Creativity = Depth of experience x Intensity of passion

I missed my flight in Beijing Capital International Airport this Monday. While waiting for the next flight returning to Malaysia, I spent quite some times in two book shops in the airport. As usual, I bought several books in the airport. One of the book that captured my attention was "Creative Brain: Using Brain Science to Cultivate Creativity" (创意脑：用脑科学激发创造力）. This book was written by a famous Japanese scientist, Ken Mogi (茂木健一郎).

Fig 1: This is the book cover.

Fig 2:  Ken Mogi 

Herewith some of the facts and figures revealed by Ken Mogi:

Creativity = Depth of experience x Intensity of passion

EIGHT (8) truth about creativity

1. Creativity is innate instinct 
2. The way of using brain determines the direction of its evolution
3. The brain is developing throughout its lifespan.
4. Creativity does not appear out of nothing; the creation of new things must go through certain levels of accumulation (knowledge, skills, experience).
5. The brain never rests: the 100 billion nerve cells are active all the time [Hebb's rule] 
6. Old age does not necessarily mean lost of passion [unavoidable uncertainties in life might be reducing, which reduce the intensity of passion towards life].
7. The capability of making intuitive judgment makes human superior as compared to animals and computers.
8. Mastery of basic knowledge and learning capability for researching questions independently are necessary for initiating creation.   

ELEVEN (11) techniques of using experience practically

1. Instantaneous touched  (瞬间感动) can make people change dramatically, resulting in more creativity.
2. Being touched can stimulate the memory of brain, activate the affection system, giving meaning to every experience. 
3. Pay more attention to the unknown world
4. Keeping the childishness when appreciating every "first time" experience
5. Be tolerant when looking at new things
6. Seeking the touching seeds
7. Go outdoors and experience the physical reality
8. Electronic games are not giving us in-depth experience, hence no experience no creativity. 
9. Uncertain environment can better stimulate creativity
10. Appreciate every emotion
11. Share a touching experience with others, regardless of its size and scale. 

EIGHT (8) ways of stimulating passion

ELEVEN (11) steps of adjusting brain states

THIRTEEN (13) principles of evolving brain 

To be continued...

Reaction to 《无美学，有丑行》(no aesthetics but ignominy)

I read today's Sin Chew Daily and I was attracted by an article written by Tao Jie (陶杰), titled No Aesthetics But Ignominy (I translated from 《无美学，有丑行》 http://opinions.sinchew.com.my/node/30238?tid=46). He condemned how dreadful Chinese from the Mainland jeopardized their public image through their worldwide misbehavior. He supposed that the damage of the Cultural Revolution, the absence of moral beliefs and the lack of aesthetic education as the roots of such ignominy.

Contemporary Chinese education is heavily grounded on utilitarian. The Chinese believe that mastery in maths, physics and chemistry would make them fearless worldwide. Literature, history, philosophy and arts have been ignored, not to mentioned aesthetic education.

The Western concept of "aesthetics" was first introduced to the Mainland Chinese through a German missionary, Ernst Faber. Ernst wrote a textbook, which covers seven types of aesthetics:
1. The beauty of nature, including the flora and fauna in the mountain and sea.
2. The beauty of architecture, including how palaces and buildings were structured.
3. The beauty of sculpture.
4. The beauty of picture, including drawing and painting.
5. The beauty of music
6. The beauty of eulogy
7. The beauty of lyrics

Ernst hoped that Chinese not only care about the survival needs, but also live with a better standard which concerns spiritual development. This marked the beginning of Chinese aesthetics.

Malaysian, from what I observed, are attributed with good aesthetics potentials. These potentials must be retained while the nation heading towards science and technology development. In fact, both science and aesthetics are not conflicting to each other. Instead, they should be and can be integrated, definitely through design aesthetics. We have to work hand-in-hand to make it happens.

Change of lecturer: Time to move on

I received a call today from Pn. Catheriana, a new colleague of mine whom I never meet, informing me that she has been appointed as the lecturer of MRE3014 Design Aesthetics starting from the first semester of 2013/2014 academic year.

The visceral reaction of mine was surprised and shocked, because I have been preparing to meet the students on Monday morning. And I also planned to implement interactive lecture session using this Blog, Prezi and Socrative. It seems like they are no longer necessary now.

After talking to Catherina over the phone, I realised that she is equally shocked. My sense of empathy emerged and I comforted her that I will support and assist her in the transitional period. Also, I will accompany her to attend the first lecture on Monday morning.

