In 1983 development psychologist Howard Gardner proposed the theory of multiple intelligences. He claimed that people's intelligence and ability to understand the world around them is complex and can't be measured with an IQ test. Some people are better at understanding some things than others. For some of us it is relatively easy to understand how a flower grows but it is immensely difficult to understand how to use a musical instrument. For others music might be easy but playing basketball is difficult, and so on. Instead of having one intelligence it is claimed that we have several different intelligences: kinesthetic, logical and mathematical, intrapersonal, visual and spatial, linguistic, interpersonal, musical and naturalistic. Formal education tends to value mathematical and linguistic abilities.

With 8-days youth exchange ''Frames of Mind'' we invited young participants to explore their learning styles, their strengths, talents and their potential, raise their awareness of who they are and what they are capable of. The project was hosted in Ievalaukis, the most beautiful farmstead of '13 in Lithuania, Ignalina district, on 2-10th of September, 2013. 40 young people came from 8 different countries: Lithuania, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Slovakia.

During each day of the exchange participants had the chance to try themselves in all of the intelligences. Mix of outdoor activities, drama and dance exercises, problem solving initiatives, artistic searches, guided visualizations, meditation, team work and group tasks, creative writing exercises and simulations helped participants to understand and enhance each intelligence. Main aim of the project was to develop participants' life-long learning competencies, self-awareness and promote active and creative participation of young people in processes and events around them. Taking part in this exchange contributed to young people's personal development and expanded their professional opportunities, help them to set up learning and carrier goals.

The project was financed by European Commission through the programme "Youth in Action".

Main Activities and Methods:

Day 1

Arrival day. Official opening. Getting to know each other activities.

Day 2

Team Building session. We had many tasks and we all had to complete them as a team. Some examples of the tasks: to create on a flip chart a name for each house presenting in a form of wall poster and explain to the other participants what does this drawing represent, to create an official blog about the youth exchange Frames of Mind so everyone can post on the blog each day activities on the spot, to make a group picture, to do a good job for the owners of the venue, etc.

Afternoon session. We started the workshop with the presentation of a video about Howard Gardner talking about the Theory of Multiple Intelligence. We also played a video about the historical overview about the Theory of Multiple Intelligence. The project idea about the Youth Exchange “Frames of Mind” with the specific explanation of each of the intelligences and project schedule was presented. Later on, we expressed our opinions what is “good project”, “good leader”, “good participant”. Each of these three topics had its own sheet of paper and we put the stickers on them with our opinions to see at the end of the project if our expressions were matched. Game of “Secret friend” was introduced.

Day 3

Six-leveled framework of the project outcomes with each level clearly defined was introduced. These levels formed a hierarchy, organizing according to cognitive complexity, so abilities needed at the lower levels were also needed for success at each higher level. A description of the six levels follows:

Level I - Knowledge.

The knowledge objective is primarily concerned with recall, remembering facts and information (processes, directions, criteria, methodology), and the use of cues to retrieve information from the file cabinet of the mind. Examples: recall multiplication facts; name the criteria for classifying rocks, etc. This is the lowest level of learning outcomes.

Level II - Comprehension.

This is considered the lowest level of understanding and involves interpreting the material.

Level III - Application.

"A demonstration of comprehension shows that a participant can use an abstraction when the use is specified. A demonstration of application shows he /she will use it correctly, given an appropriate situation, without prompting". In other words, the ability to apply information or concepts in a new situation or to problem-solve using the information.

Level IV - Analysis

This outcome asks the participant to be able to sort through the elements, relationships, or organizational principles of the material to understand its organizational structure. Examples include distinguishing fact from hypothesis, detecting logical fallacies in an argument, recognizing form and pattern.

Level V - Synthesis

Synthesis is"...the putting together of elements and parts so as to form a new whole...the participant must draw upon elements from many sources and put these together into a structure or pattern not clearly there before."

This can be thought of as using previous knowledge to create new concepts, relating knowledge to several areas, predicting, drawing conclusions and hypothesizing. Examples: writing creatively, giving extemporaneous speeches, planning a unit of instruction and making mathematical discoveries and generalizations.

Level VI - Evaluation

This level is defined as the making of judgments about the material. It involves the use of criteria as well as standards for evaluating. It can be qualitative or quantitative and the criteria can be given or determined by the evaluator. Learning outcomes are at the highest level here because they contain elements of all other categories.

