Ideas Generator

Another busy week passed, a busier week ahead.

Wanted to note down some idea that popped up last week to prevent it from being forgotten.

I have been very motivated with my 7 Sec 5N1 D&T pupils and have been trying new stuff by way of acronyms and analogies.

After CSI Investigator analogy, this 2 weeks, I am asking them to be like "Generator". Likening a electric coil being spun around a Magnet core to generate electricity, moving the electrons, I told the pupils, who studied Electricity Generator in Physics, to generate as many 'electrons' ideas as possible for their Design problem.

I hope the idea electricity will continue to work out some bright sparks of ureka idea for their design problem. :)

BIG ROCKS first

The BIG ROCKS First lesson introduction last week came in at the right time. For this month and the rest of this Semester ahead , I am feeling all the small pebbles are falling on me but I've yet to position the BIG ROCKS. The video of the lady trying to put things in is so real to me now.

What I need to do now is to consider and decide which are the BIG ROCKS and which are the pebbles.

There are also cases like: "Is this even my rock or monkey?"; "some other types of precious stones left waiting outside"

I am feeling all the small rocks are falling on me now though I've yet to postion the BIG ROCKS properly.

Maybe some of my fellow colleagues have similar feelings. Hope the following pointers from the following article helps.

Big Rocks First: Double Your Productivity This Week

Every Monday is Productivity & Organization Day at Zen Habits.

If your week is seven buckets, and you go into each bucket without planning ahead, and you fill it up with little pebbles and grains of sand and whatever other debris comes your way … soon there will be no room for the Big Rocks. Your buckets fill up faster than you know it, and once your buckets are full, you’re done. You can’t get bigger buckets.

What you can do is put the Big Rocks in first, and fill in the pebbles and sand around them.

The Big Rocks are the major things you want to get done this week. A report, launching a new website, going to the gym, spending time with your spouse and kids, achieving your dreams. These Big Rocks get pushed back from week to week because we never have time to do them — our days fill up too quickly, and before we know it, weeks have passed and the Big Rocks are still sitting on the side, untouched.

Plan your week ahead of time, placing your Big Rocks first.

This is a similar concept to MITs, except on a weekly scale instead of a daily scale. Big Rocks are your MITs for the week.

Here’s how you do it (with the unavoidable list, of course!):

1. Make a list. At the beginning of the week — Sunday evening or Monday morning — write out the Big Rocks that you want to accomplish this week. These should be the important things — if you looked back on the week and said you did them, you would be proud of having done them. Be sure to include not only work stuff, but some of the tasks that will further along your life’s goals and dreams.
2. Keep it short. In the beginning, just have 4-6 … you don’t need to try to do 10 or more Big Rocks, especially not at first. Later, you may get better at judging how many Big Rocks you can do in a week, but for now, shoot for about one per day.
3. Place the Rocks. Look at your weekly schedule. If you don’t have one, write out the days of the week with one-hour blocks (or print out a schedule from an online calendar). Write out pre-existing appointments. Now take your Big Rocks, and put them in the schedule. Try to put them in a spot where you know you’ll get them done. Not a spot that’s traditionally too busy to concentrate, and not in a little half-hour window between meetings. Give yourself time to do it.
4. Leave space for the incoming pebbles. Don’t fill in the rest of the schedule if possible. Every morning, look at your schedule and commit yourself to doing the Big Rock(s) for that day. That’s your MIT for the day. If there are less important MITs, you can put them in the schedule, but don’t put too much. A tight schedule tends to bump into itself, pushing things back when other things inevitably take too long.
5. Do it early. If you can, place your Big Rocks first thing in the morning. Don’t schedule them for later in the day if possible, because by that time, a few fires have come up, and the Big Rock will get pushed back as always. Do it first, and then you’ve got the rest of the day for the busy-work.
6. Be Proud. When your week’s done, look back on it — if you got any (or all!) of the Big Rocks done, be proud of yourself and happy. It feels good!

CSI in D&T

Want to capture this as this I thought is exciting.

Just like the rest of my earlier post regarding D&T, I get excited when struck upon with idea of using acronyms and analogy to illustrate or make things easy to remember.

My 5N1 D&T class have finished arrived at the D&T 'station' of UTE, the stage where the student designer have decided on a selected problem to tackle and now has to investigate the problem thoroughly. Initially when I introduce to them UTE (User, Things, Environment) research in problem, some were still a bit blur.

So today, I change this part of research title to call it the UTE Investigation and I used an analogy of CSI (Crime Scene Investigation). I told them that they are to think like 'Investigators' and to search out clues in diverse areas of people, things and the environment in the vicinity of the 'problem';

I told them to liken the 'problem' as a murdered body, that they need to study carefully the things they see around it, they could be possible weapons; to study the whole room, the environment to look for possible entrance and exit etc; conduct interview with people, possibly to be able to match things together from the information collected; take a lot photographs of the problem scene so as to form a proper picture of the 'problem'.

If they do so meticulously getting all details of the problem, going onto the next stage/ station (Design Specification) it will be easier as the listing of clues will come out easily. With this analogy, they then have the aha... lightbulb coming on!

I am so excited too!! as they have not just taken on projects that is just another shelf for storage but have taken on challenge to solve authentic problem, real problem that they face but not many solutions or almost no solution in the market yet. Hopefully this will excite some to have the inventive spirit.

This batch of D&T pupil designers are quite motivated and self-directed. I hope that with this excitement that I have in guiding them, they will also be excited to finish on time if not early.

Back to the crime scene for now.....