MIND MAP OF A "CREATIVITY & INNOVATION WEEK" EVENT

COORDINATING INSTRUCTIONS on an A6-sized MIND MAP.

As always, an enormous event such as the above C & I Week comes with many programmes. With the large number of facilitators and students involved, the organisers have to provide detailed coordinating instructions necessary to  ensure success. 

As I sat in the lecture theatre listening attentively as the programme and instructions unfolded in front of us, I quickly "captured" (mindmapped) the essence of what I need to know (e.g. 9INNOVA, Challenging Projects and Workshops involved, Duties of the Facilitators, etc...) so as hopefully, able to successfully dovetail the C&I week's programme smoothly into the 9INNOVA module. 

I felt a certain sense of calmness (unlike during the first briefing) and had a very happy feeling at this second briefing for all the facilitators, as I looked down on the A6-sized mind map that I have completed in real-time.

In my humble opinion, it generally showed that the organisers have covered practically all angles in organising this event. Well done!

Hopefully this C&I Week programme will supplement 9INNOVA and help students gain a different mindset in terms of Creativity and Innovation. 

AFTERNOTE:
After attending a third meeting, I made some minor changes (Emergency telephone no. 64606999) to the mind map above and update it my blog. I also realised that students have to achieve their goal of completing the following 3 parts:
a) Designing and Writing their ePoster for their challenging project
b) Designing and Constructing a cardboard model of their challenging project, and,
c) Designing and Editing a video on their challenging project in which they make use of a Line Hugging Robot (LHR) to illustrate/simulate how they would go about solving the problem of their project.

Students have to achieve the above tasks, so that they would be able to make further presentations to anyone else using the ePoster and the recorded video. Thus, this means that the group would have to delegate jobs/tasks to all three tasks to members of the team.

The mind map helps one in having an overview of the entire project.

Please enjoy and have fun analysing the mind map!

Mind Map Blog by Choon Boo LIM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

SEATTLE's PIKE PLACE FISH MARKET PHILOSOPHY MIND MAP by DR STEPHEN C LUNDIN, HARRY PAUL & JOHN CHRISTENSEN

"THE FISH PHILOSOPHY" MIND MAP on a A5-sized Paper

Looking through my archives, I came across a mind map I drew of an amazing book, "The Fish Philosophy" by Dr Stephen C Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen, on Sunday, 14 July 2002

Although my wife bought the FISH book during her trip to India in April 2001, I did not really read it about it until I came across the "Pike Place Fish Market" story that the book was based on.

On hindsight, I could hardly hide my joy at creating a A5-sized summary mind map of "The Fish Philosophy".

When I showed it to my eleven year old daughter, she quickly drew another creative picture of the central image of my mind map and wrote "Mine's nicer"......which I totally agree! Here is her creation! Well done!



My Eleven Year Old Daughter's Central Image of "The Fish Philosophy"

 Please enjoy.

Mind Map Blog by Choon Boo LIM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Creativity and Curiosity

I read with interest about Professor Jackie Ying's (Executive Director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), A*STAR) comments in TST, Science - Sunday 7 April 2013 on pg46. In response to a question whether she has a life here in Singapore, as she was known to have worked 80 hours a week, she replied that her schooldays were the best days of her life as compared to what children have to go through now and that "there's so much pressure to perform in school, and little time to read or play".

Firstly, I think, the word "PRESSURE" used by Prof Ying is really quite dependent on the expectations of the parents. Parents with high expectations, in my opinion, would very likely feel the intense pressure as they strongly want their child to excel. Hence, they would most likely try all means possible to coach, mentor and educate the child with lots of academic matters and lifeskills so as to probably give the child a headstart. Whether this is good for the child or not really depends on how we can INTEREST the child. A child who is interested would not feel the pressure at all as compared to another who has no aptitude to LEARN. Thus, I think the "PRESSURE" that Prof Ying is really referring to could be on the parents NOT the child. Haha, could I be..........wrong? Readers, it is interesting to compare notes. Thanks.

