tsu - How to earn money by advertising on social media

tsu.co one of amazing social media websites based on helping people to earn money from advertising by sharing posts and likes and comments and views of your profile and you gain money too from bringing people using the website it depends on your skills and and you can communicate withe your friends chating it looks like the giant Facebook but facebook don't give anyone any profit from being a member on it one of its advantages is that it reserve rights of the member who told you about the site that you have to say the user name (hashtag) of the member told you about the site or gives you short site to join fast.
I think in few period tsu will be defeat facebook and most social media because everybody want the profit to himself.

pleased to help each other to earn maximum amount of money and pleased for your follow and friendship to help you gaining money faster.

with my pleasure and thanks

this is my short link plz join and I tell again you must write the user name of member who told you the site or use short link like mine below. 

https://www.tsu.co/chemengmoataz  
or  my user name : /chemengmoataz

How to use free time creatively

Make a plan for your free time. Free time will only become useful to you if you’ve focused on how you’d like to use it. Simply expecting free time to turn productive, creative, or fulfilling won’t bring it about because you haven’t thought about the process needed to fill that time effectively.

• Your first realization should be that it is up to you to “do something” about making your free time work better for you; it isn’t going to come from somewhere or someone else, only from your choice to make it useful time.
• Your second realization is to make up your own mind as to what you define as “useful”. Relaxing, doing nothing, rejuvenating, and thinking are all “useful” activities if they lead to a better, more fulfilled life. Don’t couch your “usefulness” in terms of what you think you ought to be doing but what you know will make you feel more productive, engaged and contented in life. Here are some possible planning ways for you:
• Write down a list of the things you’d like to be doing in your free time. You can rank it any way you like, or treat everything as equally important on it; that’s up to you.
• Keep a journal about your life and include how you’d like your life to be. Be sure to describe the activities you’re trying out in your free time, so that you can evaluate whether or not they are worth continuing to do.
• Create a visualization board that sets out the ways in which you’d like to spend future free time.

Guard your free time from unnecessary stress. If you want your free time to be truly useful, don’t allow non-free time things to bleed into it. The reason for this is that your free time is needed to refresh you and improve your energy, your creativity, and your sense of self. If you let the usual mundane activities of everyday life creep into your free time under the pretense of being “useful,” you won’t gain anything from your free time and you will have very loose boundaries between free time and the rest of your time, thereby devaluing your free time.

• Some of the things that it is suggested you don’t do during free time include your usual work or chores, answering emails and voice messages, watching TV, constant action (free time needs to include some spaces for daydreaming and reflection), and playing with electronics if you tend to lose your sense of time with “gamer brain.” Instead, set aside “catching up on work time,” “internet time,” and “responding to emails time” as distinct and separate activities from your free time.

Expand your comfort zone. A great way to use free time usefully is to discover new things and to find out that you have dimensions to yourself that you weren’t even aware of before. By stepping beyond your usual comfort zone, your free time becomes a journey of self-discovery and helps you to grow. Moreover, it helps you to stay interested by sparking your curiosity and broadening your awareness. Some things you might consider doing to expand your comfort zone include:

• Try new things that you’ve always wanted to try but make excuses for not doing, including by saying you haven’t “got the time” – use your free time!
• Do things you loved doing 10 years ago but have let go by the wayside since. Pick them up again and see where they take you this time. It will probably feel odd getting used to something you haven’t tried for ages and possibly time has caused things to change considerably but enjoy the challenge involved in renewing your interest.
• Write down the things that excite and energize you. Look for activities and experiences that will bring this about for you.
• Consider some of the following hobbies that you can get started on your own: teaching yourself a new computer programming language, learning a new foreign language, writing a book/short story/play, making jewelry, graphic designing, amateur photography, learning a new type of dancing (pole dancing, belly dancing, zumba, tap, jazz, etc.), cooking or baking, teaching private classes on something you already love doing.

Change your approach to media usage. Turn off the TV and leave it out of your free time. Think about creative ways to use media in your free time instead. The Internet allows us to be in charge of the input that is circulated through media, providing you with ample opportunities for turning your free time into a useful means for getting out creative, practical, or informative messages that you’d like to share with the world.

• How about creating a video that highlights something you’re passionate or concerned about, and then setting it free on YouTube? Or perhaps you can write some poems or short stories, and add them to an online portfolio. Or if you’re passionate about fashion, piece together some eye-catching pieces, find a model, and create your own fashion blog. Maybe music is more your thing and you’d like to compose a song and share it with people online. These useful uses of your free time will tap into your creativity and give other people something they can cherish, enjoy, or learn from as a result – a win all around-.

Volunteer. If you’ve already volunteered, you’ll be aware of the benefits it can bring. If you have enough free time to give of your time to others in need, this can be a very fulfilling way to give back to your community or society. And even better – you get to choose what to volunteer in according to what you believe in, and what you think is most important. Search for volunteer opportunities through asking people you know who already volunteer, by searching online or in the volunteer pages, or asking people who work in places you’d like to volunteer for. Whatever your level of experience, there is likely to be a volunteer opportunity for you and with time, you can build knowledge,expertise, and reputation through volunteering and find it becomes an incredibly fulfilling experience that helps many others.

• Some ideas for volunteering include web work/newsletters/wikis for charities, thrift store helping, fundraising, soup kitchens or cooking/catering, animal work (wildlife reserves, zoos, animal rescue or training, etc.), joining a conservation crew, volunteering overseas, making things for people in need, and running a club’s museum/display/tour activities.
• Volunteer as much or as little as you like. You’re giving up your free time for a worthy cause, so you should enjoy it. Even consider volunteering in different places at different times, to give yourself some variety in both experience and the people you meet.

