REFLECTION – Mind Mapping

1. Challenge:

I work in a University (in the Engineering School) and we had the challenge of increase our  alumni in Mechanical Engineering Academic Program. So we want to create new products  (workshops) to high school kids, to increase their interest in study Mechanical Engineering.

2. Selection:

I chose mind mapping because this tool can transform perceptions and observations, into  real ideas to develop a project. It’s the bridge between “What is” and “what if”, that you  need to analyze, before propose feasible ideas to solve a problem or need.      Using mind mapping we could represent more easily the relation between engineering and  attractive topics for high school kids, link them and then work in possible new workshops.  But also as Barbara Mora said at her video “Mind Mapping can be a lot of fun”.

3. Application:

To start this process we make a very nice activity. We invite faculty, current students of the  Mechanical Engineering Program, some High School Students and Engineers who work in  industry.

We make a general survey to the audience and give them post-it to write their answers.  Some questions were related to “What is your hobby?”, “How do you spend your time?”,  “Do you use social media?”, “How do you could help other?”, “Do you wonder about how  things are made?”, etc.

Then, we put all same answers (of same question) together and make multidisciplinary  teams to analyze those answers (1 professor, 1 undergrad student, 1 high school student  and 1 Engineer). The teams should answer after this questions: “¿How all this answers could  be connected?” and “¿How Engineering topics are related to this?”

4. Insight:

By using Mind Mapping Tool, we were able to determine (in a very creative way) some topics  for workshops that were interesting for high school kids, that undergrad students found  more attractive and useful during their career, that engineers found relevant to industry  and society… and professors had the knowledge to  perform those workshops.

5. Approach:

Currently we are working on the design of new workshops that are going to be more  dynamic using innovative learning methods.

We included project based learning as a final project to assess the workshop. Some topics  that were selected for the new workshops are:

1) “Go green”- Design: at which Mechanical Design, Materials Engineering and

Sustainability are involve.

2) “Let´s move the skeleton”: at which Mechanical Design and Biomechanical, are used to

design an exoskeleton.

We will be using Mind Mapping tool in workshops, in a final activity to determine new topics  and increase our offer of workshops. But also professors will be using visualization tool for  teaching in the workshops.

¡We are so happy to find this way to design new workshops!

