Happy 2013!

Of all sound of all bells, the most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year.

~ Charles Lamb

Season's Greetings

Warm wishes from the Creative Learning Team!

Why The World Won't End In 2012

It's official: the world won't be ending on 21 December 2012. Not only because the Maya didn't bother to add a leap year to compensate for the fact that a year is actually 365.2422 days, thus making their date 60 days out of kilter with our calendar (i.e., their Doomsday was meant to happen back in our October). No, there's another more compelling reason: Creative Learning's new group profiles.

Group profiles are useful for corporates, high-risk professions,  team leaders, managers, church ministers, teachers, even home-schooling parents. They show the synergies of the group and how best to communicate your message to the members of the group. In conjunction with the LSA Manual or the WSA Manual, a group profile is a powerful tool that allows lesson planning, training planning and team work planning.

How do you get them? Easy. Have a look here. The Maya liked them so much, they've cancelled the end of the world....

Working Styles Explain Diversity

Your manager asks you to conduct a survey and you suggest a colourful questionnaire, professional but light-hearted in tone. The boss, however, insists on a sombre set of formal questions. You try to comply, but despite all your efforts, the survey doesn’t seem to take shape. You feel frustrated and de-motivated. You may even feel worthless and not suited to your job.


What you’ve just experienced, is a typical example of mismatched working styles: your working style was not compatible with your boss’s. Barbara Prashnig, a leading world expert in the field, defines working style as the way in which people concentrate, work, make decisions and solve problems.

“Some people are analytical in their thinking and perform tasks step-by-step,” she explains. “Those are the ones who like formal questionnaires. Others prefer to approach problems holistically, with colour, humour and thinking outside the box.”

And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to human diversity in the workplace. Some people fidget and pace the room when pondering the next sentence in the report. Others need to chew or nibble when working on a project, and if a snack is not around, they will bite on pencils, fingernails, hair or ties.

And then there’s the timing. The proverbial owls and the dawn-driven larks. Somebody who leaps out of bed at five in the morning, completely refreshed and ready to tackle the day’s workload, will never understand a colleague who arrives in the office at nine, yawning and demanding coffee.

What about noise levels? If Paul from accounts finds it impossible to work in a room full of people, it doesn’t mean he’s anti-social. It may be that his working style is stifled unless he has absolute silence. The secretary, on the other hand, might need the reassuring buzz of traffic outside.

Do you prefer working in a darkish room or one filled with bright electric light? Do you think better when your bare arms tingle from the cold, or when you’re wrapped up in a big woolen jersey? Is your desk tidy and your paperwork in neatly labelled files; or do you use your in-tray to store your lunch and the floor around your desk for piles of work ‘to be done’?

So much to find out. Start today.

Goal-Oriented or Journey-Oriented?

Picture this: you're baking a birthday cake. Your goal is to get it done as soon as possible, but your children are looking forward to the job itself, not only to the end result. Kids are super-good at enjoying the process: making a cake is every bit as fun as eating it. If you try to speed them up, you’ll end up stressed and with unhappy children.

Is your learning style goal-oriented or journey-oriented? Find out how you tick.

So, what can we learn from this? The Journey can also be The Goal in itself. The goal of the Sunday walk, for example, is to have fun, not to get to the other end of the beach - so it's ok to stop and build a sand castle.

Of course, sometimes you have to do some basic goal setting in life. Here's how:
1. Set your goals with a positive attitude.

2. Be specific. “I want to get better at Maths” is vague and difficult to measure, while “By the end of the term, I want to do addition in my head, up to a hundred” is a clear, achievable goal.

3. Be realistic. “I want to do addition in my head, up to a million” may not be the right goal.

4. Write down your goals.

5. For bigger goals, write a step-by-step plan how to achieve them.

6. Stay excited and passionate about your goals.

Things To Consider When Home Schooling

Imagine learning geography, history and maths by travelling from country to country. One family did just that, letting the world be their textbook. They taught 3D shapes using the cylindrical pillars in the ancient ruins of Antigua and biology on the black beaches of Monterrico.