If I think positively, perhaps I am too "deep" for the students. I knew 1/4 of the students have problem understanding what I teach or intend to teach. Indeed, I pity the students but I cannot degrade the teaching to suit the deficiency of the weak students--I still have 3/4 of good, dedicated and excellent students who intend to learn from me.

Nonetheless, I knew it is the time for me to move on, and I wish Catherina and the students all the best in the journey of teaching and learning Design Aesthetics. Good luck!

The need for a text book in Design Aesthetics

I have been incubating the idea of writing or compiling a textbook for Design Aesthetics. The idea remains as an idea, and I have done nothing about it.

Perhaps, I can go deep into individual topics instead of writing a textbook that intend to cover multiple topics related to design and aesthetics.

Good to have modest number of students

I attended the meeting with new intake yesterday. Dr. Zaff introduced me as Karate-do Blackbelter. Good introduction and I added, "I am second Dan". I think I had left good impact on the new students' memory. Enough for first semester's students.

I noticed that there are around 40 over students for two Bachelor of Design programmes. We actually expected 60, 30 for each programme. Anyway, there will be second intake in February next year. To me, 20 over students are just nice for me to teach in computer lab or studio. I had experience teaching 40+ students in the MMA3013 Computer Animation course and 40 students in the 3D Game Development course in computer lab. There was no fun at all!

Every time I finished my class, I felt like drained out and I didn't feel like doing anything. Exhausted, tired but my brain was spinning fast--trying to solve students' problems.

I always tell the students that, "never complain to me that you have a lot of assignments, because every assignment I give you, I actually gave myself all of your assignments to follow up!" Last sem when I taught Design Aesthetics, there were 123 students in the class. I spent two weeks, day and night, just to read through and mark their learning journals. Nonetheless, it was really enjoying when I found good work done by the students, but I still prefer to have modest  number of students, so that I can allocate sufficient time for those who need my guidance and help. Not necessarily equally, but fair to the students.

Preparing to meet new Bachelor of Design students tomorrow

The faculty has set tomorrow (Monday, 2 Sep 2013) as the date to meet new students. I look forward to meet them, and hopefully the quality of students we get this time would be good and fit for the programme. It was quite annoying to me to see students who make their choice of Bachelor of Design programme as 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th or worse, not as a choice at all.

Having said so, I wasn't sure myself whether to continue studying multimedia back then in 1999. After one semester of study the Creative Multimedia programme, I felt like moving to IT or Management programme--anything but not Multimedia! I couldn't forget the culture shock I had, shifting from Science stream to Art stream, learning to hold pencil in order to draw properly. I felt like being treated as a naive child...

I took the courage to meet my lecturer, Mr Abdul Halim to discuss about my change of programme.

Mr Abdul Halim, my lecturer in MMU. 

After telling him my intention to change programme, he said the following:

"Tan, I see sparkling in your eyes! Your design work was average but you have good attitude in learning."

Because of his encouragement, I stayed on studying creative multimedia, and then further study at Master's and PhD level. Eventually, I become a lecturer who teaches creative multimedia like him.

Many students intend to join UPSI because they thought this decision would lead them to become school teachers. This is still somewhat true but for those who are taking Bachelor of Design programmes, they will not become school teacher upon graduation. One profession that is similar to teaching is training, in which graduates of the Bachelor of Design programme may become in-house trainers--design-related or software-related.

Because of this, I insist to include a lecture on "Being Professional Design" in this course, so the students have to chance to explore and discuss about how they want to be professional designers.

Three books I plan to read in Design Aesthetics

I attended a training organised by Pusat Transformasi USM in Penang between 20 Aug and 22 Aug. While staying in Penang, I bought three books from Popular Bookstore which I think would enhance my knowledge in design aesthetics. Herewith the books:

Living with Complexity 《好设计不简单：和设计师联手驯服复杂科技，享受丰富生活》

written by Donald Norman, translated by 卓耀宗

To me, this book is in sync with Hekkert's Unity in Variety principle of aesthetic pleasure. While it is not as interesting as Norman's (2006) Emotional Design, I believe it deserves the reading time I am going to spend. I will enrich my notes on this topic, as the four principles of aesthetic pleasure was regarded as the most difficult topic to learn by my students. 

