The LogicMills Programme
Our programmes are philosophy-based and build upon the strengths of the Singapore school system.

LogicMills employs the HAVIT© curriculum, an original 5-step Thinking System developed in-house at LogicMills to maximize the learning potential of Singaporean students. HAVIT© trains students in the fundamentals of sound reasoning through a systematic series of interactive presentations and thought exercises.

The LogicMills HAVIT© framework employs experiential learning techniques to make abstract thinking more concrete. The result is that students

• understand what they have been taught,
  
• remember what they have been taught, and
  
• can apply what they have been taught.

30 years of stringent research has demonstrated that experiential thinking programmes like LogicMills' HAVIT© system increase student performance in Mathematics, English, Science, and IQ tests. A vital component of successful analytical thinking programmes is the philosophical underpinnings of the curriculum. Hence, our programme has been customized by U.S., U.K., and Australian Philosophy professors for the Singaporean schools.

The HAVIT© Curriculum

• Honing communication skills
  Clarity of expression and precision of understanding
  
  
• Acts of Minds
  For example, what is the difference between imaging, inferring and concluding?
  
  
• Varying between Abstract and Concrete
  For instance: What is the difference between playing a game and talking about it?
  
  
• Inferences, Induction and Deduction
  Application of tools from the LogicMills toolbox such as inferences, induction, seriation, models, similarities and differences, reasons versus excuses, rules and principles and formal logical argument forms
  
  
• Thinking independently and analytically

All of the LogicMills teaching materials are either copyrighted, trademarked, or patented.



How do analytical skills help a child in school?

Here are some specific school subjects wherein analytical skills are foundational and necessary:

Language / Communication

• Through our facilitated discussions and activities, students hone their language skills and achieve greater precision and clarity in their written and oral communication.
  
• In our LogicMills lessons, students are encouraged to offer reasons for the claims they make so as to substantiate their position. Teaching students according to the HAVIT© curriculum has been show to improve scores in written and oral language examinations. The LogicMills approach has been shown to substantially and significantly increase students’ ability to handle open-ended questions on science papers, as well as their General Paper essays and Knowledge and Inquiry papers.

Mathematics

• During lessons, our students are challenged with logic puzzles, many of which are specifically mathematical in nature.
  
• We teach them strategies for problem-solving. Students are able to use our methods to solve mathematical problem sums in school subjects.
  
• We also teach students to gain a better understanding of concepts such as variables, operators, constants, sequences, Venn diagrams, and pattern recognition. This enables students to use mathematical concepts much more effectively in mathematics-based subjects such as physics, chemistry, and principles of accounting.

Science

• Our activities encourage a spirit of experimentation and positive inquiry. LogicMills students gain a better appreciation of the scientific method, and can use their analytical skills in all respective scientific fields. This means that in handling chemistry questions, our students are able to think like a chemist, and for biology questions, our students handle the scientific method like a trained biologist.

Other than a direct benefit to their school subjects, your child will also be able to gain some important life-skills, such as:

Memory Improvement Techniques

• Useful for more effective recall and retention of facts

Self-Motivation

• Our lessons draw out the relevance of the concepts taught in school to the students’ real-life experiences. Students probe deeper into the importance of what they have learnt, and why it is important to have the knowledge they have acquired.

Recent changes in the Singapore Education System

The Ministry of Education (MOE) has changed the slant of major examinations so that students will be tested on their ability to think. In the 2005 PSLE Mathematics exam, students were flummoxed by the non-standard “IQ-type questions, not textbook-type questions. The questions were not so direct and are not taught in school. Maybe they were not ‘routine’ questions, so the children didn’t know what to do.” (as reported by the newspaper TODAY, on October 7, 2005).

The LogicMills programme will teach students how to apply knowledge into new situations and solve problems and types of problems they have never seen before in their regular school curriculum. To take the next step in the infusion of process skills into Singapore’s world-class education system, the MOE inaugurated a new A level subject, “Knowledge and Inquiry” in 2006. Together with increased emphasis on application-based questions and case studies, these innovative thrusts are aimed at fostering and honing thinking habits in students.