As an instrument of differentiated instruction, this work can be used in many ways. Activities at the knowledge and comprehension levels can be useful to remediate participants. Activities at application or evaluation levels may serve to enrich and challenge participants. Actually, any level may be used as remediation or enrichment depending upon the participant's cognitive level. Activities from this project could be offered as alternatives to group assignments, where by allowing participant’s independence and choice in their educational process. Activities from this project might be used as a learning center in the groups and extension to the unit of study. Some of the activities for differentiating instruction might also be used as a year-long extra-credit center. Point values could be established for each level.

We all were divided into 4 groups. The topic of the day was Solar System. Each of the group had a different task interacting with the six-leveled frame about the mathematical - logical, linguistic, bodily - kinesthetic and spatial intelligence.

Logical intelligence. This group’s task was connected with graphs, calculation, design and evaluation on the related topic - Solar System.

Linguistic intelligence. This group had to compare, contrast the planets in the Solar System using Venn diagram and also had to produce a commercial to persuade travellers to visit one of the planets.

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. The group was creating a planetarium. Also the group designed a play on a voyage to the planet Mars and simulated a rocket lunch and recommended the participants how is the best to prepare physically to be an astronaut.

Spatial intelligence. The last group illustrated the constellation in the night sky using plastic garbage.

Afternoon session. We were divided into 4 groups with the tasks from musical, interpersonal, interpersonal and naturalist intelligence, but still working on the same topic as the previous session - Solar System.

Musical intelligence. This group created a melody for each of the planets and explained why it is representative for that planet. Also they memorized an acronym for remembering the planets and their order.

Interpersonal intelligence. This group’s task was to dramatize for the participants a theory of creation of the Earth through the use of pantomime. Also they discussed in the group to decide and recommend which participant from the project should be allowed to go on a voyage to the moon to be the representative off all the participants and why.

Intrapersonal intelligence. Participants demonstrated what affect the solar system had on our life and how it will continue to affect us. The groups also wrote all the things that they knew about the solar system and the things they would like to learn.

Naturalist intelligence. The last group made a model to demonstrate the greenhouse effect on the planet. They also designed and created a biosphere that is self-contained for animals and plants to be used in colonizing other planet.

Day 4

Morning session. The topic of the day was Antarctica. The participants were divided into 4 groups. Each of the group had a different task connected to Antarctica and they needed to present their task in a specific way of presentation form, but with instruction to involve as much intelligence as they could.

The first group’s task was to create an advertisement of Antarctica presented on a billboard. They painted on a big chart of paper scenery of Antarctica life with a slogan "All the world now is really boring, just new hot Antarctica is growing". Spatial, naturalist and linguistic intelligences were implemented into creation of the Antarctica advertisement. 

The second group presented their task in a theatrical form of presentation. The task was "Unreal, unseen wild Antarctica". They started their theatrical presentation when three scientists came out on the stage and started talking about their animal experiment they made it on Antarctica. On the other side of this performance we could see the animals they created after this experiment such as cowseal and unicorn penguin. During this task they implemented the naturalist, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic and interpersonal intelligences.

The third group’s task was Antarctica, its people, cities, history and culture. The presentation method was soap opera. They performed five scenes of soap opera including interpersonal, interpersonal, bodily-kinesthetic and musical intelligence.

The last group designed a play called "Antarctica Ice-berg breaks off". The play was created to show the crush of the iceberg before and after 20 years ago. During their performance they included the logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and spatial intelligences.

Afternoon session. The working method was the same as the previous session but the tasks were different and the presentation mode as well. The participants had to work again in 4 groups.

The first group’s task was to make a short movie about Captain Jack Cook. The movie showed Captain Jack Cook coming to Antarctica and, suddenly, he was surprised by flora and fauna seen on this land. The intelligences used in this presentation were interpersonal, interpersonal, naturalist, bodily- kinesthetic and musical.

The second group presented their task called "Antarctica animals" as comics. The name of the comic was Gold War-Ice age era with the view on the penguin and little fishes in the ocean. This group implemented the linguistic, naturalist and spatial intelligences.

