CREATIVITY T IPS JUST FOR YOU ... ..................... ..1 MORE REWARDS FOR MIB SUGGESTIONS...

2 STORIES3 & 4

SEPT / OCT

ISSUE 7

2013

I NNOVATION

ANSWERS TO SEPTEMBER INSIGHT CREATIVITY QUIZ ........................... ..5 MOE IDEAS BANK BEST SUGGESTION (AUG) ........................... ..6

ANGLICANHIGHSCHOOL

PLANTING THE SEEDS OF CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION FOR BREAKTHROUGH IN ONE ACCORD.

bytes

Creativity Tips just for YOU!

Creativity Tip #1
Read a book on a topic that you know nothing about. Take a new route to work, even if it takes a little longer. Most of us get into a rut because we tend to do the same types of things all the time; mixing things up a little helps our minds to work in new and creative ways.

Tip#3:ChangetheLanguage
Onewaytoincreaseproblem solvingabilityistochangethe verbsusedtodescribethe problem.Whentheverbsare extremelyspecic,peoplethink innarrowterms. Incontrast,theuseofmore genericverbssay,"moving" insteadof"driving"canleadto drama cincreasesinthenumber ofproblemssolved.

Tip#4:ThinkoutsideyourWorkspace
Accordingtostudy,volunteers performedsignicantlybe erona standardtestofcrea vitywhenthey wereseatedoutsidea5footsquare workspace,perhapsbecausetheyin ternalizedthemetaphorofthinking outsidethebox. Thelesson?Yourcubicleisholding youback.
1

Continued from page one ...

rseas e v O l e v a r ip#5:T T y t i v a e Cr students

y, AdamGalinsk tosolvea y b d le h rc a relikely Accordingtorese eremuchmo w d a ro b a d e whohaveliv tpuzzle. h g classicinsi ith wedthemw o d n e re u lt ercu sto nceofanoth ctalsoapplie e e is h T Theirexperie . ss havelivedin enmindedne o p h o w le b rs a o lu ct a e v a sedir as :Fashionhou eirpeersrate th t a th g professionals in th o iesproducecl manycountr ve. farmorecrea

Great News!!

MIB Rewards have been UPSIZED!

With effect from 1 October 2013

Allacceptedsugges onswillbeawarded$5insteadof$2. AllBestofMonth(BoM)sugges onsnominatedbyeachschoolwillbeawarded$10. *New! AllBestofMonthsugges onspickedbytheClusterEvaluatorforeachclusterwillbeawarded$30.*New!

Have an idea? Submit to MIB today! https://ideas.moe.gov.sg

AN EXAMPLE Mr Tan from School A makes a sugges on on the MIB system. School As MIB Coordinator will evaluate the sugges on. If this sugges on is accepted, Mr Tan will be awarded $5. If the same sugges on is nominated for the BoM Sugges on for School A, he will be awarded another $10. Should this sugges on be picked by the Cluster Evaluator as BoM for the cluster, Mr Tan will be awarded yet another $30.

Hence,thetotalamountawardedtoMrTanwill be$45($5+$10+$30).

1 # y r o t S n o i t a v o n n I
Composer Bruce Adolphe first met Yo-Yo Ma, then 15 years old at the Juilliard School in New York City in 1970. Mr. Adolphe had just written his first cello piece, and he had shown a draft of his composition to a Juilliard instructor, who told him that there was a chord that was impossible to play. Before Mr. Adolphe could correct the music, however, Mr. Ma decided to rehearse the composition in his dorm room. "Yo-Yo played through my piece, sight-reading the whole thing," Mr. Adolphe says. "And when that impossible chord came, he somehow found a way to play it." Mr. Adolphe told Mr. Ma what the professor had said and asked how he had managed to play the impossible chord. They went through the piece again, and when Mr. Ma came to the impossible chord, Mr. Adolphe yelled "Stop!" They looked at Mr. Ma's left handit was contorted on the fingerboard, in a position that was nearly impossible to hold. "You're right," said Mr. Ma, "you really can't play that!" Yet, somehow, he did. When Mr. Ma plays today, he still strives for that state of the beginner. "One needs to constantly remind oneself to play with the abandon of the child who is just learning the cello," Mr. Ma says. "Because why is that kid playing? He is playing for pleasure."

