Useful Maths Tricks

How many of these super-cool maths tricks do you know? Have a look.

Incidentally, did you know that your child's ability to do maths depends, among others, on their Learning Style:

• If you ask a child who needs movement to sit still and memorise a times-table, you’re unlikely to get good results. You would do far better if you allowed them to walk around or play hopscotch on a makeshift map of times-tables.
• Tactile children, would love to use Koosh balls and learn better by using self-correcting learning tools (flip chutes, electro boards) and other hands-on activities. 
• Auditory children benefit from making tapes of their lessons (either recording their teachers in class, or reading the material themselves out loud).  E.g., chanting the times-tables.
• Kinesthetic children may make schoolwork more interesting by miming the lesson or staging a production.

What is your child's Learning Style? Discover it today.

9 x 8 = ???

7 x 6 = ???

30 degrees C = ??? F

Learning Resources: Do you prefer technology or tradition?

When it comes to learning, today's technology keeps providing us with the latest and the greatest gadgets. We can access knowledge online, we can experience new skills in simulated environments, we can use our eyes, our ears, and our hands.

Whether you embrace technology or prefer the tried-and-tested resources will depend, in part, on your Learning Style. But here's an interesting argument from IKEA (with our apologies to Apple). Have a look. 

What Teachers Can Learn From Students

In a recent study, a teacher took two days to replicate a student's life at school: she attended all the classes, played the sports and did the homework. Here's what she learnt:

• Students spend a lot of time sitting, and it's more energy-draining than you can imagine. Before the first day was over, the teacher had a lot of empathy for children who fidget in their desks.
• Students spend a lot of time having to listen. In many lessons, there's no opportunity to express your own views, you just have to assimilate those of the teacher. Even students who learn well by listening need a regular break to aid their concentration.
• In some classes, students may feel belittled if they ask a question.

The problem doesn't end at school though. Sometimes it continues on the sports field, with the coach doing all the talking and reprimanding, as well as at home where homework awaits.

Depending on the child's Learning Style, they will be better or worse equipped to handle what's expected of them. Discover their optimal Learning Style today and learn what makes them tick.

An Excerpt From Barbara Prashnig's Keynote Address in Poland

11 Steps to implementing Learning Styles on a school-wide basis:

1. Teacher training (LS Day 1) “Diversity in the Classroom Based on Learning Styles” including teachers’ own personal LSA-Adult profiles

2. Student assessments with LSA questionnaires, printing of computer-generated student profiles by the school itself

3. Teacher Training (LS Day 2) “Help for Problem Students – new Classroom Management – Group Profiles” interpreting student profiles with focus on underachievers; LSA Interpretation Manual; classroom re-arrangement

4.    Observation period of seven days carried out by teachers trained in learning styles

5. Sharing results with students and parents: interpretation of LSA profiles, homework and study strategies for students; parent evenings to share results

6. Teacher training (LS Day 3) “Teaching Styles, Learning Tools, implementing LSA” including teachers’ personal TSA-Ed profiles; focussing on mismatch between learning & teaching styles; production of learning tools; implementation strategies

7. Creating and using interactive learning tools, produced initially by teachers, later by students, resource teachers and/or parents

8.    Adaptation of classroom teaching to suit analytic and holistic students – lesson preparation to integrate LS into learning cycles and accommodate L/R brain processing, plus strategies for multi-sensory teaching to cater for auditory, visual, tactile & kinesthetic learning needs

9.    Classroom redesign: based on students’ preferences from group profiles and with students’ input; school-wide co-operation is necessary to achieve the desired outcomes

10. Evaluation phase: monitor students’ progress and evaluate impact of programme on teachers, students, parents and the community at large

11. Continuation: incorporate new students, train new teachers and continue

     to build the ‘School of the Future Based on Learning Styles’.

 Please contact us for more information.

Learning Styles Rock Poland

Earlier this week, Barbara Prashnig caused an outbreak of public excitement when she addressed the audience of the First Neuro-didactics Conference in Poland. Learning Styles, it seems, is exactly what the Polish education system needs in order to overcome forty years of communism followed by three decades of not knowing how to apply the political freedom to bring about a learning revolution.

The attendees of the conference hope to shape the necessary changes in education systems around the world and find answers to the following questions:

·        Do today's schools facilitate or hinder brain function?     

·        Why do students lose their motivation to learn?     

·        Does it make sense to focus learning on testing outcomes?     

·        Is student potential realised in school?     