Do you have what it takes to home school? Here are some factors to consider:

• Long-haul or short-term? If you only see yourself home schooling for a couple of years, it's important align your teaching with the school syllabus, so that your child will have less trouble adjusting when back at school. 
• Is your partner fully supportive? Home schooling may mean changes to your household and income.
• Do you have the time? While shorter than a conventional school day, home schooling still takes time away from other activities (job, volunteer work, exercise, caring for a new baby).
• Do you have the patience? While being your children 24/7 may sound great in theory, prepare strategies for grocery shopping, hairdresser appointments and your off-colour days.
• What is your child's learning style? If they enjoy the structured approach and learning in groups, home schooling may not be for them. On the other hand, if they thrive on kinesthetic input and individual attention, they may not thrive in a conventional school. Find out today.

Some children would like nothing better than staying home all day with Mum. Others thrive on the teamwork and constant socialisation at school. Schools may have expert teachers, better sports equipment, music and art facilities. Best of all, school teaches healthy competition, taking care of your things, getting along with kids you may not like very much, and dealing with issues such as bullying.

Make ice cream at Zany Zeus, Wellington, New Zealand

Learn maths at a fruit marker, Wellington, New Zealand

Discover the laws of physics, Coromandel, New Zealand

Quality Education and Learning Style Analysis

What is Quality Education?

Dr. W. Edwards Deming of Total Quality Management (TMF) defines quality as “having characteristics required by customers and having been produced without wasted human or non-human resources”.


Let us consider for a moment what that might mean in a school environment. The customers would almost certainly be the parents, the pupils and the whole society. The human effort that we don’t want to waste would be that of teachers and pupils and parents alike.

What outcomes do we need?

Pupils who understand the syllabus? Yes.

Pupils who are interested in the material, listen in class, do their homework, attend school without resorting to truancy? Yes.

Pupils who do quality work in class and at home? Yes.

Pupils who are self-disciplined and not disruptive? What a bonus!

So, how can we achieve it?

Research shows that while most students know what quality is and are generally capable of delivering it in class, many admit that they’ve never bothered and don’t intend to do so in the future. The most often quoted reason for their lack of commitment is not that the work is too hard, but that it is too boring. And “boring” usually means that the students cannot relate to the class work and the material they are requested to learn.


In other words, the learning task at hand is not satisfying the students’ needs, because it doesn't take into account their learning style.

Enter Learning Styles Analysis - a tool that can change all that by providing teachers with the awareness awareness of their students’ learning needs:

• do they need tactile tools?
• would they work better in a darker room?
• do they thrive when given a work structure?
• are they more productive when working in groups?
• more

 Especially for schools

We offer new improved group profiles for teachers. See your class's learning needs at a glance and start your journey to stress-free teaching - today.

Child Prodigies and Learning Styles

• Brian Greene (born February 9, 1963) could multiply 30-digit numbers at the age 5.
• Cameron Thompson (born 1997) began studying with the Open University when he was 11. He gained the Cert.Math(Open) qualification at the age of 13.
• Brianna and Brittany Winner published their first novel at 12 and became America's youngest multiple award winning authors. At the end of fourth grade they used a speech to text software to complete an 80,000-word novel.
• Akiane Kramarik born in 1994, sold paintings worth three million USD at age 7.

The list of child prodigies goes on and on, in fields such as astronomy, medicine, chemistry, art. We're talking extraordinary abilities here, something that most adults wouldn't be able to accomplish.

Inborn talent? Yes.

Hours and hours of practice? Yes.

Extraordinary inspiration? Probably.

Nevertheless, the children's learning styles have a role to play, too. Typically, a child prodigy's information processing style will be integrated between holistic and analytic, and their way of learning will be multi-sensory. What is your child's learning style? Find out today.




Here is a video clip of Akiane Kramarik painting and playing the piano. Below, one of her paintings.



Exam Anxiety and Learning Styles

Last week, we hosted a guest to talked to us about overcoming fear and anxiety, a topic that's particularly close to the hearts of  those students about to embark on their school and university exams.

Today, we'll take a closer look at how exam anxiety is linked to your own unique learning style. Essentially, the world is divided into two types of people: those who are fine with exams and those who would rather juggle twin-bladed swords.

If you're an analytic thinker, there's a good chance exams don't cause you more than a butterfly flutter in the pit of your stomach. Provided you knew about the date of the exam well in advance, your organised mind scheduled your learning sessions accordingly without your ever realising it.