The third group’s task "True Antarctica" was to present as a TV report show. They filmed three videos and on each of the video they showed the real Antarctica land, people’s life, how they are surviving living at this place. During creating process of the videos they used intelligences such a bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, interpersonal and spatial.

The fourth group presented “Dramatic Antarctica” during a photo exhibition. Since this group was inspired by the last energizer "Princess, Dragon and Hunter", they decided to use the same story in their photo exhibition. They used the spatial, interpersonal and interpersonal intelligence.

Day 5

The morning session was for developing interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences. The activity was called Abigail's Story. This exercise showed that individuals from different cultures have separate thoughts and varying values on family ties, the acceptance of violence, friendship, loyalty and attitudes. It helps for participants to go deeper into their opinion and then share it with the others, compare and try to find differences and similarities in the opinions.

Day 6

Today, the topic of the day was Ancient Egypt.

Morning session. We were split into 4 groups. The method in the task illustrated that all the groups had to do two activities. The first one was group activity where we in the divided groups had to work as a team. The second one was individual activity were each of us from the divided group had to complete it by ourself, but during the presentation we were doing it together as a group.

In the morning session we learnt about the linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences.

The group Nr. 1 did activities correlated with linguistic intelligence.

In the working mode - individual work - each group’s members picked up a story written bellow on paper given to them and wrote a short essay. During the individual work all the team members practiced creative writing and vocabulary related to Ancient Egypt. 

In the working mode - group work - all participants as a team produced a newspaper featuring jokes and puzzles related to Ancient Egypt. The participants work in the first work showed the facts about Ancient Egypt and illustrated them on the wall, so the other groups could solve the puzzle and read the jokes written on the newspaper.

The group Nr. 2 was working with task related to spatial intelligence.

Participants in the individual activity made a model of their self-presenting the Ancient Egypt God and took a picture. Objectives in this individual activity for participants were to improve their designing, drawing and visualization skills and also to make vision and spatial judgment.

In the working mode - group work - the team created a collage poster about fashion in Ancient Egypt. In this group activity they showed creativity and visualization and also improved the sense of colours, shapes, forms, space and the relationship that exist between those elements.

In the group Nr. 3 participants worked on task connected with logical-mathematical intelligence.

In the individual working mode participants had a task to solve/decipher the secret code message presented on the picture given to each of them. On the picture was presented the symbolic meaning of owl in Ancient Egypt culture. In the other hand the participants practiced the problem-solving skills and also this came as an outcome to improve their Logical-mathematical skills.

In the working mode - group work - the participants as a team created a crossword and word search related to Ancient Egypt. The goal of this group task is practicing vocabulary and logical thinking as well. The team invited the rest of the participants to solve the crossword as well as the word search so that everyone was able to be part of it.

The group Nr. 4 presented their task with bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.

In the individual activity they presented was the game: GUESS WHO. The purpose of the game was to assume the typical standing pose of an Egyptian person from the history. All the participants from this group had to take a picture of her/him and present it on the video projector. From the pictures displayed on the video projector we could see that all the team members showed their real acting skills and also expressed themselves on a very unique way. The rest of the participants had to guess who is the person on the picture with reflection of the Egyptian history.

On the other side in the group working mode the participants created a play to dramatize the mummification ritual of a pharaoh. This way, one of the best performances as a team group was that each of the participants was focused on cooperation and also expressed themselves and used imagination to lead them. In this group activity they practiced spoken language as an objective on this group work.

Afternoon session. We continued with the rest of working session for today’s topic Ancient Egypt with the next four intelligences: Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal and Naturalist. The working technique was the same as the morning session, so the participants were familiar into creation and presentation of their tasks.

The group Nr. 1 was working with Musical Intelligence into creation of their task.

In the individual activity they learnt an Egyptian song and sang it in front of the participants when it was the time for the presentations. The team members practiced creativity through this way and also improved the sense of rhythm, music and listening.

In the second activity - group work - they organized a choir performance. Because it was choir performance of an Egyptian song they were all dressed as the people in Ancient Egypt, so they could give us a real image of that time. While they were performing, the rest of the participants from the other groups learnt the chorus of that song and started singing with them and clapping with the hands, even some of them get up from the chairs and started dancing. It was great moments where everyone practiced their vocal possibilities showing the perceptive to sounds, rhythms, tones and music.

