Productive Thinking 1
Productive Thinking 1
Productive Thinking 1
Shreepad Karmalkar Professor, Electrical Engineering Department Core Team Member, Teaching Learning Center Indian Institute of Technology Madras karmal@ee.iitm.ac.in
Thinking is said to be - reproductive when it is based on similar problems encountered in the past, or taught to solve - productive when it generates as many alternative approaches as possible Research is all about productive thinking which is also called higher order thinking consisting of critical thinking and creativity
Intelligence and creativity are not the same things. Intelligence in a domain means the ability to function at a high level in that domain, but creativity involves asking new questions and altering the domain. One can be highly intelligent but rigid, noncreative, or lacking in the kind of single-minded passion that drives creators.
A scientist questioned the following hypothesis regarding the cause of obesity Overweight people overeat because their level of hunger is higher than that of average weight people. This higher level of hunger is responsible for their overweight.
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Assignment
Read up the following article which highlights the elements of productive thinking: P. S. Blackawton et. al., Blackawton bees, Biology Lett.. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2010.1056, published online on 22nd December 2010.
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GIFT OR SKILL ?
That creativity is beyond analysis is a romantic illusion we must now outgrow Peter Medawar. Creativity is a skill which can be developed by practice. Conscious application is needed, not the vagaries of inspiration, in order to achieve a creative output. Creativity is a matter of organizing ones basic skills, not regretting that one was not born with a quick or logical mind.
Motivation is recognized as a crucial factor in the development of talent and the application of creativity. The importance of Intrinsic Motivation in driving an individual to practice and work hard to master a specific domain, is undisputed. Cox (1926), in his study of 301 geniuses, wrote: 'high but not the highest intelligence, combined with the greatest degrees of persistence, will achieve greater eminence than the highest degree of intelligence with somewhat less persistence'.
Education is not about learning diverse subjects, but about learning diverse ways to the same subject. - Aurobindo
ACTIVITY
Aim: To gain an appreciation of the levels of thinking Low Knowing or memory Application or Problem solving Evaluation or Critical thinking High Creativity
Make five squares of equal size out of a single large square. You are allowed to cut and paste.
Assignment
Understand critical thinking in detail using an internet search.
What is Creativity
Ability to look at the same thing as everyone else and think something different. Ability to take a fresh look at familiar objects and situations, enriched by past experience, but not constrained by it.
Pessimistic Thorns Realistic Stoic Humane Selfish Sadistic Divine Roses and thorns Roses or thorns Roses for you and Roses for me Roses for me and thorns for you Thorns for you and your blood for me Roses for you and your thorns for me
Representation Logical thinking Division into sub-problems Stretch to the extreme Verbalization
REPRESENTATION
A picture is worth a
TECHNIQUES OF REPRESENTATION
Symbolic representation Reformulation Table: list, matrix Graph Venn diagram Drawing diagram to scale
Problem:
How can you become more productive ?
Problem:
Exactly at sunrise one morning, you set out to climb the Thirupati temple. The path wound round the mountain. You climbed the path at varying rates of speed. You stopped many times along the way to rest and to eat the fruit you carried with you. You reached the temple just before sunset.
Continued ..
After fasting and meditating for several days, you began your journey down along the same winding path, starting at sunrise and walking, as before, at variable speeds. Your average speed down the hill was more than your average climbing speed. Prove that there must be a spot along the path that you will pass on both trips at exactly the same time of the day.
PROBLEM
Derive the trend in the behavior of plating adhesion on a silicon substrate from the measured data as a function of substrate area and doping level. The adhesion is measured for 0.5, 1 and 2 cm2 area, and P+, P, N and N+ doping levels. Each measurement is repeated twice.
TABLE( LIST)
Adhesion Strength (106 N / m2)
Doping
Area (cm2)
TABLE (MATRIX)
Area Doping
P+ P N N+
GRAPH
10
8 6 4 2 0
2 cm2
N+
P+
PROBLEM
X = e-X
TABLE (LIST)
y=x
y = e-x x
TABULAR SOLUTION
y=x
RHS LHS
LHS RHS
y = e-x
0 0.4 0.5 0.6
ITERATIVE SOLUTION
Xn+1 = e-Xn
y=x x1
x5 x4
x3
x2 x0
y = e-x x
PROBLEM
Graphical Representation
Student action Student question Student response Teacher question Teacher response Teacher talk Using chalkboard Using charts Using projections Using multimedia
Time
Teaching-learning Process
Venn Diagram
SS E I S
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8 0.11
Assignment
Find out different ways of graphical representation of data.