Feedback from IJAEE Reviewer: Developing Aesthetics Assessment Skills in Bachelor of Design Programmes

When I submitted a concept paper titled "Developing Aesthetics Assessment Skills in Bachelor of Design Programmes" to the International Conference on Assessment for Higher Education Across Domains and Skills (AHEAD), the paper was accepted without any needs for revision. And then during my presentation, audiences gave comments upon the issues I raised instead of giving feedback to the paper. This prompted me to submit the conference paper to the International Journal of Assessment and Evaluation in Education (IJAEE) to gauge feedback upon the quality of the paper.

Today, I received the following feedback from one of the journal reviewers:

This has been a pleasure to read piece of writing. The abstract is brief yet sufficient and addresses the necessary components of the paper. The introduction section is great as it manages to acquaint readers less familiar with this field to the basic concepts discussed in the paper. The second section of the paper provides clear description of the design aesthetics course in UPSI. However, minor fine-tuning could be carried out to further enhance this paper. For example, a bit more depth in the discussion section would help problematize the three challenges mentioned and further illustrate their importance in the running of the course. Perhaps the author/s could also provide academic discussion on the terms ‘relativism’, ‘criterion’, ‘aesthetics’ besides providing dictionary definitions. I would also suggest consistency in naming the university (either in English or Bahasa Malaysia). Consistency is also required in the spelling system (i.e. criticise or criticize).

I am grateful for this constructive comment and suggestions, and this is exactly what I hope to gain from writing a paper. To me, this is a form of life-long learning, from peers.

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.