·        Does school help students develop a positive self-image and build self-confidence?

Creative Learning and Learning Styles will be behind them all the way.

 

Google Earth and Learning Styles

Google Earth helps children visualise and discover the world around them. It’s an online program that lets you explore the earth using 3D maps and 3D street views. It also has some library images of forests and mountains, so you can see inside the White House including all the details of the Oval Office décor, as well as the spots on a jaguar inside the Amazon Jungle. (Incidentally, when you do see a large spotted cat inside the Amazon Jungle on Google Earth, the search engine Google itself can tell you, as it told me, whether it’s a leopard or a jaguar. It’s a jaguar. Leopards don’t inhabit South America. You Google and you learn.)

Depending on your child's learning style and personal interests, you can use Google Earth to:

·        Find the globe’s volcanoes and researching details about their locations.

·        Map the journey our food takes from the farm to our plate, and investigating the environmental impact of food choices.

·        Travel back in time to learn about their own neighbourhood and how it’s changed over the years.

·        View shipwrecks.

·        Use the Ruler tool to calculate distances.

 Have fun!

Nigel Latta Rates Kiwi Schools Brilliant

Nigel Latta is a familiar name in every Kiwi household. His parenting advice may appeal or raise eyebrows, but is inevitably hilarious and memorable. A few weeks ago, we were honoured to host Nigel on our blog. Today, the country hosts him in our TV lounges as he discusses the way New Zealand schools work today and whether it's better than the traditional approach.

The traditional approach relied on an end-of-the-year examination system that have you a neat mark out of a hundred. You got 50%, you passed, You got 49%, you failed. But, on the day and under pressure, is that one mark really important enough to determine whether or not you're labelled a failure? What if you worked hard all your school life, but crumbled under exam pressure because of your learning style? What if you had a headache on the day of the big exam?

Nowadays, New Zealand schools offer Discovery Learning as part of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). Discovery Learning, according to the Wikipedia, is "a technique of inquiry-based instruction and is considered a constructivist based approach to education. It is supported by the work of learning theorists and psychologists Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, and Seymour Papert."

What this means in the real world is that the teacher doesn't impart his or her knowledge to the students, expecting them to assimilate and regurgitate. Instead, the teacher guides the students towards the answer or answers, bearing in mind that there may be more than one correct outcome.

For example, a class on Soft Materials Technology (sewing in traditional speak), might design and create a soft toy that scares away monsters at night but doesn't scare the child. Doesn't it sound more fun than sewing an apron from the same pattern throughout the whole school?

In English, the students may watch a movie and discuss the character's emotional journey or the symbolism of certain objects.

In maths, kids will be learning that there is more than one way to solve a problem. If you need to add 12 and 15, you may go:

• well, 12 is 10+2 and 15 is 10+5, so I'll just add the two tens and then add 2 and 5; or
• well, 15 is the same as 12+ 3, I know two twelves are 24, and I still have 3 left over, so I'll add that to 24.

This helps children get strategies to choose from. Some kids will choose strategies best suited to the numbers. Others will choose strategies best suited to their own learning style.


Watch Nigel Latta go to school: http://tvnz.co.nz/nigel-latta/s1-ep2-video-6037627

What Can You Learn In A Boat?

What can you learn if you sail the world with your parents for a year? In addition to your expected home-schooling lessons, you will learn:

• minute geographical details of the area you're sailing
• the culture and the history of every port
• exposure to foreign languages
• navigation
• soft materials technology when mending sails and sewing new clothes from your old ones
• hard materials technology with boat repairs
• food technology: meal planning with cans and local produce
• electronics: when your laptop malfunctions
• converting from the local currency into your own - in your head
• the art of bartering and bargaining
• the dying skill of letter writing

and the list just goes on and on.

A dream come true, not only for kinesthetic learners.

If you don't own a sail boat or can't see yourself shutting down your normal life for a year in order to go on holiday, don't despair. There is always pretend-play. Try it out.

Gifted Children Are Students Too

Whenever a country perceives its education system to be inadequate (or worse than that of its trading partners), the government steps in. Typically, two things happen:

• the Ministry of Education submits a proposal to lengthen the house children spend at school (by lowering the entry age, increasing the hours of school per week, reducing the holidays), and
• all the attention is focused on the underperforming students, while gifted students get largely ignored.

To see why increasing the school hours is not a good idea, have a look at this article. Our blog will focus on the paradox of gifted children.