If you're a holistic thinker, though, you definitely don't like exams, just like you dislike any other deadline imposed on you. Even holistic thinkers, though, have to write exams from time to time. So how do you cope with that? Firstly, realise that the purpose of the exam is to make sure you've mastered the content of the course you're taking - so if you know your work, there's nothing to worry about. Secondly, have a look at your learning style preferences to determine your best studying environment.

Do you learn better:

• in a quiet room or with background music on?
• at a desk or on the bed?
• with a friend or alone?
• when you're able to chew gum or snack at the same time?
• in the morning or the afternoon?
• from a textbook or by doing things?
• in the sun or indoors?

Find out today.

Would you rather study here (Shangri-La hotel suite, Sydney)...

... or here? (Shangri-La hotel terrace, Sydney)

The Fear and Anxiety Solution

Friedemann Schaub, MD, PhD, is a physician specializing in cardiology and molecular biologist who has helped thousands of people to overcome fear and anxiety with his breakthrough and empowerment program. We're privileged to have him in the virtual studio with us today.

Dr Schaub, please tell us what led you to find the solution to fear and anxiety.


As a physician and molecular-biologist I became increasingly fascinated by our natural healing potential. Every single cell in our body has sheer unlimited abilities to change, adapt and heal. But how can we consciously access and leverage this force to promote health and accelerate the healing process? One of the keys are our emotions. Studies have shown that positive emotions can boost the immune system, decrease diabetes, and improve heart conditions. On the other hand, negative emotions, such as stress, anxiety, and depression, have the opposite effects and can cause serious health problems.

The problem is that we usually interpret negative emotions such as fear and anxiety, as flaws and weaknesses that need to be overcome, managed, or suppressed, rather than trying to understand their deeper meaning. Consequently “negative” emotions don’t get adequately addressed; instead, they accumulate in our subconscious and eventually cause greater emotional and physical challenges. In other words, the real problem is that we don’t know how to listen or relate to our emotions, let alone consciously guide and work with it. This is why it is so important to learn how to consciously work with the source of our emotions – our subconscious mind.

Yes, I can see that. How does it work, in a nutshell?

The Fear and Anxiety Solution approaches these emotions not as flaws or disorders, but instead guides you to transform these strong forces into powerful allies, messengers, and healing catalysts that lead to greater confidence, self-worth, and wholeness.

The book offers a step-by-step program to discover and address the meaning and subconscious root causes of fear and anxiety and gain a deeper understanding of who you truly are. There are three subconscious root causes of fear and anxiety: inner conflicts, stored emotions, and self-limiting beliefs. To become free of the symptoms of fear and anxiety and to shift into an awareness of emotional freedom, all three root causes need to be addressed.

However, releasing the root causes fear and anxiety in and of itself isn’t cannot create permanent change. Once you have been able to create a clean-slate on the subconscious level, the book guides you through processes, which allow you to replace you old anxiety-driven identity with a new empowered foundation of self at the subconscious and cellular level.


That makes a lot of sense. Please can we have an excerpt from the book?

From Is Anxiety a Biochemical Problem Requiring a Biochemical Solution?

….”I like to look at anti anxiety drugs as a form of emotional painkiller. The purpose of pain medication is not to mend the fracture or close the wound that causes the pain, but to make the time it takes to heal more tolerable. It would be denial or plain ignorance if you would drown out the pain without tending to its root causes. If fear and anxiety are like physical pain, then their natural purpose must be to call your attention to the deeper emotional and mental wounds they are caused by. What if tending to these inner wounds—whether they are unresolved traumas, self-sabotaging patterns, or limiting beliefs—could lead to greater peace, wholeness, and self-empowerment? Would it still be enough for you to just fix and get rid of fear and anxiety? Or would you want to take advantage of their true meaning, heal yourself from the inside out, and gain access to your true potential? This is what I call the healing power of fear and anxiety……..

Or From The Purpose of Emotions?

Generally speaking, our modern society has little room and patience for feelings. Reason and logic are far more accepted and valued than sensitivity and emotions. However, we need emotions for guidance and to bring meaning to our lives. They provide us with important information about our likes and dislikes, our strengths and weaknesses, and the value of our actions and choices. Every day, emotions have a significantly larger impact than facts and reasoning on the choices we make and how we experience our world. Isn’t it true that the moments we remember and cherish the most are those we associate with the strongest feelings?......