Consider downsizing and reorienting your lifestyle. If you find your free time has been hampered by having to deal with a large house and all its maintenance and cleaning, gain more free time by removing the clutter and even consider purchasing a smaller residence. Perhaps move closer to a place where there are plenty of activities that you’d rather be doing and that are not on offer where you currently live to make up for a smaller residence.

• It can take months to clear long-accumulated clutter from your life. Give yourself the time but also set a deadline by which everything is to be sorted and out of your life for good.
• Hold garage and yard sales to get rid of things you no longer need to keep. The money can go toward your free time activities.
• Avoid seeing downsizing as depriving yourself of a certain standard of living. Once you’ve freed yourself of high-maintenance requirements, you’ll soon learn that the additional free time you’ve earned is worth a great deal more.
• Some organizations like the I.R.S. (USA) require that you save financial papers going back 7 years, so don’t declutter paperwork without looking at it first.
• Shred paperwork with personal information such as Social Security numbers or bank account numbers before tossing, to prevent identity theft.

Learn for the sake of learning. School, college, university, and continued learning on-the-job are usually focused on getting us into gainful employment. Sometimes learning for the sake of learning is lost underneath all the deadlines, necessities for grades, and fears of keeping jobs. Learning within free time can be free of these constrictions and can be completely different from our chosen professional path in life, free from the usual reason of honing skills to a specific job or promotion. Always fancied yourself getting involved in archaeology, ballroom dancing, jewelry making, wilderness first aid, or hang-gliding? Use free time to immerse yourself into learning these things for the sake of learning them, without having the pressure to achieve beyond the goals you’ve set for yourself.

• Even consider going back to college to broaden your knowledge.
• Ironically, even though this type of learning may seem unrelated to what you do in the rest of your life, it will still be beneficial because it increases your ability to understand the world better, provides you with new ways of seeing things, and equips you with new skills that may well be applicable laterally, allowing you to “think outside the box” and come up with new, creative solutions to your everyday activities.

Indulge your hobby or pastime. Free time is an excuse to get fully involved in doing something that you consider to be a hobby or pastime. Hobbies are useful because they give you the opportunity to expand knowledge, improve skills, and to be focused, diligent, and switched on. Moreover, a hobby allows you to enjoy yourself as you immerse yourself in the intricacies of it. Be sure to reach out to others in the same hobby so that you can connect, share ideas, and brag. This is one area where showing off now and then does no harm provided it’s all in good fun and you return the favor by complimenting the efforts of others in your hobby, too.

• Even within one hobby, there are many roads to take to keep yourself occupied. For example, art and craft is a filled with ideas for possible hobby angles; within painting alone you could investigate acrylics, enamel, encaustic (wax), frescoes, gouache, inks, oils, heat-set oils, water miscible oils, pastels and dry pastels, oil pastels, pastel pencils, spray paint (graffiti), tempera, watercolor, sketching.

Turn cooking and gardening into joys instead of chores. These two activities can be a burden or a major source of therapeutic unwinding and inner joy; it really depends on how you approach them and giving yourself free time to explore them will open up the possibilities for seeing them as useful and enjoyable things to do in place of a chore.

• Pull out a cookbook and try some new recipes. Or look in your fridge and cupboards, then search online for a recipe that uses those very ingredients (for example, search for “broccoli pineapple jalapeño recipes”). Spend an and learning how to use new techniques you’ve never tried before. Use your efforts to throw a casual dinner party for people you really care about.
• Redesign your garden or change your approach to what you grow in it. Cactiare amazing plants that grow gorgeous flowers, and they’re almost impossible to kill. Or you could try herbs which are easy to grow, fun to use (in cooking or in crafts), and keep coming back year after year. Or how about creating ameditation garden or a Persian garden?

Spend more time with your pets. If you haven’t already got a pet, now might be a good time to get one. Pets require regular care and can help you to create free time simply because of their need and that can only be good for you, especially if you have workaholic tendencies! Look for a pet from a local animal shelter, and you’ll save the pet’s life and become the center of each other’s world.

Focus on your spirituality. Free time is the perfect time for all things spiritual because you give yourself the space to unwind, reflect, and think about the bigger picture and life’s purpose. Whether or not you’re religious, spiritual time is an essential part of being human, and tending to this side of yourself is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself. There are many paths to learn about and acknowledge your spiritual self and you can begin by reading and learning all you can. Other things you might like to consider doing with your free time to increase your spirituality include:

• Learn to meditate. Sit quietly for 20 minutes and breathe naturally. Count your breaths, up to 10, then start over again. The idea is to have something on which to focus, so that you stay holistically present and don’t drift off mentally (which you will tend to do, by the way!). Centering prayer uses similar methods in a Christian context. After several weeks of daily prayer or prayer, you may begin to notice positive results in your life: more calmness, better concentration, more focus, more understanding of how negative the usual mental chatter can be.
• Join (or return to) a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. This is a safe way to meet interesting people and to get involved in your community. (You don’t even have to be all that religious if you aren’t already – for instance, Unitarian Universality, while coming from Christian roots, are known for welcoming and including people of other beliefs, including agnostics, atheists, pagans, free-thinkers, secular humanists, and liberals of all types.)