The second book I chose is a book translated from Japanese, titled 《文字的准则：玩出绝妙好设计》or the Guidelines for Texts. There are numerous English books on Typography, but it is quite rare to see any for Chinese and Japanese characters in Malaysia.  This book was written by 伊达千代 (Chiyo Date) and Takahiko Naito. As I don't read Japanese, I read a translated version:

The third book I bought is Product Design or 《好设计！打动人心征服世界》 by jointly written by Paul Rodgers and Alex Milton. 

I particularly like the chapter on Design Education, which is closely related to my profession as a lecturer teaching design courses. Can't wait to share my understanding of these books with my students!

Experience of teaching creativity: Reaction to reviewers' comment

I submitted a conference paper titled "Teaching Creativity in Design Aesthetics: An Introspective Account of a University Lecturer" to the International Conference on Infomatics and Creative Multimedia 2013. The aim is the share my experience of teaching creativity in MRE3014, and this adheres the theme of the conference.

First reviewer's comment:

Despite being accepted for an oral presentation, the comments given by the reviewers reveal several issues possessed by both the reviewer and the organizer. Herewith one of the first  reviewer's comment:

"This is a commendable effort and a really interesting read. It was reflective and engaging especially on the topic of art and creativity. However, I find that it lacks the research rigor that is needed as a conference research paper. The title seems to say that it is a reflective research on teaching but the bulk of the literature and write up was on the teacher's understanding and debate of the concept of art and creativity etc. rather than the process of teaching this specific course with its struggles, successes or challenges as suggested by the title. The author needs to explain further what method as well as the research process that was undertook in this introspective account of him/her as a teacher. Please see other comments on the attached document." ~ Comment of Reviewer 1

Herewith my reaction to the first reviewer's comment:

Perhaps I should highlight this paper is not a research paper. If one would insist on regarding this as a research paper it is more like a reflective study--apparently one of the reviewer has a narrow view on what a conference paper must be. In other words, the reviewer has limited his or her view on the nature of academic conference, as he or she thought that a paper to be presented in a conference must be research paper. I do not denounce the reviewer for having such a narrow view, since it is the organizer's fault in requesting the reviewers to rate all papers on "Research method and data analysis are sound", "Findings and conclusions are properly presented", and other items that are only applicable for scientific or empirical research studies. If I would be a reviewer, I would insist to state "Not Applicable" or NA to all irrelevant fills, and this would be fair to authors who submitted concept papers or a paper like mine.

Nonetheless, I do agree that the paper should focus on "the process of teaching this specific course with its struggles, successes or challenges as suggested by the title." I will revise the paper by explaining how I did the reflection--using my reflection-reflexion continuum.

Second reviewer's comment: 

There are few contradicting statements in:
V. DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON CREATIVITY BETWEEN ART AND DESIGN

1) The arguments on INNOVATION, UNIQUENESS, AESTHETICS, DESIGN PROCESS, CREATIVE PROCESS between ART and DESIGN in the context of CREATIVITY was not properly clarified; it is contradictory and perplexing.

STATEMENTS ON ART’s creativity
“Whatever it is regarded, the process of art creation activity must be carried out in a completely free condition. Therefore it is completely sensual and exclusive. This is very different as compared to the spiritual force that pursues aesthetics in order to acquire human consensus. The value of art lies in its uniqueness—all great art are unique, thus artists are devoting themselves to create unprecedented content, and then express the content through unique form. In ancient times, aesthetics is a part of the value of art form, while the expression of the form is far beyond the scope of aesthetics.”

STATEMENT ON DESIGN’s Creativity
“Seeing design process as a thinking process, he defined design as a synthetic reaction of sensibility and rationality. The creation through design is objective-driven, while its meaning is innovation, which has nothing to do with uniqueness; although sometimes it does possess the characteristics of being unique. The objective-driven characteristic is primarily meant for improving human life. While this might also satisfy spiritual needs, the satisfaction is indeed a consequence of materialistic fulfillment. To reinforce the spiritual value of design, it is natural to pursue aesthetics in its form, and there is no reason to reject aesthetics in any field of the reality of life.”

2) The difference between ART’s creativity and DESIGN’s Creativity stated earlier in section IV does Not reflect in the conclusion

V. CONCLUSIONS
“With this revelation of different types of creativity, the dilemma of incorporating four criteria of creativity suggested by Tony Buzan became a non-issue. All four criteria are in fact interrelated to and complementing each other…”

3) And the statement brought forwards in the conclusions also contradictory to the argument in section V.

