DELIVERING THE DIAMOND 9 CHALLENGES
A Diamond 9 challenge is simple but effective teaching and learning tool that is designed to help people collectively prioritise a list of issues. In each Diamond 9 challenge, students need to work together in pairs or groups of three.
The Diamond 9 challenges can be played online as Flash-based, fun and interactive activities. They can also be printed out as PDF worksheets (below). However, the PDF worksheets do not contain the background information that is required to complete the challenges; students must read this first. Furthermore, the worksheets do not contain the interactive feedback that is available online. The worksheets are useful as a homework activity or for class discussions/comparisons.
Download the Diamond 9 challenge worksheets.
Students must carefully read the stimulus material before proceeding to the challenge itself. Teachers might like to create opportunities for 'Q&A' before this main challenge takes place, to resolve any queries with terminology or language. The Glossary may come in useful for this; it can be downloaded and printed from the Glossary page, and is also available on the main students' section of the site.
Each Diamond 9 challenge has a core theme. The three themes are:
- Spending and saving
- First step into the future
- Planning for you
Each team needs to decide the rank order of the nine statements: the statement that they agree with the most becomes the top of the diamond ; the statement that they agree with the least (or that they disagree with) is placed at the bottom. In most cases, the two 'polar statements' can be identified relatively quickly.
Where there is room for more than one statement, both statements have equal value.
Most agree with the statement at the top.
Least agree with this statement at the bottom.
The learning potential of this activity lies in the discussion, exchange and negotiation that takes place to create an agreed team view of where each statement should be placed.
Once students have constructed their diamond, they will receive feedback based on where they placed the statements. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer, but the discussion and dialogue that this activity can produce is valuable, and teachers can test each team's reasoning to confirm their underlying knowledge of financial planning and logic.
The Diamond 9 challenge can easily be extended, with teams discussing their 'solution' with other teams, creating further opportunities for Assessment for Learning.