Choosing working groups smartly
In the past, I've allowed students to choose groups to work in by affinity. (They go with their friends -- if they have any.) That doesn't teach 'em enough. Especially since what they're after is the chance to conceive of a business that might have a chance to survive. So this year I'm going to choose the groups myself, and gamble that, in a class of 15 people I can find small groups with skills that go across the board. (In business and industry, you'd really like your
working teams to have an assortment of skills, right?) An assortment of skills comes from an assortment of, well, multiple intelligences. Gifts that students may have that are relevant both to multiple intelligences (per
Howard Gardner,
Intelligences Reframed, 1999) and to in-class group work:
- good with numbers (e.g. financial estimates) (logic – math)
- artistic (e.g. marketing, Web design) (visual)
- one-on-one people skills (e.g. negotiation, interviewing) (interpersonal)
- group people skills (e.g. presentations, demonstrations) (intrapersonal, cultural, kinesthetic)
- good with words (e.g. research, writing) (linguistic)
- organized (e.g. team leader, meeting planner, document setup, support others) (interpersonal, intrapersonal)
Notice that the important skills for this work are interpersonal and intrapersonal. What we have to do is
- Find out what their skills are (via a survey?)
- Measure the skills (or have them demonstrate those skills in some way)
- Group them in a way that matches the skills.
Notice also that I refer above to "cultural intelligence." I use that term to mean the knowledge of the behavior of large groups, or even societies. This is a useful characteristic of (among others) marketers, urban planners, politicians, etc. And it's not on Gardner's list. He's not likely to want to talk to me about it, as he is a world-renowned scholar, but I'm gonna toss the idea his way anyway. Why stop at eight types of intelligence if it takes more to describe us? But that's a digression.
The point is that I'm hoping to get groups to dig a bit deeper for ideas, and back those ideas up more robustly, than I've seen students doing in the past.
Labels: rhetoric
Speaking of super-heroes...?
Normally I don't go in much for "quizzes," though they are all over the Internet and are among the things most commonly found on blogs. But as I have found a summer obsession with "
Who Wants to Be a Super-Hero," here's me:
You are Spider-Man| Spider-Man |
| 80% |
| Green Lantern |
| 60% |
| Superman |
| 60% |
| Hulk |
| 60% |
| The Flash |
| 50% |
| Supergirl |
| 30% |
You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.
(I like this picture better than the one the quiz provides.)
Click here to take the Superhero Personality QuizLabels: diversions
Who DOESN'T want to be a super hero?
I have to weigh in on the
Sci Fi Channel's
Who Wants to Be a Super Hero? -- the best reality TV I have seen (though admittedly I don't pay that much attention to the genre) since the first season of
The Apprentice. Hosted by Stan Lee, inventor of most of the best-known and loved comic super-heroes around, the show starts off with 11 otherwise normal (?) people dressed in funky tights and boasting "powers" they... well, made up. The winner will be "immortalized" in a comic book and a Sci Fi Channel movie.
My prediction [note: it turned out to be wrong]:
Fat Momma (pictured above) will be the winner. Why? She strikes me as a way for the industry to say that any of us could be a hero if we wanted to be badly enough. A single mom, carrying some extra weight, Fat Momma doesn't list among her powers the desire to give others what they most need. Nor does she boast a "super self-effacing nature." But she has those gifts anyway. I Predict [tm] that Stan Lee will recognize this, and that Fat Momma will walk away with the prize. We'll all be better for it.
Second place will be contested by Cell Phone Girl (pictured right), who lists among her powers the ability to levitate objects with "cell phone waves." Crikey, if we could use sound waves to levitate stuff in comic books, then why isn't a veteran super-hero like
DC's Black Canary doing it already? LOL Cell Phone Girl has a funny name, funny outfit, and funny powers. She might be running
Marvel's Great Lakes Avengers a year from now.
Also in the running for second place will be
Tyveculus, who I think at least has the coolest name. But what's even more cool about the super-strong Tyveculus is his willingness to assist burn victims, asking for donations to that cause in both of his identities.
I get the impression that this show, unlike most other reality shows, is not about what you can show off on camera. It's about those characteristics that, if we had them, would make us all seem heroic in our way.
UPDATE: Well, looks like I guessed wrong on Cell Phone Girl. She just didn't have what it takes. Taken down by the dogs in four. seconds. I am still right about Tyveculus, at least, though they put the worst costume I have ever seen on that guy in the second episode. And Monkey Woman's stock has gone WAY up. She fought with the dogs for nine. minutes. They also turned Iron Enforcer into a "super villain" -- good plan. The guy has the makings of a mega heel, looking kinda like
Bill Goldberg. :-)
Labels: diversions
No thanks, I have all the discounts I can afford
...'nuff said. :-) :-) :-)
Labels: rhetoric
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