I’m pleased to announce the development of a new workshop for climate week! This project is a collaboration with Arcola Energy.
The aim of the workshop is to build a model car and compete with other groups to see who can go the furthest on 5ml of hydrogen. We’ve built a custom refuelling station and laser cut a set of parts for building the cars.
Students will use hot melt glue guns to put the pieces together.Because the workshop is designed to run in under an hour, we’ve given them a good head start by providing a motor, fuel cell, and hydrogen delivery system mounted on a chassis. Longer projects could involve the design and build of these components too.
Our wind turbine workshops are a fantastic exploration of wind power. Students team up and compete to create the best wind turbine blades that they can test in our custom made wind tunnel.
“One of the best workshops I have seen in the last three years” - Teacher at South Camden Community School
We also have classroom resources for use after the wind workshops: wind turbines for teachers (keystage 3)
The UK ‘SAUCE’ (Schools at University for Climate and Energy) programme is based in London Metropolitan University’s Department of Applied Social Sciences (DASS) and was designed to develop education in climate awareness, offer smart energy choices for 10 to 13 year olds, and promote the adoption of similar programmes in schools across Europe.
I’m running a wind turbine workshop where young people will get to design and test wind turbine blades in a custom built wind tunnel.
One reason why I’m excited is because we’ve been working on a fantastic wind tunnel for testing the blades. The wind tunnel is linked to a computer so we can record the best scores in terms of power generated. You can see the photos of our wind tunnel development here.
We’ll be applying learning-to-learn philosophy, and especially encouraging young people to see how much better they can make blades by trying more than one design.
I’m happy to be facilitating the next session at Sadler Heath.
Sadler Heath is an organisation established for those of us who want to take responsibility for their own long-term personal development and thought leadership by working together with like-minded people in a safe and supportive environment.
This workshop will be about using games for learning:
- games are a powerful tool for learning, as playing a game creates a great learning environment,
- the mindset that people have when they play a game is consistent with learning; engaged, open, looking for connections, enjoying themselves,
- the rules and object of the game can link with the learning material,
- games involve multiple senses and patterns of thinking, and so involve different types of learners,
- games are a great ice breaker and allow experiential understanding of the topic in discussion,
- games have an element of ambiguity, and so enable different people to learn
- different things.
Workshop structure:
- we will get curious about games, finding out how and why they work as learning tool,
- we will use this knowledge to practice facilitating games,
- we will move on to create our own games that support an idea.
A few years ago I was trying to find a way to save a bunch of old phone chargers from being thrown away. We were having a leaving party so I thought I could make them into cool moodlamps that we could use instead of candles.
I made a ‘howto’ which has been viewed over 10,000 times on instructables.com, and I’ve been collecting photos of the best ones.
I’ve since started running it as a group workshop for young people, learning about resuse and basic science and electronics. You can download the details here: moodlamp workshop.
Creative graffiti projects are a great way of engaging with young people. Every session is different, and I like to work with you to organise the best fit possible. You can download the basic details here: graffiti workshop.
My regular youth group really enjoy it, and I’ve had great success running it for Southwark Volunteers Centre, Hackney City Farm, London Southbank summer school and Catch22!
We can photo document your event and provide photos on a CD or published in a nice book!
I have public liability insurance to £5million.
You can see some photos of art created in our workshops here. Or you can look at some of my personal work here.
Working together as a group is a great way to learn about ourselves and each other. I’m hosting free group workshops where we can come together and discuss techniques and ideas related to self development and learning.
Costs
I am happy to facilitate the workshops and present information free. Sometimes we may need to cover the cost of the space, usually less than £5 each.
Times and dates
2 hours on a group decided weekday evening.
Join in!
I invite you to present and facilitate one or more workshops! To fill any space, I am happy to present ideas from my existing set of workshops. Email me at matthew to join in!
Testimonials from previous workshop participants
Ellie: I joined one of Matthews workshops in an attempt to learn and to extend my network of like-minded people. Matthew welcomed me in , shared his ideas and knowledge and asked nothing in return. He has a way of illustrating a point so that you will understand, the workshop was useful and fun. Matthew is truly committed to helping others to grow - a rare find in a self-obssessed society.
Chris: I did enjoy the space and opportunity to think out of the box!
Anne: I attended 2 workshops recently with Matthew during which I found him insightful and supportive allowing for growth and change as a natural process rather than an imposed one… The tone of the workshops while being one of mutual respect for all involved contains elements of fun and play which encourage greater absorption of information and detail while having a good time.
I highly recommend the cookies.you are what you eat and these are excellent!
How do we move forwards in life? Sometimes we get inspired and move from there. Othertimes, we remove something that is holding us back.
The aim of this workshop is to examine the ways our beliefs about learning affect us. For example, I used to believe I wasn’t capable of learning a foreign language. This made it much harder for me to learn. Once I realised I was holding myself back with a limiting belief, I was able to enjoy learning something new!
We’ll also look at how communication can affect mindset - which can make large differences in the classroom!
Influenced by Carol Dweck’s book “mindset“, we look at
- how our beliefs affect our experience and interaction with the world,
- how to uncover limiting beliefs that are holding us back,
- how to move towards growth based beliefs.
As usual, expect games, fun and group discussion!
The workshop is 90 minutes with a 10 minute break. Home made cookies supplied by me!
There is a wealth of information and studies that suggest that the way we set goals has an important factor on how well we achieve them. If we can get into a great goal forming habit - then we’ll end up with more of our desires fulfilled! Important points often missed are:
- knowing what we’ll lose when we achieve our goals
- visualising what achieving the goal will be like
- checking the “ecology” of our goals
- how and when to involve other people
This workshop starts with some games and quickly gets onto the important components of setting goals. Participants work to create a mindmap of a goal and at the end will have a clear idea of why they are setting the goal, what it means to them, and how they will achieve it.
The workshop is 90 minutes with a 10 minute break. Home made cookies supplied by me!
closely linked to coaching and compassionate communication is clean language. Developed by David Grove - it is a communication technique that encourages us to use metaphor and avoids the use of presupposing the expected answers.
What he discovered was the more he used Clean Language, the more clients naturally used metaphor to describe their symptoms. When Clean Language questions were then directed to the metaphors and symbols, unexpected information became available to the client, often with profound results. CleanLanguage.co.uk
The workshop is 90 minutes with a 10 minute break. Home made cookies supplied by me!