Get friendly. Finally, but most importantly, don’t hide yourself away all the time when it comes to free time. Reach out to others and spend time with people you care about. Schedule regular get-togethers with friends, hang out spontaneously now and then, and catch up with family members you haven’t seen for awhile to see how they’re doing. Even if you’re not keen on spending a lot of time socializing, build at least a small amount of it into your week to ensure that you’re connecting with others in ways that are free of the constraints of time, obligations, and work/self-imposed deadlines, so that you have a chance to share ideas, have fun, and be re-energized through your connections.

Source :

http://www.wikihow.com

How to manage your team ? (Team management skills)

So you’ve just got a new job as a manager. Congratulations! Or maybe you’ve just been given the task of pulling a new team together. What a challenge!

Either way, whether your team exists already or it’s your responsibility to create it, what do you do next?

This article looks at some of the key things that team managers need to do if their team is to thrive and succeed. These range from choosing the right people and deciding who does what, to communicating with, developing and motivating people. It also covers some of the most common pitfalls to be avoided.

First Things First

But before that, some definitions are useful. What is management, exactly? And how does it differ from leadership?

A good starting point is the Warren G Bennis quote that “Leaders are people who do the right things; managers are people who do things right.” Leadership involves creating a compelling vision of the future, communicating that vision, and helping people understand and commit to it. Managers, on the other hand, are responsible for ensuring that the vision is implemented efficiently and successfully.

Of course, these two roles overlap – and, to be fully effective, you need to fulfill both roles. However, the focus of this article is on the specific skills and responsibilities of managers, and on the tools available to them. After all, there’s no point energizing people to work towards a fabulous vision of the future, only to fall flat on your face when it comes to implementation.

The Importance of Delegation

The top priority for team managers is delegation  . No matter how skilled you are, there’s only so much that you can achieve working on your own. With a team behind you, you can achieve so much more: that’s why it’s so important that you delegate effectively!

Successful delegation starts with matching people and tasks, so you first need to explain what your team’s role and goals are. A good way of doing this is to put together a team charter  , which sets out the purpose of the team and how it will work. Not only does this help you get your team off to a great start, it can also be useful for bringing the team back on track if it’s veering off course.

Only then will you be in a position to think about the skills, experience and competencies within your team, and start matching people to tasks. Read our article on task allocation   for more on how to do this, and to find out how to deal with real-world challenges, such as managing the gaps between team members’ skill sets.

Motivating Your Team

Another key duty you have as a manager is to motivate team members.

Our article on Theory X and Theory Y   explains two very different approaches to motivation, which depend on the fundamental assumptions that you make about the people who work for you. If you believe that they’re intrinsically lazy, you believe in Theory X, while if you believe that most are happy and willing to work, you’ll tend towards Theory Y. Make sure that you fully understand these theories – they will fundamentally affect your success in motivating people.

You can find out much more about motivation with our quiz How Good Are Your Motivation Skills?  

This helps you learn a number of core approaches to motivation – Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory  , McClelland’s Human Motivation Theory   andSirota’s Three Factor Theory   are particularly useful.

Whatever approach you prefer to adopt, you also need to bear in mind that different people have different needs when it comes to motivation. Some individuals are highly self-motivated, while others will under-perform without managerial input. Use our article on Pygmalion Motivation   to understand how to manage these different groups of people.

Developing Your Team

Teams are made up of individuals who have different outlooks and abilities, and are at different stages of their careers. Some may find that the tasks you’ve allocated to them are challenging, and they may need support. Others may be “old hands” at what they’re doing, and may be looking for opportunities to stretch their skills. Either way, it’s your responsibility to develop all of your people.

Your skills in this aspect of management will define your long-term success as a manager. If you can help team members to become better at what they do, you’ll be a manager who people aspire to work for, and you’ll make a great contribution to your organization, too.

The most effective way of developing your people is to ensure that you give regularfeedback   to members of your team. Many of us are nervous of giving feedback, especially when it has to be negative. However, if you give and receive feedback regularly, everyone’s performance will improve.

Beyond this, our article on Understanding Developmental Needs   will help you develop individual team members, so that they can perform at their best.

Communicating and Working With Your Team – and With Others

Communication skills are essential for success in almost any role, but there are particular skills and techniques that you’ll use more as a manager than you did as a regular worker. These fall under two headings: communicating with team members, and communicating with people outside your team. We’ll look at each in turn.

Communicating With People in Your Team

As a team manager, you’re likely to be chairing regular sessions as well as one-off meetings. Meeting of all kinds, and regular ones in particular, are notorious for wasting people’s time, so it’s well worth mastering the skill of running effective meetings  .

Many meetings include brainstorming   sessions. As a team manager, you’ll often have to facilitate   these, so you’ll need to be comfortable with doing this. There’s more to this than simply coming up with creative ideas, as you do when you’re just a regular participant in such a session: read our article   to find out how to run brainstorming sessions. Make sure that you understand where they can go wrong, and what you can do to avoid this.

Active listening   is another important skill for managers – and others – to master. When you’re in charge, it can be easy to think that you know what others are going to say, or that listening is less important, because you’ve thought of a solution anyway.

Don’t fall into this trap. Most good managers are active listeners: it helps them detect problems early (while they’re still easy to deal with), avoid costly misunderstandings, and build trust within their teams.

Communicating With People Outside Your Team

Your boss is probably the most important person you need to communicate with. Take time to understand fully what your boss wants from you and your team – if you know exactly what she likes, and how she prefers this to be delivered, you’ll be better able to meet with her approval.

Don’t be afraid to ask your boss to coach or mentor you: you can usually learn a lot from him, but he may not be proactive about offering this. If you’re approaching your boss for advice, make sure you’ve thought things through as far as you can. Introduce the subject with a summary of your thinking, and then say where you need help.