At first, it's not a paradox at all: surely students who struggle need more teacher attention? Yes and no. Children who have trouble learning to read, for example, need more attention in order to learn to read. Most gifted children, on the other hand, will take to reading like the proverbial duck to water. This does not mean gifted children need the teacher less - they just need the teacher to teach them something they don't already know. 

In many parts of the world, especially among the English-speaking countries, there is an alarming trend to let gifted children cruise through school bored. Although they will pick up the 3 Rs, they will never reach their potential to become another Einstein or Stephen Hawking unless they are exposed to challenging materials at school, unless they learn how to love to learn, and unless they learn how to learn.

Basic skills come so easily to gifted children that many of them don't actually know how to learn something they don't grasp immediately. To them, the lesson is either immediately obvious or too difficult. While a less apt student is used to trying to understand the new concept until they get it, gifted children never learn that specific technique of trying and trying again.

The result? Instead of educating a bunch of brilliant scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs and inventors, a country that neglects its gifted students will end up with a lot of young adults incapable of growing the national economy.

Is your teenager gifted? Find out here.

Kitchen Education

Cooking is a great way to explore the world around you. 

• Talk about taste with your children: caster sugar and salt look similar, but do they taste the same? Smell the vanilla essence and then the vinegar, then taste them both.
• If you ever bake cookies, invest in cookie cutters that are shaped like letters of the alphabet, or use a knife to cut out your own letter shapes. You can also roll snakes from the dough and form them into letters and numbers. 
• Weighing and measuring cake ingredients is a fun way to learn the basics of maths: is a teaspoon more than a tablespoon? It looks larger, now let’s check. A teaspoon is 5 ml, while a tablespoon is 12.5 ml. Which is more, 5 or 12.5? 
•  Which looks more, 100g of sugar or 100g of flour? Which one weighs more? 
• How long is 20 minutes (the time it usually takes to bake muffins)? Can we manage to wash the dishes and clean the floor in that time? What time is it now and what time do the muffins need to be taken out of the oven? 
• Take 20 raisins out of their bag. Put 13 of them into the batter. Can you guess how many are left in your hand? 
• What is a square? Cut the ham for the pizza topping into squares. What’s a cube? Cut the cheese into cubes. 
• You can also start teaching logic and consequence: we have one measuring cup, shall we first measure the flour or the milk? What do you think will happen if we pour flour into a cup that’s still wet from the milk? And, of course, what will happen to the muffins if we don’t take them out of the oven when the timer goes off? 
• Why are some foods are “everyday foods” and others “treats”?

This way of learning is particularly important to tactile and kinesthetic children. Is your child tactile or kinesthetic? Find out. 

Fun Maths and Logic Problems

Children whose learning style is analytic should have a lot of fun with these problems.

1. An old puzzle. A flying goose met a flock of geese in the air and said: "Hello, hundred geese!" The leader of the flock answered to him: "There is not a hundred of us. If there were as many of us as there are and as many more and half many more and quarter as many more and you, goose, also flew with us, then there would be hundred of us." How many geese were there in the flock?
2. Three ducks and two ducklings weigh 32 kg. Four ducks and three ducklings weigh 44kg. All ducks weigh the same and all ducklings weigh the same. What is the weight of two ducks and one duckling?
3. There are three houses one is red one is blue band one is white. If the red house is to the left of the house in the middle and the blue house is to the right to the house in the middle where is the white house?
4. Uncle Henry was driving to Halifax when he spotted a big green gorilla on the side of the road. He screeched to a stop, jumped out of his car. He saw the outline of a number on the gorilla. He couldn't quite see the number, but he knew it was a 4 digit number. And:
   1) He remembered seeing a number 1.2) In the hundred's place he remembers the number is 3 times the number in the thousand's place.
   3) He said the number in the one's place is 4 times the number in the ten's place.
   4) Finally he said the number 2 is sitting in the thousand's place.
   What is the number?
5. Some octopuses, some fish and a few mermaids were happily frolicking in a rock pool. Altogether there were 38 arms, 24 eyes and 8 tails all swimming in the pool.
   How many mermaids were there?  
   
   
   Children whose learning style is holistic might prefer these problems: 
   
   
   • You are in a cabin and it is pitch black. You have one match on you. Which do you light first, the newspaper, the lamp, the candle or the fire?
   • Imagine you are in a room, no doors or windows or anything, how do you get out?   
   • A boy and a doctor was fishing.The boy is the doctor's son but the doctor is not the boy's father. Who is the doctor?
   • What happens only in the middle of each month, in all of the seasons, except summer and happens only in the night, never in the day?

