Module2 How do I love thee?

I observed a heating plate at my husband’s laboratory. This is very similar to a stove top, but you can specify the temperature and it is automatically controlled. It has a sensor which reads the temperature. I took a very careful look at it in all different directions. It is a flat square with 16 nails on top of it and made with metal. It smells like a frying pan to me. It does not have any sound even if it is on. It feels very smooth and has very little texture. It is very sharp, hard and cold when it is off. Finally, I felt the heat as the temperature went up. The heat came from the top of the 16 nails. The heat was getting stronger with small and hard texture. My husband took two images of it for me using special cameras. One is an infrared image which shows the heat in terms of colors and the other is called a schlieren which shows gas density on top of the cell.

This is a transition of my multi sensory observation to a visual imaging of it.    



infrared image (Heat interms of colors)



schlieren (gas density on top of it)



Module2 What's the big idea?

Observation is the basic beginning of the learning process. All of our learning process starts from observing something. We usually think that observation is just a visual activity, but it goes beyond looking at something very carefully. The profound observation which requires the full use of multi sensory stimulation results in an essential difference in perceiving something. We can even find this difference in our everyday life. For example, I am looking at the snow falling outside of the window. I can observe this with visual sensory perception. However, if I go outside and have a chance to observe the snow with multi senses; this can create a totally different perception for me.  I can smell the snow, taste it and hear its sound and touch the snow to feel how soft it is. This observation can even leave a question such as why this snow melts on my hands. Additionally, we can think of a situation where the snow is observed without using any visual sense. The snow can provide me with an unforgettable impression of touch or smell. Only because of being deprived of one sense, I will be much more sensitive to other sensory stimulations. This kind of observation is very effective for practicing focused observation.

Imaging is a little different from observing. Imaging something is a personal shorthand expression of one’s observation with sensations. It can be a realistic or an abstract one which presents one’s private feeling of something. For example, on a hot summer day you bathe your feet in the cold water. You can feel the coldness from your feet and the hot heat from in your head. Finally, you are going to feel that your body is getting cooler. If you express this heat transfer with lines or the colors on the paper, this is the imaging of your perceiving experience. An individual who is good at imaging can visualize something efficiently so that one can perceive something in various ways.

These two thinking tools are applicable in our everyday life so that we can be creative and perceive the mundane stuff with appreciation. With this consideration, I can observe the amount of sunshine in my front yard everyday and find out the appropriate plants there. Or I also can create a drawing about my own feelings depending on the amount of sunshine; which can be an art in itself.

This perceiving attitude can be put on practice to teach students creativity and to teach creativity to students. I think it is very important for students to be familiar with using their senses, pay attention to stimulations and try to express their perceiving experience with various imaging for communicating with other people.  For example, if the convection phenomenon is the subject,

The activities for students can be:

1. Assume the places where the convection phenomenon is happening every day at your own house.

2. Observe this place. How does it feel/smell/ sound/look like and how does it change after while?  

3. Observe this place with the thermometer? Can you find any visual changes?

4. Draw the directions of air movement in this place.

5.  Express your feeling of this space with colors on the paper.

6.  Can you find out the reasons why the air vent is on the floor?

With these activities, the students can have a chance to observe a mundane circumstance with consideration and realize the invisible phenomenon. They can also express their discoveries with other ways to communicate. During these activities the students can imagine the results before they do them and compare it afterwards so that they can think more creatively and accept the ordinary things differently.

Module2 Zoom-in

A soopn is something we see everyday in the kitchen drawers.

The spoon can be used for eye covering one day...

My husband sometimes uses this for bottle opener when he is drinking.

This also can be found in my garden.

My little son loves to use this for putting shoes on.

Modul1 Content area topic

My content are topic is “heat transfer in everyday life”. This content is about conduction, convection and radiation which can be observed in our everyday lives. These phenomenas occur naturally, but they have many consequent effects and are very important in our lives.

Module1 What's the big idea

Chapters 1, 2, and the reading assignment (Enhance personal creativity) provides basic ideas about why we should listen to our intuition and try to understand what it is telling us. I have personally thought that arts and other physical activities at school was mainly for showing the students various aspects of learning or exclusively for students trying to achieve success as career choices. Therefore, those who do not have these objectives need not obtain this type of education. However, the author argues that being faithful to the individual’s intuition and trying to express their own feelings by arts, writings or performances is the nature of the human’s thinking tools. These thinking tools make aware of the individual’s original creativity by continuous disciplined training so that people can have the vision to yield innovative results. That’s why the thinking tool concept is especially important in the education filed. The arts, writings, and performances are the expression of someone’s thinking tools and intuitions. Thus, students not only analyze the arts but also imitate them as part of the real learning process to make an invention which goes beyond that.


For example, art or creativity comes from the everyday life. Even when we see something mundane as falling leaves from trees, observing and feeling this ordinary phenomenon by intuition leads to totally different results. For the same reasons, the first zoom-in project provided me a chance to look at or to observe something carefully which I see in everyday life. Observing things from different angles result in different feelings, and the same object that I look at in passing everyday looks totally different. Also, I had a hard time to guessing what my colleges’ objects were. I realized that they have different visions and different thoughts regarding those objects.

To learn another’s achievements, we must understand it rather than just know and see them. This also should be a very important part of the learning process in education. Now I understand we cannot ignore arts, writings, science and any other kinds of fields in education. All these fields can be combined towards one goal. From my personal experience during my school years, I was very good at memorizing, categorizing information to acquire the knowledge. Also I was supposed to have been very familiar with famous art work but had less experience with really observing and imitating them. Now, as an adult, I sometimes feel limited when I am confronted with new subjects. It is not easy for me to transfer my knowledge to my real life.

To bring on a better future in our education, as educators, we have to focus on teaching liberal ways to understand the knowledge (not just knowing), communicate with others and express them with creativity thinking by using thinking tools. Then, students can connect their nature intuition and performance together to be creative and ultimately good thinkers.

Module1 zoom-in Véjà Du 2

Yes this is my vacuum cleaner. I think the third picture (from previous) is revealing.

Module1 zoom in-Véjà Du

Can you guess what this is? I see this almost everyday. Sometimes it looks very complicated to me.