Secondly, I like the word "PLAY". It brings lots of memories and FUN about how I use it with my children when they were young (doing projects like recycling paper, rearing betta fish and chicks, making customised sports car and perfume etc....), and to my students when I teach them the boring first year "Engineering Materials" module, that all engineering students have to take before they can really call themselves 'An ENGINEER'. 

When I was asked to teach "Engineering Materials" to the polytechnic students, I recalled how my second year professor taught me during my undergraduate days, 40 years ago. I thought hard and long about how I should teach my first year polytechnic students and try to arouse their interests in this subject. My goal is really to TRANSFORM all my students (as well as my children) to be LIFE-LONG LEARNERS. I think, I may have some degree of success......! --> judging from the large number of positive student feedbacks year after year.

It would be a mental torture for my students to endure the same kind of lecture that I received back in my younger days. So I resolved to change all that by incorporating and applying what I learnt about learning - To make it FUN to learn, I encouraged students to explore the world of materials using the magnet, the Internet, experiential learning journey outside their normal laboratory session as well as other things. To some 16 - 17 year old polytechnic students, learning about engineering materials during a walk outside the laboratory is probably unheard of. But, at the end of the learning journey, (from my experience) you could practically see their eyes and minds opening up to the fact that there is so many things to learn about materials from the common things that they see everyday. The journey just provided them with the "SPARK" to hopefully ignite their interests in this really boring engineering module of Pearlite, Eutectoid, Eutectic and other terms, that is so important to an ENGINEER.

I also made use of mind maps as a way of summarising and revising with my students the important points learnt in Engineering Materials. Readers may wish to view some of these real-time mind maps that I posted earlier. [ Please CLICK HERE to see ]

I did not regret teaching it in a way that I see it as both "PLAY" and having "FUN" learning as the method [To read more, please CLICK HERE ] of how I teach this subject not only won me quite a few development and teaching awards in Ngee Ann Polytechnic as well as the fact that it gave me the opportunities to present some papers in local and international conferences, but, more importantly, brought me lasting friendship with engineering students who might otherwise, not know the type of material for the aircon condenser unit supporting frame that is required by legislation in Singapore. Would you like to know? [ Please CLICK HERE for HDB Website and CLICK HERE for BCA Website ].

Another comment that Professor Jackie Ying made was that "....children learn by many processes. I feel the system here has become too rigid. It's killing their curiosity and creativity " .

This remark brought me memories about what I learnt about "Creativity and Creative Problem Solving (CPS)" from Professor Gerard J Puccio's lecture that I mind mapped in real-time in Jan 2001 [ CLICK HERE ] and his recent brilliant Dec 2012 TEDx presentation on "Creativity as a Life Skill [ CLICK HERE ]

Mind Map Blog by Choon Boo LIM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

My Mind Map on EDB Chairman, Mr Lim Siong Guan's Speech to IES on 16 Sep 2008 at Singapore Management University

I was quite excited when I got news that Mr Lim Siong Guan, then Chairman of EDB, was invited to give the IES Charles Rudd Distinguished Lecture on the day he was made Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Engineers, Singapore.

As far back as 1997, I knew that Mr Lim was very supportive of the creative techniques, such as mind mapping. Thus, I had no doubt that the lecture he would be giving would be very captivating. I was delighted that I was not wrong in my judgement!

He certainly gave an interesting perspective as to what he would say to people who tells him that Singaporeans "CANNOT"  (do it). His response to those people would be to "IGNORE THEM". He brought up the example that the simple thumbdrive that almost every IT personnel uses, was actually invented by Mr Henn Tan, (who won the Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Special Achievement Award in 2010) [ CLICK HERE ]. He is a Singaporean and the Chairman and CEO of Trek 2000 [CLICK HERE]. Furthermore, Singapore is the top builder of, off-shore oil rigs in the world and many other examples

He also emphasized that solving problem should be in a FUN way. Please enjoy the remaining many interesting anecdotes in the mind map that Mr Lim shared with IES members.


Mind Map Blog by Choon Boo LIM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

My Mind Map on Tony Buzan's "Laws of Mind Mapping".