Free Group Profiles

All teachers know how important it is to get to know the learning styles prevalent in their class. But teachers don't always have enough time to read every single student's LSA profile in detail, what with 28-35 children in an average classroom. That's why here, at Creative Learning, we've updated our free group profiles to summarise every class's learning needs in one easy-to-understand report.

Say goodbye to unruly behaviour and blank looks. Find out what your class needs and enjoy a more stress-free learning environment. Simply purchase the LSA profiles for every student, let them complete the questionnaire online (they love this part), then run a group profile on the results. As easy as 1, 2, 3!

Start here.

Your Maths Learning Style

What are learning styles and why is it important for parents to know about them?

 ·         If you ask a child who needs movement to sit still and memorise a times-table, you’re unlikely to get good results. You would do far better if you allowed them to walk around or play hopscotch on a makeshift map of times-tables.

·         Tactile children, would love to use Koosh balls and learn better by using self-correcting learning tools (flip chutes, electro boards) and other hands-on activities. 

·         Auditory children benefit from making tapes of their lessons (either recording their teachers in class, or reading the material themselves out loud).  E.g., chanting the times-tables.

·         Kinesthetic children may make schoolwork more interesting by miming the lesson or staging a production.

Learning Styles help answer the following questions:

·         Does your child like working alone or with a friend?

·         Does your child like doing homework at the desk or on the sofa?

·         Can they concentrate on board games, puzzles and maths problems in the morning better than in the evening?

Discover your child's learning style - today. 

  

Un-schooling and Learning Styles

Back in the 1970s John Holt, an American educator and proponent of home schooling, said: “It's not that I feel that school is a good idea gone wrong, but a wrong idea from the word go. It's a nutty notion that we can have a place where nothing but learning happens, cut off from the rest of life.”

The un-schooling approach provides a stimulating environment, creativity materials, books, learning tools and, most importantly, adults ready to interact and answer questions. Children learn in an unstructured way, by following their natural curiosity. 

Critics say this can lead to education gaps caused by glossing over some knowledge areas, plus it’s trickier to assess the child’s progress. The goal of un-schooling, however, is not testable achievement - instead, it’s fostering a love of learning by pursuing topics meaningful and appealing to the child.   

Is your child's Learning Style Suitable to un-schooling? Here a a few indicators:

• Does your child have a non-preference for structured learning?
• Do they like parental authority?
• Are they a self-starter?

Do their Learning Style Analysis today to find out.

Richard Branson's Best Advice

If you ask Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin group (yes, records and airlines), for the best piece of advice he's ever received, he'll tell you: "No regrets." That famous line was from his very own mother, who nurtured his entrepreneurial spirit through failed ventures such as growing Christmas trees when he was a child. She led by example, too, and implemented many business ideas of her own.

Does your child have what it takes to be the next Richard Branson? Check their Learning Style to find out. If they have a preference for variety, high perseverance, a mixture of analytic and holistic thinking, and if they are a self-starter, you may well have a little businessman or businesswoman on your hands. Let them reach for the sky.

Sochi Winter Olympics and Learning Styles

With the Sochi Winter Olympics firmly on everybody's mind, it's worth remembering that the way we get better at sport depends on our own Working Style.

Some style features to consider are:

·         Motivation

·         Perseverance/Persistence

·         Responsibility

·         Teamwork or training alone

·         Time of day

·         Need for structure

·         Need for routine

·         Sequential or simultaneous learning.

A beautiful example of this is golf as Wayne Thomas, a professional golf coach near Melbourne, Australia, describes it:

“I have always recognised that there is something missing with coaching, despite the excellent results many of my students reported receiving. What concerns me most is a person’s inability to sustain new levels of performance and continually falling back into old patterns. My continued pursuit of knowledge about golf swing, human movement, mental approach to oneself, equipment and communication skills wasn’t providing the key that would open the gate to the amazing potential we all possess.

When I first met Barbara Prashnig and she put forward the notion that HOW people learn is more important than WHAT people learn, it sparked for me a new era in coaching: I immediately began changing my coaching style and the learning environment to match the students’ learning styles. This has led to astonishing improvements and sustained playing ability in my golf students.”

What is your working style? Find out. 

Bullies and Rules

An interesting article appeared in the media recently, about a school that ditched rules and reduced bullying (you can read it here). However, we'd like to encourage you to consider another way of reducing the incidents of violence and intimidations: using Learning Styles.