V. CONCLUSIONS
“…The teaching of later two cohorts of Design Aesthetics students indicated positive improvement as the engagement of students towards in-class lecture and activities increased, probably due to the acquired knowledge on their future role as designers and how they would work with professionals in pure art and applied sciences.”

Herewith my reaction to the second reviewer's comment:

Perhaps paraphrasing what Han (2012) said about the differences between pure art and applied art in terms of creativity might not be appropriate. Anyhow, this is my first attempt of openly adopting someone's idea and put it into my teaching context. I will try improving the paper by clarifying matters, concepts, etc, before sending it to a journal, as none of the journal that is linked to the conference is related to my topic.   

Feel really proud with my Tok Guru: Che' Ahmad Azhar

I always tell my Design Aesthetics students how my Tok Guru, Che' Ahmad Azhar trained me when I was a undergraduate student in MMU. He was very very strict with DEADLINE. I can never forget he locked the studio door and waved to those who came late. And I remembered hearing my friends crying outside the studio.

While being strict to students, he imposed strict discipline to himself as well. And today, his effort earned him the personal praise from YAB Datuk Seri Najib, the Prime Minister of Malaysia via Twitter:

I feel really proud with his success. And I will shared this joy with my students in upcoming semester. Herewith the news article, published online by Sinar Harian, titled Najib puji gambar rakaman Che' Ahmad Azhar and by New Straits Times, titled PM praises Che' Ahmad Azhar for his beautiful street photography.

And this is the original site featuring his photographs:

Potential Publication for Design Aesthetics students @ Journal of Arts Gendang Alam

Source: http://www.ums.edu.my/sps/index.php/en/maklumat-akademik/penerbitan/jurnal-journals

I received an invitation to submit article to the Journal of Arts Gendang Alam from the School of Arts, Universiti Sabah Malaysia. I think this is a good platform for developing Design Aesthetics students who are good in essay writing.

So those who scored A or A- in this course in the past semesters please contact me for joint paper writing.

RIP My Student - Muhd Amri Razali

I feel really sad the hear the bad news from Lai Siew Yee...I feel like losing my own kid... RIP my dear, Muhd Amri Razali.

The student in blue shirt is Muhd Amri Razali. A photo taken on my birthday in Design Aesthetics class (28 Mar 2013).

End of Semester 2 (2012/2013) Remark

Time flies and the second semester of 2012/2013 academic year reaches its end. It had been a really enjoyable time lecturing this batch of students. I am really impressed by their results. For the first time I have student scored full marks in the Final Exam, and there are 43 students or 35% scored either A or A-. This is really impressive to me! I knew they really worked hard for this course, and they deserved the excellent grade!! It's a pity that UPSI does not have A+ for those who score 90 and above, there are two people who did that! Congratulations!

However, this is also the first time I failed so many students in one course (10%). From the feedback and criticism given by those who submitted the make-good assignment, I wrote the following blog (http://gbl4malaysia.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-to-prepare-interactive-lecture-notes.html), intend to revise my lecture notes for next semester--making them interactive.

However, there are some matters I need to clarify here:
1. I knew that English language is their barrier to learn Design Aesthetics, I PURPOSELY prepared lecture notes in ENGLISH to force them read, write and speak English. They should get ready before taking my course.

2. They should try to understand my notes through ENGLISH instead of translating them into Malay. Mistranslated notes is worse than not having notes. If they want to be professional designers, English is the number one language they need to master now!

3. I knew some of them will be lazy and copy my answers when writing reflection and reflexion in learning journal. But when they actually did that, they lost the opportunity to think for themselves. Some students actually did in-class reflexion during my lecture and then they wrote their reflection after class, and compared their own two versions of answers. Those who copied my answers should really learn from the hardworking students.

4. I did noticed students who came in late or did their own work at the back of the lecture hall--in fact, as adult learners, they have the right to do whatever they want. I respect their right as long as they can score in the course, it doesn't really matter to me.

5. By reading their Learning Journal and Final Exam paper scripts, I noticed there are students who face reading difficulty (dyslexia), I have informed them in person to meet me next semester and I will arrange specific support and learning aid for them.

For those who failed this course and intend to retake this course next semester, they can see me in person during Week 1 of next semester. I will arrange special class and group for them. Hopefully they don't feel shy and demotivated. Not everybody can pass in one shot, even me have multiple failing experience in life. What's important, I survive and shine!