Also, as a manager, part of your job is to look after your team and protect it from unreasonable pressure. Learn skills likeassertiveness   and win-win negotiation  , so that you can either turn work away, or negotiate additional resources.

Another part of your job is to manage the way that your team interacts with other groups. Use stakeholder analysis   to identify the groups that you need to deal with. Then talk to these people to find out what they want from you, and what they can do to help you.

Managing Discipline

However much you hope that you won’t have to do it, there comes a time in most managers’ careers when they have to discipline an employee. Discipline may be subtly different from basic feedback, because it doesn’t always relate specifically to the employee’s work. You can give feedback on their phone manner, for example, but handling problems with timekeeping or personal grooming can need a different approach.

Obvious breaches of the law or of company policy are easy to identify and deal with. But what of other situations? On one hand you don’t want to seem petty. On the other hand, you can’t let things go that should be dealt with.

Use these rules-of-thumb to decide whether you need to take action. If the answer to any is yes, then you need to arrange a time to speak to the employee in private.

1. Does the issue affect the quality of the employee’s deliverable to the client (internal or external)?A graphic designer regularly gets in to work late, although he stays late to make up for this. Customers are sometimes frustrated by not being able to get through to him at the start of the day, particularly when he’s working on rush jobs.
2. Does the issue adversely impact the cohesiveness of the team?Individual designers tend to work on their own projects, with few meetings between design team members, so cohesiveness is not impacted. However people are noticing his lack of punctuality, and other people’s timekeeping is beginning to slip.
3. Does the issue unnecessarily undermine the interests of other individuals in the team?The designer sitting next to the latecomer is unhappy that she has to field calls from clients before he reaches the office, and is unable to give a firm answer to the question “When will he be in?”

In this situation, the design team manager decides to speak to the latecomer because of the impact on his co-worker. They agree that coming in to work late is not a problem (he has a long commute, with heavy traffic en route) but that he will commit to being in by 9.30 a.m. every day to reduce the number of calls his co-worker has to field, and also give her a fixed time to give clients. He will work late to make up time, and will take on a task she doesn’t like to make up for her extra phone handling.

When you are faced with a potential discipline issue, take time to gather information about the situation, decide what you’re going to do, and act. Discipline issues rarely go away of their own accord, and they usually get worse, often causing considerable resentment amongst other team members.

Traps to Avoid

There are a number of common mistakes that new managers tend to make. Take care to avoid them!

These are:

• Thinking that you can rely on your existing job knowledge and technical skills to succeed as a manager. It is essential that you take the time to develop good management and people skills as well – these can be more important than your technical skills!
• Failing to consult regularly with your boss, in a misguided attempt to show that you can cope on your own.
• Approaching your boss without having thought a problem through, and without having considered how the problem could be solved.
• Embarrassing your boss, or letting her get a nasty surprise. Follow the “no surprises” rule.
• Doing anything that requires your boss to defend you to others. This can cause your boss to “lose face” with his peers and superiors, and it makes it look as if his team is out of control.
• Failing to talk to your customers (whether internal or external) about what they want from yourself and your team.
• Using your authority inappropriately – make sure that everything you ask people to do is in the interests of the organization.

Many of these points sound obvious, however it’s incredibly easy to make these mistakes in the rush of everyday managerial life.

Source

http://www.mindtools.com

Methods of thinking scientifically

We have all heard the wise adage about art: It’s not the product but the prices.” The same can be said about science. In the early childhood years, children are learning the process skills of science as they apply to different theme. The skills-observe, compare, sort and organize, predict, experiment, evaluate, and apply– are the seven essential steps to scientific thinking.

This step-by-step approach to science is flexible, allowing you to follow children’s interests and discoveries. If this year children are fascinated with a rock collection a child brings to school, you may choose to use rocks and pebbles as your topic of study. But if next year a child brings in her seed collection, you might choose to focus on seeds and plants for your science curriculum. Once this process approach is in place, children will discover that they can apply it to any topic they want to investigate.

Have No Fear!

Some teachers do not feel comfortable with science. But when you approach science as a process in which you learn along with the children, there is nothing to fear. The goal in developing a successful science program is to keep an open mind and be able to see science everywhere. By providing children with many interactive experiences, you’ll be teaching them how to apply the “steps to science” to everything they encounter. Follow the steps outlined here for a dynamic, interactive science program.

Using the Seven Steps “Recipe”

The basic steps for creating great science studies are similar to those in the scientific method, but expanded, with emphasis on the skills that are most relevant to young children. Let’s take a look at each one:

Observe This is the process of looking closely, noticing from different viewpoints, and quietly watching and waiting without much “doing.” By their nature, children often want to jump in and “do” the experiment. We need to remind them to take the time to use all their senses when they approach an activity.

Take the observations to different levels and locales. Ask children to gather more information and viewpoints. What do you notice about these plants? What happens when you look at them from above, far away, or very, very close? Let’s wait and see what happens when the wind blows them or the sunlight shifts. What do you see now?

Compare Making comparisons invites children to move beyond telling what they noticed about something and to begin expressing relationships between things. How are these plants the same and/or different? Where have you seen similar plants? Different plants? How do some plants feel different from others? What about their smell?

