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Creative thinking/Critical Thinking
Developing ideas: I make my ideas work or change what I’m doing.
The initial plan for this project was to test and see if woodbugs can see color. We did this by placing meatballs on colored squares, and getting them to eat the meatballs and see the colored squares. Once the woodbugs ran this test a couple times, we would remove the meatballs and observe if the woodbugs would go to the colored square as an indicator of food. Of course, this plan was flawed as the woodbugs completely ignored the meatballs and had no idea what the squares were, so we needed to come up with a better plan. This is where I used my creative thinking skills to generate a new idea to persevere and create a new plan and project to solve this problem. We decided that we should see which type of food woodbugs prefer the most, and we went with apples as fruit, meatballs as meat, and potatoes as vegetables. This new and improved plan worked as the woodbugs ate the apple and potato, and ignored the meatballs. This got us the conclusion of woodbugs preferring fruits and vegetables over meat.
-I use my experiences with various steps and attempts to direct my future work.
Because I learned about our mistakes in this project (which is not planning ahead enough and creating a flawed plan) I now know to think more carefully and do more research on said topic. I can use these experiences and mistakes to guide my future work so I don’t make this mistake again.
Develop and Design: I can monitor my progress and adjust my actions to make sure I achieve what I want.
Getting the woodbugs to eat the food was rough. They would often go around the pieces and in general, ignore it. We didn’t know what to do until I decided to take the tweezers and move the woodbugs to the pieces of food. They still ignored it, but a skill I needed was to be patient. I was monitoring the progress of the project, and checking if it would go anywhere. A little bit of time and presto! The woodbugs started to eat the pieces of food. It took some time and patience, but adjusting my actions from just waiting around doing nothing to taking initiative to moving the woodbugs closer got us ahead of the project and therefore, completed it on time.
Generating Ideas: -I build on others’ ideas and add new ideas of my own, or combine others’ ideas in new ways to create new things or solve straightforward problems.
This whole project was based off of an idea that the myth busters had, training goldfish to eat food to test if they have a memory span of more than 7 seconds. This is why our whole project was based on food, and used the same concept as the myth busters. As it turned out, that idea didn’t work, so we used our revised plan as said earlier.
Communication:
Explain/recount and reflect on experiences and accomplishments
-I give, receive and act on feedback.
Mrs. Prosperi-Porta suggested to us that our experiment didn’t have to be completely trashed, and we can make up a new idea based on food because we already had access to it. This feedback allowed us to revise and make up a new experiment and helped us succeed.
Collaborate to plan, carry out, and review constructions and activities
-I can work with others to achieve a common goal; I do my share.
For this entire project, I needed to have skills in communication to get my idea of the project across. Zach and I were tossing ideas around and communicating to each other about our own ideas. We came to a conclusion of a plan and starting working on it. Both of us are afraid of bugs, and it required some teamwork and effort to move the woodbugs. In the end, we managed to put in on the tray without getting a heart attack, thanks to our communication and teamwork.
Things I need to work on:
-I have deliberate strategies for quieting my conscious mind (e.g. walking away for
a while, doing something relaxing, being deliberately playful) so that I can be more creative.
When something goes wrong, I often panic, and my mind starts going crazy to find a way to fix the problem. Obviously we managed to fix our issue with the project, but it wasn’t all that efficient and could’ve bought us more time if we were calm and thought carefully about our next steps. A way I can improve this is to control myself, calm down and make actions to calm myself down such as regulate my breathing, fidgeting with something or more.
-I deliberately learn a lot about something (e.g. by doing research, talking to
others or practicing) so that I am able to generate new ideas or ideas just pop into my
head.
As stated earlier, the initial project we thought of was flawed due to lack of research and planning ahead. I can fix this problem by putting more effort into the planning and researching phase in projects, and following said plan to create a successful project.
-I can show if I like something or not.
When it comes to group projects, I am very meek. I don’t like to go against what my group members say, often leading to bad ideas or misunderstandings. I can solve this problem by trying to boost my morale and self-esteem to be more confident towards my group members and others.