……The natural reaction to so-called negative emotions such as fear and anxiety is to try to get rid of them quickly because they feel uncomfortable and disempowering. But true healing is not about fixing or getting rid of a problem. Healing is about remembering and reinstating our wholeness. In this sense, negative emotions provide us with the opportunity to find and regain our wholeness. When we discover and understand their deeper meaning, they become powerful catalysts that lead us to our greater, self-empowered, authentic selves. After all, if fear and anxiety didn’t have an important function, wouldn’t evolution have eliminated them by now?

Thank you, Dr Schaub.

NOTE - Dr Friedemann Schaub shares information that is beneficial for you and your loved ones, in The Fear and Anxiety Solution. His says that people who read this book and implement the step by step program – will find a difference in their lives by the time they reach the end of the book. For more details about The Fear and Anxiety Solution, visit the tour page - http://bookpromotionservices.com/2012/10/03/fear-anxiety-solution-tour and Dr Schaub’s website www.thefearandanxietysolution.com.

Learning Styles - The Cure For Underachievement

The younger children are, the more right-brain dominant they are; therefore they need more holistic, right-brain teaching methods because their analytical brain-processing skills are not yet developed and in many people (research estimates approximately two thirds of the Western population) holistic brain-processing remains the preferred thinking style throughout life. Most people can apply analytical thinking processes if they have to, but this makes learning harder and information storage much more difficult for them.

However, if a school system, which is based on analytical teaching methods, forces young people to do all their learning analytically (as this is the preferred teaching style, especially in academic subjects in most of our high schools) the result is that such a system sets up students for failure - especially those whose brain-processing is strongly holistic.

Another factor which contributes to the mismatch between teaching and learning styles is the well researched fact that teachers are strongly analytical in their approaches, more so in high schools than in primary schools (and even more in tertiary education) and cannot imagine that their specific subject area could be studied and presented holistically, in a more right-brain way. It is just not in their thinking! Such teachers also seem to have great difficulties in accepting that there is more than one way to learn anything, because due to their own sequential thinking processes, analytics believe 'their' way is the best and the only one.

And that false belief causes holistic students to fail, mainly in analytical subjects such as mathematics, science, economics, etc, which causes boredom and frustration, has a negative effect on their overall performance, and seems to be the main reason for behaviour and learning problems, which then lead to social problems among young adolescents.

Is your child analytic or holistic? Find out using our professional Learning Style Analysis instruments.

Have You Ever Been Wrong?

Have you ever been wrong? We all have. Teachers, however, would be wise to exercise caution when evaluating their pupils, lest their words of judgement come back to haunt them.

When British scientist, Sir John Gurdon, 'the godfather of cloning', won the Nobel Prize for Medicine earlier this month, he proved just how wrong his school teacher had been. Back in 1949, Sir John's school report described his grasp of biology as 'disastrous'. It added: 'I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing this is quite ridiculous.'

Most likely, Sir John's learning style wasn't what schools expected in the 1940s. Chances are, he was kinesthetic, needed variety in his learning process and didn't enjoy externally imposed structures. If only his teacher had access to our Learning Style Analysis instruments (LSA)!

How To Implement Learning Styles

What's the one question we're asked more than any other? It's this: how do you implement Learning Styles?

For those visual learners out there, we thought we'd answer with a few videos:

• How to implement Learning Styles successfully at a large high school (Wellington High, Australia).
• When creative learning methods are used and learning styles are being implemented properly, the learning environment is transformed and magic happens in classrooms and outside!
• How to unleash your personal learning power.

What is your child's learning style?

Does Your Workplace Benefit From Learning Styles Concepts?

In his article, Four Destructive Myths Companies Still Live By, Tony Schwartz (author of BE EXCELLENT AT ANYTHING) discusses two important Learning Style concepts:

• that multitasking doesn't always get things done faster; and
• that creativity is the ability to use the whole brain, flexing between the left and the right hemisphere.

What Tony doesn't say, is that true multitaskers actually do work better when they can concentrate on more than one thing, while true analytics get stressed and burned out if they have to multitask. Which working style is better for you, simultaneous or sequential? Find out.

If you discover that your working style is integrated (balanced between simultaneous and sequential), you'll have the added bonus of knowing that you have the potential to do well in creative tasks and careers.

But no matter what your working style, Tony maintains that working longer hours doesn't lead to getting more done. "Great performers — and enlightened leaders — recognize that it's not the number of hours people work that determines the value they create, but rather the energy they bring to whatever hours they work."