Sort and Organize This is the process of grouping things by recognizable traits. Children match, group, and organize materials in many different ways. They begin to understand that objects can belong to more than one group at a time. This is a great time to invite children to record their findings in pictures and graphs. Referring to these pictures and graphs, they can make further comparisons. How many ways can we sort the plants? (with and without flowers, tall and short, big leaves and little leaves) How many ways can we organize the leaves? (round, long, pointed, two-lobed, three-lobed, and so on)

Predict This is the process of questioning and speculating, based on prior knowledge gained in the first three steps. Children get better and better at prediction through experience, so be sure to provide lots of opportunities for this process skill. What will happen if we put some in a closet? Will sunlight shine through a leaf? This step also helps children generalize about things. If they notice that light seems to shine through the leaves of a fern but not through a rubber plant, they may generalize that sunlight will not shine through thick leaves.

Experiment This is when children test out their predictions and try out their ideas. The key to this step is to provide plenty of different materials and TIME to explore. Provide materials for free exploration in your science area so children can visit and revisit them on their own-which is how children conduct their own version of an “independent study.” How can we test if light will shine through a leaf? How many different leaves can we test? What places can we put plants to see if they will grow? What else do you want to know about plants?

Evaluate This is where children communicate the findings of their experiments with others, taking their concrete experience, verbalizing it, and representing the information abstractly with graphs, drawings, charts, and field books. For example: On accordion-folded paper, can you make a drawing each day of the plants in your study? Use dark paper for the dark places the plants are kept and white or yellow for the light places. Which were the best places to grow plants? Which places were not good for growing plants? How many leaves could you shine light through? How many could you not shine light through? How can we show this information on a graph?

Apply This step involves applying the understandings gained from the experiment to a larger field of experience, encouraging children to broaden the scope of their experiments, try them again with new materials, and see if their understandings are consistent.

This is the time for great, open-ended questions and activities to help children think beyond the box! What would happen if the plants were covered with dark paper, light paper? Would they grow? What would they do?

Science All Around the Room

Once you arrive at the application stage, you can take the understandings and experiments outside of the science center and into other learning centers. Here are some examples of how you can take plant study all around the room:

Literacy

• Collect books from the library that show beautiful pictures of the natural world. All week have a special part of the earth as a centerpiece in the classroom -a flower, a pretty branch, or a bonsai tree.
• Tell a never-ending story. Have a large drawstring bag or basket full of fruit, nuts, and seeds. Start a story with “Once upon a time, there was a happy little orange who went walking through the fields looking for his friends. When suddenly he… ” Now pass the bag and continue the silly story.
•   Create a picture dictionary of the new science words learned and used in this unit. Add drawings and photos to illustrate each word. Place this in the literacy center to assist in children’s science journal writing.

Art

• Hang a sign in the art area asking children, How can you use seeds and bulbs in an art project?
• Add seed and plant paintings by great artists for inspiration at the easel.
• Take away the paintbrushes and replace them with nature items at the easel. How can you paint with a leaf, a flower, pine bough, and a corncob?

Manipulatives

• Provide math manipulatives for children to use so they can record the growth of seedlings, bulbs, and plants in a wide variety of ways.
• Create all sorts of games. Make an “inside/outside” matching game of fruits and vegetables using photos cut from seed catalogs or downloaded from the Internet. Invite children to help you make a “parts of a plant” puzzle showing the plant from roots to flower. They can cut the pieces from posters or catalogs or draw them themselves. Make a seed sequence game using photos taken of the growth of the new bulbs.

Water/Sand Table

• At the water table, hang a sign reading: Do seeds float? Provide a variety of nuts and seeds for testing and a chart for recording findings.
• In the sand table, bury a number of large seeds and nuts in the damp sand. How can you use water to find the seeds? Let each child keep one item.

Music

• What nature objects can be used to make instruments? Bring in gourds, bean pods, coconuts, and other items for children to explore. Use these to add sound effects and orchestrate favorite songs and books!

Follow Children’s Interests

The most effective way to choose a science topic is to start with something children are interested in. Notice what they notice. In the springtime, one kindergarten class became fascinated with the rust that had developed on the outdoor play equipment. The teacher invited children to observe and notice the rust and then brainstorm what they know about it. At the next gathering, children made a companion chart of what they wanted to find out about rust. With some containers of water and an assortment of great “junk,” children engaged in a series of experiments to find out what will rust in water and what will not. Later they decided to test other liquids to see if the “known” rust items would rust in them as well. They wanted to know: Would a screw rust in milk, liquid soap, or soda the same way as it did in water? Certainly rust was not on the class syllabus or even a faint possibility in the teacher’s mind as a lesson plan, but by taking their lead and using the steps to science together, they created an amazing science study!

Children’s Collections

Children are natural collectors. Just look inside their pockets, backpacks, or cubbies and you will find the most amazing assortment of “special stuff.” You can use children’s collections as a starting place for science studies. Invite children to share their collections and discuss what they know about them. See if they have any questions about their collections that they’d like to explore. Consider the experiments, using the steps to science, that can be done with these items. Remember to start with observation and comparison. What do you notice about the items in your collection? How are the items the same and/or different? You might want to present a science tool such as a magnifier or pan balance and ask, How can we use this tool to find out more about the items in your collection? Then follow the steps to science and see where they lead !

Source

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/scientific-thinking-step-step

Problem Solving and Analytical Skills in our life

How to develop and demonstrate your problem-solving skills

We all solve problems on a daily basis, in academic situations, at work and in our day-to-day lives.
Some of the problems that are typically faced by students include:

• Putting together an argument for an essay
• Debugging a computer program
• Dealing with an awkward customer when working part-time in a shop or restaurant
• Thinking about how you are going to manage your budget to keep you going until the end of term
• Working out why your printer won’t respond
• Developing a strategy to reach the next level of a computer game.

