever Aldo takes the yellow bus, Brenda and Cory take the same bus as each other. 2. If Brenda takes the yellow bus, Aldo and Cory take different buses from each other. 3. If Cory takes the blue bus, Aldo takes the same bus as Brenda.

Which of the three kids always takes the same bus? What color is it?

A Aldo always takes the blue bus.

STRATEGY: Make a table that shows the choices for Aldo. He can either take yellow or blue. If he takes yellow, there are two options for Brenda and Cory. If he takes blue, there are four choices for Brenda and Cory.

Aldo Brenda CoryA yellow yellow yellowB yellow blue blueC blue blue blueD blue yellow yellowE blue yellow blueF blue blue yellow

Now go back to the information in the problem and eliminate the impossible cases. Number 2 makes case A and E impossible, so cross them out. Number 3 makes case B impossible, so cross that out. That leaves only cases D and F. Aldo takes the blue bus in both.http://school.discovery.com/brainboosters/index.html

Spatial Awareness

Exactly Two Q

Draw a grid made up of six horizontal squares and six vertical squares.

The grid will have 36 squares. Place 12 counters on the grid, one to a square, so that each of the six horizontals, each of the six verticals, and each of the two diagonals contains exactly two counters.

http://school.discovery.com/brainboosters/index.html

Word and Letter Play

Anagram Rhyme Q Will Shortz, a famous puzzlemaster, created this one: For each of the following four words, come up with another English word that uses all THE SAME letters but in a different order. The four words you come up with will rhyme with one another.

* ONSET * NEWS * WRONG * HORNET

A

* STONE * SEWN * GROWN * THRONE

STRATEGY: Look for a pattern in the letters – what is the same in each that could rhyme?

http://school.discovery.com/brainboosters/index.html

Number & Maths Play Balancing Act Q Scales #1 and #2 are in perfect balance. How many Xs must you put on the right side of Scale #3 to make it balance?

Scale #1Left side: XXYZ Right side: XXXXYScale #2Left side: YYYY Right side: XXZZScale #3Left side: YYZ Right side: ?

A 5 Xs. If you know algebra, you can figure this out by setting up an equation, expressing Y and Z in terms of X's. But you don't need to use algebra if your thinking goes like this:

1. From Scale #1, you can figure out that Z=2X, because the Z on the left side has been replaced by 2 Xs on the right side. 2. Next, say that X=2 and Z=4. That would put a 12 on the right side of Scale #2, which means that Y must equal 3 to make the left side of Scale #2 the same as the right side (4×3=12). 3. Now you know that the left side of Scale #3=10 (3+3+4=10). Since X=2, the right side of Scale #3 must have 5 Xs in order to equal 10 (5×2=10).

By the way, it doesn't matter which numbers you use. Just so you make sure that Z=2X, you'll always come out with 5 Xs on the right side of Scale #3. Go ahead-try it with X=4 and Z=8, and you'll see.

Source: Barnes and Noble, Mensa Mind Games for Kids, p.18http://school.discovery.com/brainboosters/index.html

The Task:

Use either Kid Pix Studio or Paint and PowerPoint to

create an animation sequence of not more than 10 slides to show

how day and night occur on Planet Earth

or

how a lunar eclipse occurs(You will need to put a one second delay between the slides to create the animation effect.)

Use Kid Pix to make an animated show that explains why we have day and night.

Animations are made by having multi copies of pictures and modifying each slightly with a 1 second delay between slides to create movement.

Make a multimedia presentation to demonstrate Pythagoras Theorem.Use the internet if necessary to find out background information.

3cm

4 cm

X cm

3X3=9

4X4=16

5X5=25

9 + 16 = 25

Pythagoras Theorem

In a right angle triangle, the square on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares on the other two sides.

Use the digital camera and PowerPoint to tell a story that has an unusual twist.

You cannot use any words – only photosYou must use exactly 12 photosThe photos must be used in the order in which they are taken (therefore you need to storyboard before you begin shooting)

So what thinking fitness activities will you use in your classroom next week?

Jill Hammonds - National Facilitator - CORE Education

http://thinkingworkshop.wikispaces.com