Jibon Low  25 May 2017

Reflection- Mindmapping

Challenge  As an academic in the tertiary education, it is often challenging to get students to share their ideas,  thoughts and comments especially during tutorials, seminars and workshops- my first challenge. This  situation is very common especially in my working institution of higher learning with majority of Asian  students who are more reserved and quiet. Often times I will be answering the questions posted for  tutorials in the classes defeating the learning objective and outcome of the activity. Rarely students  will volunteer to share their thoughts and even if they would, their answers are merely regurgitation  of notes with no proper linkages to real-life examples- my second challenge. The third challenge that  I face is to encourage timid students to share while balancing the domination of some outspoken  students in group discussions. This makes me wonder how I can actually do something to help the  students so that they have the right structure to think effectively and share their thoughts efficiently.       Selection  In one occasion I was introduced to a technique called Issue Trees, which is similar (or rather the same)  with Mindmapping. I thought the tool is fantastic as it guides thoughts in a systematic way, is inclusive  creating sense of self-significance and participation, and above all it does not ignore outliers as shared  by the video of Week 3 on Mindmapping- the perfect tool which can help solve my three main  challenges.  I have chosen Mindmapping as the tool to guide my students to identify patterns and insights of the  ideas from the group to suggest solutions to business cases given in the tutorials. The tool encourages  all students to participate and have their ideas discussed even though how silly their ideas can be,  reminding us all that most of the best-selling products today came from silly ideas. This encourages  greatly students who are timid and with low self-esteem to participate while balancing the over- contribution of well-spoken students who normally dominate the group discussions with the proper  steps of Mindmapping to be shared in the application below.      Application  Using Mindmapping in the tutorials have been fun as students are participating well and have  complimented that the tool has helped them think structurally and most importantly after the session  they have concrete solutions drawn. Unlike in the past where they have wasted time on conventional  brainstorming where most of them did not contribute and finally produced no effective outcomes.  So how did we go about applying Mindmapping in my tutorials? Students are given a brief business  case and questions like (1) Identify the problem statement and (2) Offer recommendations to the  company were given. The students will be put into groups of 5-6, given coloured Post-It notes and  markers, and will start the stages as shown below-  Stage A- Students will be given 5-10 minutes to think individually of ideas and write them in a word or  two on the Post-It notes and stick them on the board randomly.

Stage B- Students will be given 15-20 minutes to discuss as a group how to cluster the randomly ideas  generated in Stage A and then label/name the clusters they have. Not forgetting that outliers too will  have a place under the label of ‘Others’.

Stage C- Students will be given 3-5 minutes to drawn the connections between and among the labelled  clusters to respond to the questions given e.g. Recommendations for the company.

Stage D- Each group will be given 5 minutes to do Storytelling where the group will share their flow of  thoughts and recommendations to the company in the business case.

With the four stages done, students are able to take-home some concrete recommendations and see  their time well spent with Mindmapping.       Insight and Approach  My students and I have been amazed by the quality of answers produced from the Mindmapping  exercise. The students’ thoughts have been structurally guided and they see logical connections within  the clusters of ideas they have generated and could relate to the real-life examples. I am happy that  finally the students could be encouraged to participate in tutorials with pride and sense of  belongingness as they, especially the timid ones realised that they could be contributing to the group’s  responses. Those who are more vocal found themselves listening to the rest of the group and this is  really encouraging. They have learnt that all should be given equal opportunity to share and to be  heard. This approach will be continued to be practiced by myself on more groups of students and  those whom have gone through this tool have said that they will be applying it with their study groups  and also clubs and societies. I am happy and proud of Design Thinking especially the four main tools-  visualisation, storytelling, mindmapping and learning launch as I admire the impacts on my students

and also myself. I am always mindful that if the students are given the right thinking tools they will  share them in their workplaces in the near future and the world will have the best practices in thinking.