I just love this Mind Map. It was one of the earliest Mind Map that I drew in accordance to the "Guiding Principles" that Tony and his brother Barry Buzan wrote in their "The MindMap Book". A must-read book for any person wishing to discover the secrets of mindmapping. The book is simple to read. The principles found in the book would provide essential guidance to anyone wishing to apply brain-friendly techniques that would enhance their love to mind map. Part of the secret of continuing to mind map is to motivate your brain of its immense capacity to absorb information.

I have used this mindmap guiding principles for more than 15 years. It has worked well for me in bringing a comprehensive understanding of how the brain works. Knowing how the brain functions will help many people to effectively optimise the immense latent potential/capacity of the brain.

This is done through the technique of mind mapping. Many people may not be convinced of how this could be realised. But, once you are suitably coached by an accredited mind map trainer, I strongly believe, your motivation will be so strong that it is difficult for you to be otherwise. Please do not hesitate to share/email me (lcblcb1@gmail.com) some of your thoughts on this matter.

Together, we could convince Education Ministers around the world to encourage their teachers and educationalists, to use mindmapping as one of the most effective teaching and learning tools. For a start, educationalists/trainers could use it to introduce a topic at the start of the lesson and then summarise the lessons learnt at the end of the class. I have been using it with lots of successes. The students love it! In future updates, I will include encouraging quotes from students who have been through my courses. They served as sources of "food" for my brain. Haha.

By the way, I revised the above Mind Map on 11 Feb 2001 to include the image of Albert Einstein as I always remembered what he said that "imagination is more powerful than knowledge". It is important to learn how to imagine even though you feel that it is not the best thing you like to do. Just by trying to imagine would help one in developing/enhancing their creativity quotient (CQ). Imagination is the foundation of creativity.

A memorable occasion:
I once had an opportunity to explain the above mind map to a group of educationalists, teachers and administrative staff from Wuhan Institute of Technology (WIT), China in 2009. They eagerly learned the principles of mind mapping and whatever examples and applications that I could teach them. The feedback that I received led me to believe that there is certainly quite a high demand of people wanting to know more about the use and how to apply mind mapping in China.

Mind Map Blog by Choon Boo LIM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

My Mind Map on Prof Gerard J. Puccio's (Buffalo State University) "Creativity and Creative Problem Solving" Workshop

Ever since I started mind mapping, I probably have saved tons of paper. How? Instead of several pages of notes that I would normally make when attending a whole-day seminar, I now record it on just one sheet of paper. It was with that mindset of being eco-friendly as well as to challenge myself to do the "impossible" of taking notes in colour and at one sitting, that I managed to produce the above creation of a 3-hour lecture by Professor Gerard J Puccio on 12 Jan 2001 in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. It was a privilege to attend this excellent presentation of using Creative Problem Solving as a technique in this complex world of ours. The Divergent-Convergent thinking process among other things taught during the workshop left a deep impression in my mind.

Fast forward to Dec 2012 an excellent video presentation "Creativity as a Life Skill" by Prof Gerard Puccio in which he talked about how we should be "deliberately creative" in this fast changing world of ours in order to innovate faster. Individuals and organisation who does not know how to promote creativity would be the eventual losers.  

Fast forward to 16 March 2013, The Straits Times, page D6
An article on Why Study? by the Dean of NUS faculty of Law, Simon Chesterman where he mentioned that to survive, to do well in this globalised world , one needs to be creative, to think laterally, to be passionate about things because they are part of your identity rather than part of your career plan. Because today's students cannot know what is going to be important to their career. A good example of this is the late Steve Jobs. Professor Chesterman further elaborated that it was "calligraphy" that Steve was passionate about, 10 years before he designed the first Macintosh. Back then, he thought it had no hope of any practical applications. Thus Professor Chesterman said that it will not always be possible to predict what subjects will be important. But if you find something about which you are passionate, if it is part of your identity, you may find a way to make it important.

What Professor Chesterman says does ring a little bell for me. I am glad he wrote that article where he elaborated on why students considering a university education should ask themselves whom they want to be, not what they want to be.

Mind Map Blog by Choon Boo LIM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License