http://www.businessballs.com/changemanagement.htm

Do not 'sell' change to people as a way of accelerating 'agreement' and implementation. 'Selling' change to people is not a sustainable strategy for success, unless your aim is to be bitten on the bum at some time in the future when you least expect it. When people listen to a management high-up 'selling' them a change, decent diligent folk will generally smile and appear to accede, but quietly to themselves, they're thinking, "No bloody chance mate, if you think I'm standing for that load of old bollocks you've another think coming…" (And that's just the amenable types - the other more recalcitrant types will be well on the way to making their own particular transition from gamekeepers to poachers.)

Instead, change needs to be understood and managed in a way that people can cope effectively with it. Change can be unsettling, so the manager logically needs to be a settling influence.

Check that people affected by the change agree with, or at least understand, the need for change, and have a chance to decide how the change will be managed, and to be involved in the planning and implementation of the change. Use face-to-face communications to handle sensitive aspects of organisational change management (see Mehrabian's research on conveying meaning and understanding). Encourage your managers to communicate face-to-face with their people too if they are helping you manage an organizational change. Email and written notices are extremely weak at conveying and developing understanding.

If you think that you need to make a change quickly, probe the reasons - is the urgency real? Will the effects of agreeing a more sensible time-frame really be more disastrous than presiding over a disastrous change? Quick change prevents proper consultation and involvement, which leads to difficulties that take time to resolve.

http://www.businessballs.com/changemanagement.htm

Crime Scene

This is a great exercise for developing creative thinking, logic and questioning techniques. Pose this question to the group: ‘Pip has been found dead. How did Pip die?’ Encourage them to ask questions, but only give ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answers using the following information and your imagination.
A man — Pip — was found hanging by the neck from a single beam. Otherwise, the room was completely empty. The only door was locked and bolted with the key still in the lock on the inside of the door. The only window was closed with the security bolts in place. There were no signs of a forced entry. Time of death was estimated to have been 8 hours ago. There was a damp patch on the floor which later proved to be water — not blood.

9 Dots

Connect 9 Dots



You may have seen this puzzle where you have to connect 9 dots with 4 straight lines, without lifting the pen from the paper or going back on yourself — it's a traditional ‘thinking outside the box’ puzzle.

Solution

Converting Numbers

9 + 1 = 6

Write this figure ‘IX’ on a flip chart or white board and ask the group how the figure can be converted into a ‘6’ with the addition of only one line.

What do you think of me?

2. What do you think of me? (an example of kids-learning-games) which basically uses paper and different colored sketch pens.

The Self-esteem game - What do you think of me?

Material Needed: One A4 sized plain sheet of paper per child, a few packets of colored sketch pens, a box of safety pins.

When should this self-esteem game be played? When you want your students to perform as a team and you want them to bond with each other. The secondary outcome of this game is very powerful for building the self-esteem of the individual child.

Objectives of this self-esteem game:
1. Write one admiring statement about your team member.
2. Read, reflect and thank your team members.
3. Learn to work for something to admire in another person.

Instructions for this self-esteem game:
1. Instruct everyone to pin a plain sheet of paper on to the backs of one other person. Have them use the safety pins and caution them to do it carefully so as to avoiding piercing the skin of their teammate. At the end of this step every student has a sheet of paper pinned to his back.

2. Then ask them each to select one colored sketch pen from among the sets of pens provided. It is possible that two students in the group will have the same color. That is okay.

3. At this stage each of the students should go around writing on the pages pinned to the backs of their teammates. They are expected to write one characteristic of their teammate that they admire. It has to be written in a couple of sentences only.

4. At this there is a lot of fun and laughter as students are trying to write straight on somebody's back. You'll find some of them feeling tickled, while others are laughing at what somebody else wrote before them.

5. When everybody has finished writing, the sheets are unpinned and given to the person to whose back it was pinned.

6. As the students read this you are greeted with a feeling of awed wonder at the admiring statements that have been written. Then you'll hear chuckles which slowly turn into tinkling happy laughter.

7. Advice the students to preserve this sheet in their wallet or their purse and use it when they are feeling low or discouraged.

8. Also advice them to use this new learning of seeing something positive in everyone they meet. It is a seed that they are sowing for their own good. For as often as they find something delightful in others, so often will they be treated similarly by others.

A- Grade

The Self-esteem game - A Grade!

Material Needed: A 3x5 Card, a pen, scotch tape.

When should this self-esteem game be played? The game can be played on different occasions. It should however be played at the beginning of preparing for an occasion. For instance it should be played at the beginning of a term, or at the beginning of preparing for an event, a tournament, a performance etc.

Objective of the self-esteem game: That every child gives herself an 'A' grade.

Instructions for the game: 1. Remind the children of how David gave himself an 'A' in the battle against Goliath even before it began. He gave himself an 'A' in spite of the fact that he was:

• Way Smaller than Goliath
• Did not have any armor
• Did not have any weapons other than a sling and a few stones
• Goliath ridiculed him
• His brothers did not believe in him

He gave himself an 'A' because he recounted his strengths.

• His experience of dealing with lions and bears while caring for his sheep
• His assessment of the same help being available to him in this new challenge

2. Tell them to imagine themselves in the future when they are receiving their grades for their performance in the Math exam. Tell them to give themselves an 'A' grade in it.

3. On the same card, (still operating in the future) below the grade tell them to write all those things that they have done well because of which they have got an 'A' grade. This is the step where they will list out their strong points, which contributed to their success.

4. The next section in the card is a list of resources (people and material) which helped them score an 'A'.

[The comments in both sections should be in a positive vein. They should indicate actions that the children have taken (not at the cost of others) which has helped them achieve their goal. So a comment like 'I will stealthily 'borrow' Jane's assignment and copy her work' is unacceptable. Comments like 'I will study with Jane and prepare notes for all the areas that I cannot manage do on my own' are acceptable.]

5. After they have finished, ask for some volunteers to share what they have written.

6. Provide them scotch tape to stick this card on their desks or lockers where they have the opportunity to see and read it everyday.

7. Ask them two questions which will allow them to reflect on the activity. The questions being: 'How do you feel?' and 'What are they learning?'

You will hear comments like: 'I don't know.', 'I feel capable.', 'I am thrilled that I got an 'A' even if it was an imaginary situation.' 'I find there are quite a few things that I can actually do to get an 'A'.' and 'Hey my memory is so good, now all I need to do is make sure that I do not forget to revise the day's lesson.'

8. These comments are samples. All of them are valid. Encourage them to speak about it. The more they are able to vocalize their feeling and talk about their learning, the more their committment towards the goal.

9. Remember this is an example for self-easteem games. Ask them to go through this card whenever they have the time. Also it is a great thing to go back to when they are feeling down or confused.

10. Encourage them to use this technique whenever they are faced with a challenge i.e. visualize themselves winning the challenge. It amounts to giving themselves an 'A' grade.

This self-esteem game works with any age group. It can be used in motivation training sessions as well.

Position Paper on Teaching Mathematics

Mathematics