Plagiarism again!! This time is worse as it happens in Make-good Assignment

I had been working hard to revise the students' mid-term grade through the analysis of the Make-good Assignment. I REALLY READ what they wrote because I tried to give as many marks as I can. However, I feel really sad when I discovered plagiarism among the students. Plagiarism (meniru) is a SERIOUS academic offence. Apart from give ZERO score to both parties who involved, I am considering take disciplinary action against both parties.

When I re-checked the Make-good Assignment submission all-over again, I discovered another pair of problematic students. I feel really sad and upset... My intention of giving this make-good assignment is to help weak students to survive, but I never thought such good deed would turn into a sour experience. I rather spend time doing other works then checking whether there are any other student who plagiarize or not. Really wasting my precious time...

Uncertainty of Peer-assessment

After marking the group assignment, I was surprised by the low mark given by most of the students to their peers. This prompted me to reveal the scores on Facebook course group so that the students understand the complexity of being judged by others—assessment is a combination of subjective, objective, relative and emotive judgment.

As predicted, when students knew how others judged them, they began to argue on issues related to peer-assessment. I managed to moderate the situation to avoid aftermath conflict. One issue that is worth highlighting: when this course is offered without prerequisite, there is no such thing as "senior" or "junior", i.e. every student is treated as blank slate--John Locke's Blank Slate Theory. 

In fact, this learning process is very useful for the students to realise what would happen when they join the creative industry later in their life. They have to compete with all designers, regardless of their social, academic and economic background. Everybody is on the same arena to judge each other's work. To gain high score, you need to work hard to EARN it, not really because you are senior that you deserve higher mark, or vice versa.

List of Students Presentation Recordings (Audio)

Group 1: Creative Design of Paper cut 2013
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73782361/Group01.mp3

Group 2: Character Development Based on Person Competition
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73782361/Group02.mp3

Group 3: Creative Education Game Character
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73782361/Group03.mp3

Group 4: Graffiti Creative Design Competition
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73782361/Group04.mp3

Group 5: Mascot Design Competition
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73782361/Group05.mp3

Group 6: Money Run
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73782361/Group06.mp3

Group 7: The Country like Memory and Life
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73782361/Group07.mp3

Group 8: UPSINDEX
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73782361/Group08.mp3

Group 9: Creative Design of Recycled Material
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73782361/Group09.mp3

Group 10: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/72331866/130528_001.MP3

Group 11: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/72331866/130528_002.MP3

Group 12: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/72331866/130528_003.MP3

Group 13: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/72331866/130528_004.MP3

Assignment 2 of Semester 2 (2012/2013): Competition Design

I participated the Malaysia Technology Expo 2013 in Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC), Kuala Lumpur between 21 and 23 Feb 2013. One thing I learned from this event is that judging from the financial perspective, the REAL winner of the expo is the organizer, rather than those who won the best awards. For instance, UPSI spent over RM100,000 to participate in this expo, and the cost includes the rental of exhibition space and the construction, decoration and maintenance of the university booth. The printing of A1 size posters, the transportation and the accommodation of exhibits, participants, demonstrators, etc, really cost a lot of money. What's more, UPSI's booth was one of the smallest as compared to other public universities in the expo.

This experience prompted me to make "competition design" as the second assignment of this course. This group assignment requires students to design a competition where they can prove their acquisition of knowledge and skills in Design Aesthetics.

To begin with, I guided the students to form a group that consists of 12 to 13 people in which each of the members choose one role listed in the Belbin’s team role theory (see Fig 1). I randomly chose team members for all the team, despite receiving fierce resistance from the students. Among the 123 students I have in this course, there were repeated students, students in their 5th, 4th, 3rd and 2nd semesters. They preferred to work with those they like or used to work with. I justified that in real life, we don't normally work with people we like or prefer; worse, we constantly have to work with people we dislike. 

Fig 1: Belbin's team role

After accepting the fact that they have to work with whoever I assigned to the group, the students began to form Facebook discussion groups to discuss and negotiate individual workload. They have to answer the following questions collectively: 

a.       What is the competition?

b.      Who are the targeted participants?

c.       When would the competition be held?

d.      Where would be the competition be held in UPSI?

e.      Why would UPSI organize the competition?

f.        How to evaluate the entries of the competition?

I observed what they had done via Facebook group and arranged for the assessment of their proposal presentation. To make sure every student contributes to the group work, I insist to have each student presents for 2 minutes, explaining how they play their role in the group. Other students who play the same role as the presenter were guided to assess the performance of the presenter. This forced all the students to become attentive to every presentation. 