The group Nr. 2 had a task connected with Interpersonal Intelligence.

The working mode of individual task was to create a motto as an Egyptian pharaoh and what is the most important thing that they will do for their people. During the presentation each of the group members read their motto written on a piece of paper and they all showed skills for leading, organizing and motivating other people.

In the working mode - group work - the task for the team was to build the temple (that was showed on the paper given to them) out of spaghetti (uncooked) and marshmallows within a timeframe. In the end of the given time, the tower must be free standing for 30 seconds. This was one of the most excited group tasks where all the team members were discussing how to make the temple within such a short period of time and even some of them disagreed with other participants’ opinion.

The group Nr. 3 was working on a task related to Intrapersonal Intelligence.

In the working mode - individual work - they mad a chart of careers in Ancient Egypt (scribe, artist, potter, goldsmith, weaver, and farmer). They analyzed them by listing as many reasons as possible why each job will be suitable or unsuitable for itself. By doing the chart of careers they improved their personal decision-making skills.

Setting goals for yourself planning and reflecting on your work was one of the objectives of this individual activity.

The same group in the work mode - group work - had a task to pretend that some of them is an Ancient Egyptian who died and was about to face the underworld Gods who will weight his/her heart to see if he/she had been a good person.

The group Nr. 4 Its work was on a task with Naturalist Intelligence.

In the individual activity each of the group members drew the natural life in Ancient Egypt according to their point of view. During the preparation of this task there were participants that really activated their senses related to the natural world.

In the working mode - group work - participants made performance related to the natural life in Ancient Egypt. Working on the task, participants were able for recognition of things in the nature.

Day 7

Morning workshop was related to Intrapersonal and Interpersonal intelligences.

On the very beginning we were asked to stand up from the chairs and sit on the charts of paper. There was played the video on the video projector. The massage in the video was concerned to each of us individually where a man wakes up and finds he has an explosive heart. We were asked to tell in one word how we felt after watching this video. Some of us were using words like shocking, sad, depressive and so on.

After that on the video projector was displayed a timer of 20 minutes and the task for us. We had 20 minutes to feel in the person’s who has last 20 minutes of his life skin and what we will do instead of him. During that time we could see different feelings and some of us had expressed his/her emotion regarding the task. After the 20 minutes countdown we all get together in the working room and were asked separately what will be our reaction if we wake up one day with an explosive heart. Some of us shared situation from real life. Mixed feelings and emotions were presented among all of us.

In the second part where Interpersonal Intelligence took place we performed theatre presenting the love of Romeo and Juliet.

Ignalina game. We were divided in teams and each team had 11 different tasks to find around the town.

Day 8

Presentation of Youth in Action programme. There were a lot of papers spread on the grass. On each paper was written something about the Youth in Action Programme. We were split into 5 groups. Each team got its task.

The first group had to do identification of all the papers with the objectives of Youth in Action Programme.

The second group did identification of the paper sheets with Priorities of Youth in Action Programme.

The third group had a task to do identification of the sheets papers about who implements the program/ Program Countries/ Neighbouring Countries.

The fourth group had a task to do identification of the papers related to Youth in Action programme structure.

The last, fifth group’s, task was to do identification of the papers with “Youth in Action” 8 Key competences.

Later on, all the groups started with collecting the papers of sheets related to their task. After a short time all the participants found the right material connected to the current topic. After it we had a discussion about the Youth in Action programme.

Then we got 10-question quiz to discover which of the multiple intelligences is our greatest strength.

Then we gathered for a NGO fair based on Future ideas’ group workshop, where we worked together in groups to create ideas for the future projects in the frames of Youth in Action.

Final evaluation.

We were asked to take a seat on the charts of paper and just close their eyes and take a deep breath. In the background we could hear a nice chill out music and the lights were already switched off. In a form of flashback one of group leaders started reading a text from the first day when we all arrived to Lithuania till today’s session.  He reminded us on the tasks they were doing during the last eight days.

Then we made a circle and each of us put upfront a plastic cup with a little water inside. It was time for the last words to hear from every participant. Each participant started lighting up a match and while it was burning they were expressing feelings, thoughts and etc.

Youth pass ceremony and revealing “secret friends”

Day 9

Departure.