Any job will also bring problems to be faced. It is important to show to a recruiter that you have the right skills to resolve these problems, and the personal resilience to handle the challenges and pressure they may bring.

You need to be able to:

Problems can also be opportunities: they allow you to see things differently and to do things in a different way: perhaps to make a fresh start.

• Evaluate information or situations
• Break them down into their key components
• Consider various ways of approaching and resolving them
• Decide on the most appropriate of these ways

Solving these problems involves both analytical and creative skills. Which particular skills are needed will vary, depending on the problem and your role in the organisation, but the following skills are key to problem-solving:

A large cosmetics company had a problem that some of the soap boxes coming off the production lines were empty. The problem was quickly isolated to the assembly line, which transported the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department: some soap boxes went through the assembly line empty. The management asked its engineers to solve the problem. They spent much time and money in devising an X-ray machine with high-res monitors manned by staff to watch all the boxes on the line to make sure they weren’t empty. A workman hearing about this, came up with another solution. He got a powerful industrial fan and pointed it at the assembly line. As each soap box passed the fan, the empty boxes were blown off the line. Moral: the simplest solution is usually the best!

• Analytical Ability
• Lateral Thinking
• Initiative
• Logical Reasoning
• Persistence

Analytical and critical thinking skills help you to evaluate the problem and to make decisions. A logical and methodical approach is best in some circumstances: for example, you will need to be able to draw on your academic or subject knowledge to identify solutions of a practical or technical nature.

In other situations, using creativity or lateral thinking will be necessary to to come up with ideas for resolving the problem and find fresh approaches

Not everyone has these two types of skills in equal measure: for this reason, team working is often a key component in problem-solving. Further skills, such as communication, persuasion andnegotiation, are important in finding solutions to problems involving people.

Whatever issue you are faced with, some steps are fundamental:

• Identify the problem
• Define the problem
• Examine the options
• Act on a plan
• Look at the consequences

This is the IDEAL model of problem-solving.

The final stage is to put the solution you have decided on into practice and check the results.

Developing your analytical and problem-solving skills

Most problem-solving skills are developed through everyday life and experience. However, the following interests and activities may be useful in demonstrating a high level of these skills – this may be particularly important when applying to employers in areas such as engineering, IT, operational research and some areas of finance.

• ‘Mind games’ such as cryptic crosswords, Sudoku, chess, bridge, etc;
• Computer games – the best of these can involve strategic planning, critical and statistical analysis and assessing the pros and cons of different courses of action;
• ‘Practical’ interests such as programming, computer repairs, car maintenance, or DIY;
• Working with sound or lighting equipment for a band, event or show;
• Academic study: evaluating different sources of information for essays, designing and constructing a ‘microshelter’ for an architecture project; setting up a lab experiment.

There are several stages to solving a problem:

1) Evaluating the problem

• Clarifying the nature of a problem
• Formulating questions
• Gathering information systematically
• Collating and organising data
• Condensing and summarising information
• Defining the desired objective

2) Managing the problem

• Using the information gathered effectively
• Breaking down a problem into smaller, more manageable, parts
• Using techniques such as brainstorming and lateral thinking to consider options
• Analysing these options in greater depth
• Identifying steps that can be taken to achieve the objective

3) Decision-making

• deciding between the possible options for what action to take
• deciding on further information to be gathered before taking action
• deciding on resources (time, funding, staff etc) to be allocated to this problem
• See our page on decision-making skills

4) Resolving the problem

• Implementing action
• Providing information to other stakeholders; delegating tasks
• Reviewing progress

5) Examining the results

• Monitoring the outcome of the action taken
• Reviewing the problem and problem-solving process to avoid similar situations in future

At any stage of this process, it may be necessary to return to an earlier stage – for example, if further problems arise or if a solution does not appear to be working as desired.

Problem-solving skills and graduate jobs: what do recruiters want?

Analytical ability, problem solving skills and using initiative are among the top ten skills for recruiters of graduates.  They want people who will take the personal responsibility to make sure targets are met; who can see that there might be a better way of doing something and who are prepared to research and implement change; people who don’t panic or give up when things go wrong but who will seek a way around the problem.

These problems may be similar to academic problems (e.g. in scientific research) or may be more “practical” problems such as those involved in people management.

These skills can be asked for in a variety of ways.  Many job ads will simply ask for candidates who “can take the initiative” or “have the ability to resolve problems”; others, however, may not make it so clear.  You have to learn to interpret phrases like:

• “Someone keen to take responsibility and with the confidence to challenge established practices and come up with new ways of working…”
•  “An enquiring mind and the ability to understand and solve complex challenges are necessary…”
• “We are looking for innovative minds and creative spirits …”
• “We need ambitious graduates who will respond with enthusiasm to every issue they face…”

These quotes from employers’ job adverts on graduate websites are all asking for essentially the same two things:

• The ability to use your own initiative, to think for yourself, to be creative and pro-active.
• The ability to resolve problems, to think logically and/or laterally, to use ingenuity to overcome difficulties and to research and implement solutions.

These qualities help graduates to make a difference to their employer, whether that employer provides a service or manufactures a product.

How will they assess these skills?

Think of PROBLEMS asCHALLENGES In Chinese the character for danger and opportunity is the same. Well maybe not but it sounds good!