They had to present:   

a.       The competition proposal

b.      The list of potential judges in UPSI (with justification of qualification and experience)

c.       The evaluation forms:

                                                               i.      Aesthetic evaluation form

                                                             ii.      Creativity evaluation form

                                                            iii.      Other appropriate forms

Meanings of "Beautiful" in various languages

My lecture on beautiful has reached a bottled neck as it becomes repetitive to me to explain the same thing for the fourth time. In this semester, instead of me lecturing about what does beautiful mean, I asked several students to share the meaning with the class.

Beautiful in Tamil: —அழகான (pronounce as 'alege'): It is meant only for female.

Beautiful in Arabic: 

—جميل (jamil) for male 

—جميلة (jamilah) for female
Beautiful in Bahasa Java:—Ayu: gadis ayu
—Apeik: for things

Beautiful in Brunei: Bisai (for female, menyeluruh)

Beautiful in Kedayan: Lawa (for female)

Beautiful in Kadazan - Dusun language
The sharing was followed by two Kadazan - Dusun students, they explained the following:

• —Olumis / olundus / Oligang / olidang(Dusun(Dusun): for both gender (more towards female) 
• —Awantang (Dusun): specifically for male / handsome 
• —Ogingo / awanus (Dusun): for things (in Tambunan, Papar and Penampang areas)

Fig 1: Areas where Kadazan - Dusun live in Sabah. 

When I google-ed the word "olumis", I found this photo matching the concept of olumis and Sabahan.

Fig 2: Miss Earth Sabah Top Four at Olumis Borneo Batik House. Source: Rungitom Life

Beautiful in Iban Language

—Bajik : for female, berasal daripada satu mitos, mengenai seorang perempuan yang bernama ‘Kumang’
—Sigat: for male, pasangan Kumang, namanya ‘Keling’

Fig 2: Miss Kumang Gawai Festival 2013, Natalie . Source: New Sarawak Tribute.

Fig 3: Mr Keling Gawai Sibu 2013, Mr Kevin Kedit. Source: Borneo Post Online

Beautiful in Chinese Language

Do read this article: 《不懂羊就不懂中国人 武汉学者详解羊的传人说》

Justifying whether a given matter is an artwork or not

I began to receive sms and FB messages after announcing to students that I am going to have the mid term quiz today. Some of them chasing me virtually for tips and scope of question for revision. However, I asked them not to worry and there is nothing for them to prepare. One of the student replied my sms and said, "lecturers never say exam difficult de lor..hahaha!" Some were asking for their learning journals as they intend to do revision. Again, I told them that revision isn't necessary.

In fact, I always say my paper (in exam) is very difficult. And this was proven in previous semester and students whom had taken this course scared their juniors about how scary I am. Yes, I am. You need to memorize what you have understood and then apply those knowledge flexibly to score in my paper. That is a level 1 to 4 requirements in cognitive domain of learning. Students can never depend on luck or common sense to score in the paper.

The quiz I gave was relatively easy. I prepared a one slide PowerPoint that contains 30 items. And then I prepare blank writing paper with number, and each student has to determine whether the item he or she received is an artwork or not, and then justify why it is or isn't artwork. Students cannot copy the answers of those sitting around them as he or she doesn't know whether they got the same item or not. Furthermore the question is rather open-ended.

So good luck!

Happy Birthday to me in the lecture hall...again

Fig 1: Having a photo with Bachelor of Design (Animation) students after my lecture. Photo taken by Chan Wee.

Fig 2: Having photo with Bachelor of Design (Advertising) students after my lecture. Photo taken by Chan Wee.

Today is my 33rd birthday. I was surprised by my students whom arranged in advanced by contacting Yanzhen. Many thanks to my dear students, wish you all quick quick be my boss!

The Power of Saliva in Practice

Fig 1: Selling products to me. Photo taken by Apple Looi. 

I was tagged in Facabook and then I realised a student of mine wrote the following as the caption of the above photo:

thank you our "client", Dr. Tan for supporting us by buying 5 of our "products". we really appreciate it! and dear Dr., we already prove that the "power of saliva" and "sympathy face" is really work!!

This reminds me of my lecture about Empathy and James-Lange Theory of emotion. The students who were taking Entrepreneurship course were instructed to sell nine boxes of fruit jelly. They managed to touch my heart by showing pity face. Ok, they have practiced what I taught them on me, and it worked!