MIND MAP of an EXCELLENT INDUCTION PROGRAMME

AIMS, GOALS & OBJECTIVES (A.G.O.) and INDUCTION PROGRAMME

After attending an excellent presentation in the morning (as shown in the mind map above), I was involved in a very exciting "Learning Xcursion" at the Marina Bay in the afternoon, The waterfront trail around the bay is full of exciting things that an Engineer can learn.

The very fact that the bay was constructed showed what engineers are capable of doing. The skills that engineers possess in building the Marina Bay is definitely something that any engineer would be proud of.

Thus, it is good to really look......see.....think....explore..... some of things that are constructed when you stroll along the promenade encircling Marina Bay.

Instead of calling it a Waterfront Trail, one could call it an Engineering Discovery Trail....because of the numerous engineering works that goes to make Marina Bay a class of its own.

As I have been conducting "Learning Journeys" for my first year Engineering Materials module students, I thought, it may also be interesting to have a worksheet to engage and familiarise them with elements of what they would be studying in an Engineering Diploma course. This worksheet was designed along the lines that I helped me win the Academic Development Award in 2008. Needless to say, the "mind map" and "whole-brain learning" mindsets / philosophy also featured deeply in the development of the worksheet.

FUN in learning has always been my philosophy in developing any learning materials for students, especially, BORING subjects that could put most students to sleep.

Below is an example of a FUN learning worksheet. 

 





















Enjoy and have fun.

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 Jack Neo's "I Not Stupid" Movie on 17 Feb 2002

Yes, the mind map below is on the movie "I Not Stupid" (Chinese: 小孩不笨; pinyin: Xiǎohái Bù Bèn) which I watched with my wife on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year. Of course it was not done in real-time as many of my friends and mind mappers wanted to know. Reason being that I was really having a great time laughing at all the jokes that made Jack Neo, the Director and Producer of the film famous, that, I had no time to record it live. Furthermore, the theatre was too dark also for me to draw his and Terry Khoo's portraits.

Till today, I could still feel and laugh at the jokes just by reading the key words from the mind map. I created it immediately after watch the show as what Jack did in the movie was really brilliant and creative. Some of the interesting points that I enjoyed are:

EM3 STREAM
He highlighted the stigma of being an EM3 Stream Student . This, together with other feedbacks, probably, led to refinement/ restructuring of SINGAPORE's very successful ABILITY-DRIVEN EDUCATION [CLICK HERE], that were announced by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the then Minister for Education, at the MOE Work Plan Seminar on 28 Sep 2006. EM3 students are streamed into a subject-based banding system that "provides enriching learning experiences for high-ability students at the primary school level and to allow for greater integration between Gifted Education Programme (GEP) students with others" [CLICK HERE]. 

THE INTERNET
The long reaches of the Internet,

NUTS
The No U-Turn Syndrome (NUTS) 

INSTITUTE OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION (ITE)
ITE used to stand for "It's The End" - Jack managed to creatively unveil how students or even some parents do not want their children to go to ITE. Actually, ITE, The Institute of Technical Education, should in my opinion thank him for bringing more publicity for the great work that ITE has provided to many of Singapore's students who went through that education route. The few days of free newspaper publicity really gave ITE a chance to showcase their achievements of some of their students who went on to obtain PhDs. FAST FORWARD.....ITE has reformed itself to a world-class institution of technical education winning the prestigious Singapore Quality Award (SQA) in the process.

OTHER GOVT POLICIES
Issues on some government policies etc.... are examples of some of Singapore's social and political coffee-shop-talk prior to 2002.

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