Many children become rebellious at school because they feel bored, stifled and misunderstood. The solution for their disruptive behaviour lies in satisfying the needs of their unique Learning Style.

Dealing with a bully is no different. You only need to look at their learning style report to see what's behind the fists and the hurtful words.

Learning Style Analysis - it's not only about classroom learning. It's about behaviour, responsibility, perseverance and making friends.

Try it out today.

Five Things Top-Ranking Countries Do Right In Education

New Zealand is still recovering from the shock of sliding in the PISA rankings. In the 2013 results that came out last week, the country slipped from 7^th to 13^th in reading, 7^th to 18^th in science, and 13^th to 23^rd in maths. Some academics may query the accuracy of the testing, or indeed the validity of comparing countries to one another. However, with a drop as significant as that, education experts should sit up and take notice.

And take notice they did. Some called for the immediate abolition of National Standards. Others pointed out problems in the secondary school grading system. Some said we should pay attention to the underperformers while others cautioned against “chasing the tail” at the cost of not nurturing the achievers.

But what we tend to forget is that we should learn from the countries who top the charts in education. And so, here are the five habits of well-educated countries:

1. Learning Culture

"Asian Tigers" understand the importance of school and learning. Children in those cultures are encourages (perhaps even too enthusiastically) to do their best in reading, writing, maths, science and music. 

In contrast New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain - just to name a few - are Western countries known for encouraging their children to win on the sports field while neglecting to instill the same kind of competitive spirit in the classroom. In fact, your child might bring home a report suggesting (in the nicest possible way, the way today's school reports are phrased) that your child should stop comparing themselves to others, and instead of trying to best their classmates at maths, they should simply concentrate on besting themselves. 

It's a noble concept, that, but without a competitive spirit and without the hunger to win, your chances of topping the charts diminish, whether it's school, business or rugby we're talking about.

Imagine the All Blacks coach telling his players they shouldn't try to be better than South Africa - they should just go into the game trying to play better than they did last year....

2. Valuing Teachers

Countries that do well in education have a healthy respect for the teaching profession. Children look up to their teachers and try to please them. Governments pay them a good salary. Fathers of brides say: "Thank goodness my daughter is marrying a teacher, not a lawyer."

3. Learning Styles

No country can expect to do well if they think they can apply one mould and one measure to every child. Read about Learning Styles on this page, and discover your own child's learning style here.

4. Research

Where are we failing? Why? What can we do better? What can we learn from other countries? These are just some of the questions successful educators ask.

5. Celebrate Success

Celebrating achievement is an important part of the learning journey. Reward big and small milestones, praise effort and determination, schedule complete breaks from learning. The children have earned it!

Homework and Your Child’s Learning Style

If your child is auditory - they like to listen and talk - try one of the following homework hints:

• Make a learning tape together with your child. Let her explain the new topic into the tape recorder.
• Discuss the lesson together.
• Encourage your child to compose and record a song, a poem or a radio play about the topic (e.g., World War II, global warming, flower pollination, Mexico).

If your child is visual - they like to read and look at images - try one of the following homework hints:

• Create a mind-map, illustration, cartoon, poster, slide show, costume, historical time line, illustrated report.  
• Watch a DVD about the topic (“The King and I” about Thailand, “Little Einsteins”).

 If your child is tactile - they like to handle objects in order to learn - try one of the following homework hints:

• Make use of question-answer jig-saw puzzles), electro- boards (a bulb lights up for every correct answer), flip chutes, etc.  
• Encourage your child to make their own memory aids: sculptures of molecules or board games depicting new topics.

If your child is kinesthetic - they learn best through physical experiences - try one of the following homework hints:

• Bake a cake together to teach conversion from grams to kilograms.
• Pantomime or act out a history lesson.
• Play a board game to discover new facts.
• Take a field trip to the zoo, a court house, a factory.
• Put on a puppet show together.

Excelling at Maths with Learning Styles

There are two kinds of people, we're told: those who excel at maths, and those who don't. But if you read this excellent article (http://qz.com/139453/theres-one-key-difference-between-kids-who-excel-at-math-and-those-who-dont/), you'll notice that research suggests something quite different.

It turns out you can exercise your "maths muscles" until you improve so much, you can pass high school with flying colours! And guess what the most important learning style element you need? I'll give you a hint: it's not analytic thinking. It's persistence.

Do your children have what it takes to exercise your maths muscles? Check it out here: http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/Products/Learning-Style-Analysis/Junior-Mini/.