Here's that link to your personal working style analysis again.

The Power of Multiple Senses

Today's blog post is provided by our guest, Tanja Gardner. Tanja  has a BA in Psychology, Diplomas in Creative Writing and Business Communication, and a Certificate in Technical Communication.

The power of your senses

Our minds tend to form associations through our senses. You might link the smell of popcorn with going to the movies, the melody of a song with the way you felt when you last heard it, or the taste of a fresh tropical fruit with a holiday you took. Anything that engages one of your senses can become a "sensory cue" that your brain links with a mindstate, feeling or memory. The more often, and more exclusively you link a given cue with a particular mindstate, the stronger the association.

Why engage multiple senses?

We humans are usually creatures of more than a single sense: we can generally see, hear, touch, taste and smell. Granted, some of us can't use one of our senses, but most of us get input from more than one sense at a time.

That's important when you're trying to create associations, because there's a kind of synergy that comes from combining different sensory cues. The link will be stronger than if you only used a single sense. In fact, for most people, the more senses you can engage at once, the stronger the link.

Figuring out the right sensory elements for you

Even if they have access to all five senses, many people identify more strongly with one sense than another. Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) talks about "sensory modalities" and groups people according to the sense they use most to process information:

• Auditory people tend to identify most strongly with sound, rhythm and melody.
• Visual people respond to images, colours and shapes.
• Kinaesthetic people think in terms of touch, feel, texture and temperature.
• Olfactory people respond strongly to smell, and gustatory people to taste (although these two are very uncommon as predominant senses).

Actually, most people respond to more than one sense, but you’ll probably identify more strongly with one sense more than the others.


(Creative Learning: Tanja uses the power of the senses to build up personal writing rituals, however, they can also be used when working on any project, be it work, studying or a hobby. Have a look to see how the senses connect to your learning style).

Tanja Gardner is a professional copywriter, word weaver and story spinner at Crystal Clarity Copywriting Ltd.   She helps difference-makers like you write with concise, creative clarity that your readers intuitively “get”.  That means they understand EXACTLY what you offer – so you can make more of a difference in their lives. 

To connect with Tanja, say hello on Twitter or Facebook, or follow her blog. Or, discover how to bust through writer’s block with her “Create Your Own Writing Ritual” e-course” – FREE when you sign up for her weekly writing tips.

School Without Classrooms

A new-idea school has just opened in Stockholm. No classrooms. No grades. No grouping children by age. On the surface, the concept sounds brilliant: innovative furniture to boost creativity, the opportunity to work on projects in groups or to do one-person research.

As far as learning styles are concerned, the school is catering for a lot of the learning style elements: the children can sit on comfortable sofas, they can work in social setups of their choice, there are bright lights and dimmer corners. Students who like independent work, informal structures and variety, are definitely benefiting from this environment.

But what about children who like routine and sitting at a desk and lots of teacher-guided learning? They're probably better off at a conventional school.

Would your child thrive in a school with no classrooms, like Vittra Telefonplan below? Find out.

PS Stockholm is a city of innovation. Have a look at this iPad act.

Prevent Teacher Shortage with Learning Styles

In most parts of the world, including New Zealand, figures show that the birth rate is increasing. This means that in 5 years' time - give or take - we will need more teachers to accommodate the new school entrants. Combined with the aging teacher population, statisticians predict a teacher shortage for as early as 2016.

The trouble is, teaching is often an under-appreciated profession. Apart from Finland, where teachers enjoy the status equivalent to that of USA medical doctors, many developed countries don't recognise the importance of having excellent teachers. No wonder, then, that many university graduates choose career paths other than teaching.

We at Creative Learning would like to help. We have tools to make teachers' jobs easier and as stress-free as teaching can get. Our new improved group profiles let the teacher know at a glance how to plan their lessons and where the hot spots of challenge may lie. Best of all, the group profiles are free: you can get as many as you like when you buy a school package that analyses the students' learning styles.

Do Your Kids Listen?

Whether you're a parent or a teacher, there comes a point (on a very bad day) when you throw your arms upwards to the silent sky and demand: "Why won't they just listen?"

In case your question wasn't rhetorical, here are some possible explanations:

• Because they're children. It's their job to not listen.
• Because they think they know what you're going to say.
• They listen, they just don't want to obey.
• Their learning style has a non-preference in the listening department.