On application forms

If analytical or problem-solving skills are a key part of the job, there is likely to be a question on the application form which asks you to give evidence of your competency in these areas, such as:

• Describe a situation in which you analysed data and solved a complex problem;
• Describe a complex problem you have faced and the steps that you took to solve it;
• Describe a setback in your life and say what you did to overcome it. What lessons did you learn from this?
• Describe a time when you demonstrated creativity in solving a difficult problem;
• Describe a time when you provided a new or different solution to a problem;
• Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem;
• Describe a difficult problem that you have solved.  State how you decided which were the critical issues, say what you did and what your solution was.  What other approaches could you have taken?
• Give an example of a problem you have solved that required analysis. What methods did you use and what conclusions did you reach?

When answering these questions, cover the process you used to solve the problem rather than just outlining the problem itself. Give examples of how you used initiative/creativity, or made effective use of resources, in solving the problem. It is also useful to say what you learned from this process, especially if the problem was not resolved to your complete satisfaction.

Employers may follow up on your answers to these questions at interview: see below.
There is further information about competency-based questions such as this atwww.kent.ac.uk/careers/compet/skillquest.htm

Evidence you could give to an employer to convince them that you have problem-solving skills

Examples could come from your course, extra-curricular activities such as student societies, school, work or work experience, year-in-industry placements, travel or other sources.

EXAMPLES:

• Analysing data from a project or experiment
• Working as a “troubleshooter” on a computer helpdesk
• Advising a client at the Kent Law Clinic
• Implementing a new filing system in an office job
• Acting as a student rep
• Dealing with staff problems or unexpected staff shortages in a part-time job
• Coping with living on a limited student budget

Putting the evidence onto an application form

Give an example of a time when you have successfully resolved a complex problem:

1: Describe a situation from the last five years when you demonstrated effective use the skill you have chosen:
In the sixth form, I took part with two friends in a “Robot Challenge” competition. The brief was to design and build a robot that could perform a dance routine synchronised with a music soundtrack.

2: What action did you have to take?
My responsibility was to control the movement of the robot through the sensors and actuators. This was a complex task because of the number of movements that the robot was required to execute and the different stimuli to which it had to respond. In addition, the robot proved particularly sensitive to changes in light levels and I needed to experiment with a number of adaptations to discover the optimum balance between responsiveness and reliability.

3: What was the result of your action?
Our team achieved second place in the local competition and progressed to the regional final, where we came fifth out of 25 teams.

Through psychometric tests

A study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests you are more likely to succeed if you solve a difficult problem on another person’s behalf rather than for yourself. One of the problems was: A prisoner was attempting to escape from a tower. He found a rope in his cell that was half as long enough to permit him to reach the ground safely. He divided the rope in half, tied the two parts together, and escaped. How could he have done this? Students were asked to think of either themselves or a stranger stuck in the tower. 66% of the students who imagined a stranger in the tower, found the solution compared with 48% of those who envisaged themselves in the tower. THe authors said if we imagine that our problems belong to someone else, we might find better solutions.The solution, by the way is to split the ropelengthwise.

The most common of these tests involve verbal and numerical reasoning: you may also encounter diagrammatic reasoning and critical thinking tests. They may be administered online at an early stage of the selection process, or at first interview or assessment centres. There is a great deal of information about these tests atwww.kent.ac.uk/careers/psychotests.htm

At interview

Further questioning on the answers given on your application form

If your application form has included competency-based questions such as the ones above, you can expect the employer to ask for more detail about the problem or the situation and the way that you went about finding a solution. Be prepared to be asked about alternative ways in which you might have gone about tackling this problem and what you would have done if things hadn’t worked out.

Hypothetical questions

Competency-based questions ask you about actions that you have taken in the past: hypothetical questions ask you about the course of action you might take in the event of some fictional situation, often work-related.

• “How would you deal with a staff member who persistently arrives late and takes regular, unauthorised, breaks from work for a cigarette?”
• “You are working on the till in a retail store when a customer’s credit card is refused. The cardholder is a regular customer who is trying to buy a present for their mother’s birthday the following day. How would you deal with this situation?”
• “Your manager regularly leaves you in charge of a small office in his absence. The other staff regularly complain to you about the way he runs things, and how irritated they are by his interference in their day-to-day work – what do you do?”
• “You work in a company that manufactures meat pies and pasties. Sales have been falling for several years and you are asked to come up with ideas to revive the company”

There is usually no right or wrong answer to these questions: the interviewers are seeking to assess your logical thinking and common sense. You may need to ask questions to clarify the situation and gather more information. You can expect your answers to be challenged, the interviewers asking questions such as:

The only thing harder than looking for a needle in a hay stack is looking for a needle in a needle stack!

• “Yes, but what if …?”
• “Have you thought about ….?”
• “Why would you do that …?”

This doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with the answer you have given – just that the interviewers are trying to find out how you have arrived at your solution to the problem. They may also be testing you out to see how you cope with pressure and how well you can argue a point.
Although the situation is hypothetical, if you have been faced with any similar situation in real life you can use this, and the way that you handled it then, to support your answer.
For further information on handling hypothetical questions, seewww.kent.ac.uk/careers/intervw.htm#Hypothetical

Technical questions

These are most commonly asked at interviews for science, engineering and IT posts. They may relate to your previous relevant work experience or to a student project, or may relate to hypothetical situations as in the examples below:

• “The scenario was that we were in charge of lighting a theatre.   We were given different conditions as to what type of problem could be caused by various faults in the lighting plan and who this problem would affect e.g. lighting technician, stage manager or director. There was only ever one problem with the lighting plan.It got harder as different conditions were added to the original ones and you had to take more and more information into consideration, such as: certain lights need to always be turned on first; some lights need to be warmed up in the breaks; different lights create different effects”
• “I was asked to suggest a route to synthesise ethylene glycol – one of the company’s products” (Chemistry graduate interviewed by petrochemicals company)
• “If I were organising a national cancer screening campaign, what standards/ precautions/ feasibility/ practicality checks would I do before implementing the scheme?”  (Medical physicist)
• “They asked technical questions mainly to work out my thought process on problem solving, there was no correct answer as long as they were logical and eventually you had to come to a point where you gave up and admitted defeat!” 
  (Graduate interviewed for IT support post with NHS trust)

