Get yourself motivated in 2015

Whether your Working Style is internal or external, sometimes you need a few words of wisdom to get you started and keep you going.

• It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. Confucius
• In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can. Nikos Kazantzakis
• Good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them. Anonymous
• Do it now, before 'later' becomes 'never'. Anonymous
• The secret of getting ahead is getting started. Mark Twain
• I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Thomas A. Edison
• Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter. Francis Chan
• The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. Anonymous
  

 

2014 --> 2015

This time of the year is a time to reflect on the past and to plan the future. It's also a time to count our blessings and to be grateful. A novel way to remember all the things we're grateful for, is to create a Gratitude Jar. An old jam jar, an ornamental box with a lid, a decorated Tupperware container - the choice is yours. Fill it with scraps of paper and attach a pen. Throughout 2015, make a point of jotting down the things we're thankful for, big and tiny. And then at the end of the year, we can sit down with a mug of hot chocolate or a glass of champagne and re-live our year in positives.

Happy 2015!

Merry Christmas 2014

Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves. So may your world be filled with love, warmth and good cheer this Holy season, and throughout the year.

For the teacher in your life

Do you know a teacher? Delight them this Christmas with a unique gift: a present created especially for them.

Barbara Prashnig’s book, “Learning Styles in Action”, is a practical guide to implementing learning styles in the daily teaching practice, thus helping teachers solve any stress and discipline issues.

The newspaper-column-style of the book ensures fast reading. The layout allows the reader to skim and dip into the content at any point, gathering the desired information and enhancing it with the content supplied on the left-hand pages. (These pages partly elaborate the content of the right-hand pages, partly illustrate and explain the concepts discussed on opposite pages.)

The book is full of scenarios and diverse real-life situations. Among others, “Learning Styles in Action” shows you:

• How learning styles can help underachieving or disruptive students
• Multi-sensory teaching and learning in action
• Ways to integrate learning styles and ICT (computer technology)
• How to create a real learning styles classroom
• The do’s and don’ts of using learning styles.

Each chapter gives answers to different areas of teaching. Special care has been given to the application of LS in different age groups because despite the same underlying concept and philosophy, teaching strategies, classroom set-ups, and interaction with students vary profoundly from pre-school to university level.

The book also explains the integration of LS with other pedagogic concepts like learning cycles, Multiple Intelligences (MI) and Information Communication Technology (ICT). Most importantly, it also suggests strategies for dealing with discipline issues and disruptive disrespectful students.

Help a teacher today with “Learning Styles in Action”. 

Travel Less Save More

For many companies and organisations, travel is routine. Meetings, training, site visits, and, of course, commuting to work – for most people these are all part of the daily schedule. With travel comes cost: the cost of travel, the cost to the environment, as well as the cost of productivity lost during travel time.

Communications technology can help reduce the need for travel in business today. Depending on your Working Style, tools such as the telephone, video conferencing and email can be as effective as face-to-face meetings, without the time and expense of travel.

Innovative working arrangements can also help reduce travel time. With compressed working, employees can accumulate the hours they work and then use these to take a day off. This can contribute towards fewer travel costs, for example, a person may elect to work a 10-hour day Monday through to Thursday and take Friday off.  Allowing staff to work from home one or more days per week can reduce their travel costs and improve their productivity by maintaining their work-life balance.


Are you well suited to working flexi-hours or in a virtual office? Find out.

Christmas Maths

Whether it's summer or winter in your part of the world, you've probably noticed your children's learning has decreased in intensity in anticipation of the Christmas holidays. However, the break will not be favourable towards the students' progress in maths.

Fun sheets to the rescue! Have a look at these magnificent ways of capturing your child's imagination and enthusiasm for learning this Christmas season:

• Count and Trace for preschoolers
• Number fun for children in their first year of school
• Numbers 10-99
• Multiply double digits
• Multiplication and fractions
• Christmas games and puzzles

 +  = ???

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