That last point needs a bit explaining. Some people, be it adults or children, are simply not good at absorbing information through their ears. They are the ones who prefer to learn by watching, reading about it or taking part in a real-life experience such as a laboratory experiment or a field trip.

If that's the case, you can still get your children to pay more attention when you're talking - you just have to make sure a few of their other learning style preferences are satisfied. Perhaps your child will listen better in a more informal environment or at a different time of day? Perhaps they'll respond better in a warmer room or if they're allowed to nibble on pieces of fruit?

What are your child's listening preferences? Find out here.

Learning Styles and E-Books

E-books or paper books? Could your personal preference have to do with your learning style?
If you think about it, e-books make sense: they save paper and shipping cost, you can store them mor eeasily, you can carry a thousand of them in your handbag.

Moreover, many e-readers come with an Integrated Dictionary, which allows you to look up words you’re not sure of. The Text To Speech function will read out the text for you, ultimately turning your e-book into an audio book. Colour displays are available on some e-readers. At the moment, you have a choice of bright colour with a computer-like screen (thus losing the like-paper look of e-paper display e-readers), or faded colours with an e-paper display that’s easy on the eyes.

So while the trend towards accepting e-books is continuing, you have to wonder why e-books have not taken over the book world completely. The answer lies in people's preferences, and those can be best illustrated using the framework of learning style elements.

If your learning style displays a strong preference for reading (as opposed to listening), the audio feature of the e-reader is not going to do anything for you. If your learning style indicates a preference for kinesthetic internal input, you may discover you're sentimental and don't want to part with paper books. Similarly, if your learning style has non-preference for change, switching from paper to electronic format is going to cause you stress.

Fortunately, paper books ar enot going anywhere for now.

Did you know?

Most e-readers currently available are made for adults. If your children read chapter books, those e-readers are great for them. Younger children, however, will benefit from bright colourful graphics, easy navigation, sturdiness and minimal weight of e-readers made especially for children, like VTech’s V.Reader. Its e-books are full of colour, animation, sounds and bubbly music.

Three bad habits that may be good

1. Chewing


Does your child chew her collar, her nails or the pen when she’s concentrating? According to Barbara Prashnig, a world expert in education and the director of Auckland-based Creative Learning Systems, chewing may actually help your child understand the world better. Children’s learning ability is often enhanced by the action of chewing.



2. Wriggling around

Mobility is another important aspect of a child’s learning style. If your child wriggles when asked to sit still, or runs around in circles while you’re trying to talk to him, chances are, he simply needs to move around in order to listen better.

To find out if that’s the case, ask him what you said while he was moving around, seemingly not paying attention. If he can repeat it, it means that mobility is part of his learning process. Remember to talk to his teachers when he starts school and warn them that your child is not being naughty, on the contrary, he’s trying to listen when he wriggles.



3. Asking “why?”

If your child asks, “Why do I have to?”, it’s probably because she genuinely needs to know. Children whose brains work in a holistic fashion need to be given the overall picture before they can focus on the details.

Today it’s: “Why should I clean my room?” Tomorrow it may be: “Why is there no cure for cancer and why don't I try to find it?”


Your child’s learning style consists of 49 elements. Find out your child's unique strengths here.

What does your classroom look like?

Do you still remember the squeak of chalk at school and blackboards that were black? Passing notes? Waiting for the bell to ring? Can you picture the bleak rows of desks, carved by generations of bored students into hearts and slogans? Can you feel the heat pulsating from the coal furnace? Ok, maybe not coal furnace....

What's changed since then? In first-world countries, blackboards have turned white and multimedia; classrooms have heat pumps and new desks. In developing countries, children sit on the floor and they don't have textbooks. But is that such a bad thing?

Not at all, according to Barbara Prashnig, an international expert in education and learning according to your strengths. Some children actually exhibit a learning style preference for learning in a more relaxed environment, away from the formality a desk and an upright posture brings. Similarly, lots of children don't well learn from books, preferring instead to listen to the teacher's stories and applying the lesson to real life examples.

What does your child prefer: floor or desk? Textbook, video, or field trip? Find out today.

News Flash!!! New Group Profiles!!!

This is what everybody's been asking for, and we've delivered. The only of its kind in the world, our new-look free Group Profiles provide you with totally novel insights into your class and your students' learning.