  It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. Albert Einstein Leaders are problem solvers by talent and temperament, and by choice. Harlan Cleveland Problems are only opportunities in work clothes. Henri Kaiser Difficulties are opportunities to better things; they are stepping-stones to greater experience…. When one door closes, another always opens. Brian Adams Every exit is an entry somewhere else. Tom Stoppard There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions. Saul Steinberg The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions. Peter Drucker It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. James Thurber The mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution. Albert Einstein For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. Mary Kay Ash When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade. If you really want something you can figure out how to make it happen. Cher The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. Ralph Waldo Emerson Whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can’t, you’re absolutely right. Henry Ford Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one. Alex Osborne The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas. Linus Pauling Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just stand there. Will Rogers The human mind is like a parachute – it functions better when it’s open. Cole’s Rules The man with a new idea is a crank – until the idea succeeds. Mark Twain Martin Luther King said “I have a dream”, not “I have a plan.

See our science interviews page for more on technical questions.

Ethical questions

These are particularly common in interviews for medicine and law. Some typical examples may include:

• Should all class C drugs be legalised?
• Should doctors be authorised to remove organs from a dead person without obtaining consent from their relatives?
• A patient urgently requires a bone marrow transplant but the only suitable donor is her brother, who has severe physical and mental disabilities. Can this brother donate?
• Should conjoined twins be separated even if it is almost certain that one of them will die in the process?
• Since the victims in rape cases have anonymity, should the same anonymity be granted to the accused?

Again, there is often no right or wrong answer, although you should be aware of the legal and regulatory framework behind these questions. You will be expected to put both sides of the argument before giving your opinion and can expect to be challenged and asked to justify your opinion.

Case study interviews

This type of interview is often used for graduate positions in management consultancy and investment banking.
Case questions are business problems designed not only to test your logical and analytical thinking skills, ability to solve problems but also to make you think on your feet. Often there are no right answers to these types of questions, but they give the selector an idea of how you think, your reasoning skills, how you react under pressure and your common sense.
The problems may be brief (sometimes seemingly bizarre) “estimation” or “brain teaser” questions such as the following:

• How many cars are there in the EU?
• How many laptops will be purchased in the UK in 2020?
• Why are manhole covers round?

Alternatively, you may be asked questions related to the issues facing real-life clients:

• A manufacturer of umbrellas, based in the west of Ireland, wants to expand into mainland Europe.  What issues should they consider? What risks might they face?
• A parcel delivery company plans to offer a new service where customers can hand a package directly to one of the company’s drivers instead of taking it to a depot. What issues need to be thought about?

These business problems are similar to those put forward for group discussions at assessment centres (see below) – the difference is that you have to tackle these on your own!
For further information on case interviews, with examples of the questions and problems set at them, seewww.kent.ac.uk/careers/interviews/CaseInterviews.htm

Through group tasks and discussions at assessment centres

Almost all assessment centres will involve a strong element of group work. These tasks may involve the group sitting around a table discussing a problem or may (as in the final two examples) be more active and practical:

• “We were asked to come up with a business proposal for building a computer network between an imaginary group of islands, to be presented to the islands government”
• Candidates for a place at medical school were given background information on ten patients and asked to select five of them who would receive a kidney transplant
• “We were provided with information on four sites that were possible locations for the construction of a nuclear power station. This information included material on the environment, the local economy, transport links and the estimated costs of construction.  We had to select one and recommend it to the Secretary of State for Energy, giving the reasons for our decision.”
• “We were given a task involving Lego bricks – we had to work out how many bricks we wanted to use to build the tallest tower possible at the lowest cost”
• “A large part of the Army Officer selection process takes place outdoors – the teams of candidates have to negotiate an obstacle course using ladders, ropes, poles and planks”

The decision reached by the group is likely to be less important than the way in which the group works together to reach its decision – these tasks aim to test your teamworking and negotiation, as well as your problem-solving, skills.
There is more information about assessment centres, including examples of business games, case studies and “balloon debates”at www.kent.ac.uk/careers/applicn.htm#Selection

A logic puzzle to test your problem solving skills

• There are five adjoining houses in a row in different colours: blue, green, red, white and yellow.
• In each house lives a person of different nationality: British, Indonesian, German, American and Dutch.
• Each person drinks a different beverage: grape juice, coffee, milk, tea and water.
• Each person has a different job: journalist, postman, magician, astronaut and actuary.
• Each person keeps a different pet: tiger, zebra, parrot, shark and aardvark.
• The British person lives in a red house.
• The Dutch person keeps an aardvark.
• The Indonesian drinks tea.
• The green house is on the left of the white, next to it.
• The owner of the green house drinks coffee.
• The journalist rears parrots.
• The owner of the yellow house is an actuary.
• The person living in the house in the centre drinks milk.
• The American lives in the first house.
• The astronaut lives next to the person who owns a tiger.
• The man who keeps a zebra lives next to the actuary.
• The postman drinks grape juice.
• The German is a magician.
• The American lives next to the blue house.
• The astronaut has a neighbor who drinks water.

Source

http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/problem-solving-skills.htm