A group profile is a summary of all the learning strengths and flexibilities in your class. It explains what makes pupils:

· misbehave,

· fail to do their homework,

· do poorly in tests,

· hand in their projects late.

Creative Learning instruments for assessing Learning Styles identify 48 learning elements. That’s a lot of information to remember per student! Group Profiles give teachers a snapshot of their students’ learning needs and pitfalls.

Would you like to see a sample? Email us, or log into your account and click on any existing Learning Style group profile. That's right! The changes are already implemented, so there's no need for you to upgrade anything. And yes, it's free!

Learning A Language With Learning Styles

Learning a foreign language is tough. While children seem to thrive on being thrown into the deep end of a foreign-language playground or classroom, only to emerge a few months later speaking like a native, few adults benefit from such a full-immersion experience.

The reason lies in our own individual Learning Style. If you don't like talking to strangers even in your home language, a foreign language course that requires conversation with your classmates is not going to be for you. If your learning style makes you hate memorising long lists of words, attending a foreign language course which tests your vocabulary on a regular basis is going to be counter-productive. If you don't learn visually, watching foreign movies is going to leave you cold.

Do you know how you learn best? Find out.

WARNING: A non-mobile learning style may be bad for you

In a recent study, scientists discovered that when we sit all day, "electrical activity in the muscles drops, leading to a cascade of harmful metabolic effects." Not only is extensive sitting responsible for the decrease in your levels of fitness and the increase in body fat, it might also be affecting your ability to remember. And, unfortunately, regular physical exercise doesn't seem to counterbalance the damage.

Walking, researchers discovered, influences the way memory works. An experiment compared the results of a memory test of both children and young adults when they were sitting with when they were walking. The results indicate that both age groups performed better when allowed to walk while studying for the test. The way the scientists phrase it, "walking increases your resources of energy, which you can then invest in thinking."

This is bad news to those of us whose learning style has a preference for no mobility.

What is your learning style? Find out.

Good Teachers, Great Teachers

In the movie Dead Poets Society, teacher John Keating goes against orthodox education methods. He urges his uptight prep-school students to climb onto their desks to see the world from a different perspective.

What makes a good teacher? Depending on our own school experience as well as on the challenges facing us as parents, we may choose somebody who:


· gets learning results,
· recognises potential in students,
· identifies possible learning issues,
· identifies social problems (bullying, alienation),
· maintains class discipline,
· is aware of each student’s learning style needs, such as the need for details or the need for the big picture,
· teaches in a multi-sensory way,
· is likeable, interesting and fun.

Great teachers are more than that. They are the ones dedicated to their job and committed to their students’ individual success. They respect their class and automatically receive respect in return. Positive and energetic, they guide, nurture and inspire their pupils. While their conduct is adult and responsible, they remember what it’s like to be a child and are able to communicate on the child’s level. Enthusiastic, with a contagious thirst for learning, great teachers love their job. They teach with heart and from the heart, beyond the textbook, passing on universal wisdom and life insights.

Great teachers are born, not made. But you can help you child's good teacher become an even better one by showing him or her your child's LSA report.

 

Job Seekers' Guide To Learning In Style

(read to see this week's special on our Working Style Analysis tool)

If you’d like a job - any job, or just a newer, better one - you’re not alone. Sadly, in this job market, promotions often go hand in hand with upgraded technology skills. Today's technology advances at an astonishing rate, with the amount of new information doubling every two years. Blink, and you’re left behind. Take a year off work to have a baby and when you come back they are using different software. Become a stay-at-home mum and, before you know it, your child’s school project involves technology you’ve only ever heard of.

Arthur C. Clarke once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Learning according to your own unique Learning Style or Working Style will make updating your computer skills seem as easy as saying Abracadabra. As long as you do the course and the tasks in accordance with your learning preferences, and not against them, you will have a much higher chance of success.

Of course, you have to be realistic about your goals and expectations. “I want to program in C++” may not be the right goal four you if you've never programmed before.

Be specific. “I want to get better at computers” is vague and difficult to measure, while “By the end of the year, I want to be able to write a PowerPoint presentation” is a clear, achievable goal.



Set your goals with a positive attitude. Stay excited and passionate about your goals.
 
Most important of all, discover the preferences and non-preferences of your Working Style today. Order it before 20 July 2012 and get it at half price by quoting this promo code: BVFDELE.