"Creativity is the residue of time wasted - Albert Einstein

"Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas - Donatella Versace

Innovation Story #2
A crowdsourcing website for solving dicult scien c ques ons/problems

ke o ma How t ed-Fat c "Redu Flavoured lateg"? Choco und Coatin o Comp

How to design a solar-powered computer?

Did you pass the Creativity Quiz?

Here are the answers to the insight problems from the August issue!

Silence is the wellspring of

creativity. You need huge

swathes of time to just do nothing, in order to be creative. - Rachel Chan (The Straits Times)

CodedMessage
26LoftheA 7WoftheAW 1001AN

Decoded
26Le ersoftheAlphabet rld 7WondersoftheAncientWo 1001ArabianNights 12SignsoftheZodiac

Anyone can look for fashion in a boutique or history in a museum. The creative explorer looks for history in a hardware store and fashion in an airport. - Robert Wieder

12SoftheZ er] CardsinaDeck[withtheJok 54 J] the ith [w D the in C 54 8PlanetsintheSolarSystem 8PintheSS 88PianoKeys 88PK 18HolesinaGolfCourse 18HinaGC 90DegreesinaRightAngle 90DinaRA nopoly 200DollarsforPassGoinMo 200DforaPGinM 8SidesonaStopSign 8SonaSS n] 3BlindMice[SeeHowTheyRu 3BM[SHTR] 24HoursinaDay 24HinaD 1WheelonaUnicycle 1WonaU 57HeinzVarie es 57HV 11PlayersonaFootballTeam 11PonaFT Worth 1,000WordsthataPictureis 1000WthataPisW Year 29DaysinFebruaryinaLeap 29DinFinaLY 64SquaresonaChessboard 64SonaC
An insight problem requires you to shift your perspective and view the problem in a creative way to solve it.

Dont think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. Its selfconscious, and anything selfconscious is lousy. You cant try to do things. You simply must do things. - Ray Bradbury

AHS BEST SUGGESTION AUGUST 2013

Using Lego Bricks to Teach Stoichiometry

Contributed by Cassidy Soh Azmi b A Rashid Nurhazah bte Anwar
Rationale and Overview The topic of stoichiometry and mole concept in the O-level Chemistry syllabus has always been challenging for students first learning it at the Secondary Three level. One of the key concepts that students struggle with is that of limiting and excess reactants. Hence, this lesson aims to present the concept in a more tangible manner by using Lego bricks to build a car. The hands-on experience helps accelerate cognitive understanding and reasoning. Central to the entire activity is scientific inquiry where students ask questions, plan procedures, collaborate for actions, use appropriate tools and techniques, think critically and logically about connections and finally communicate scientific confirmations. This activity was carried out in the Chemistry laboratory as the use of electronic balance was required for the weighing of the Lego components. Trigger activity Students were lined up in two rows according to gender; each pupil is then asked to pair up with a student of the opposite gender. Pupils then determined the number of couples formed and the number of leftovers. Activity was repeated with groups of 3 female with 2 males to reinforce the concept. The terms limiting and excess is then introduced to the class in relation to the 2 activities. Students were engaged due to the physical involvement as everyone was a reactant. There was an element of fun and lasting impression would be made, especially for kinaesthetic learners. Main activity Having formed groups of 5 in the above trigger activity, each group proceeded to build a car using Lego bricks. According to the instructions given in the kit, there are 31 pieces of Lego bricks to be assembled into a car. They also had to weigh 7 selected components of the Lego car set and record the mass on the given worksheet. When the students have finished building the Lego car, they had to answer the questions on their worksheet individually. The activity of building the car helped to set the context and backdrop for these thinking questions. These questions are designed to help students understand the concept of excess and limiting as they think through their responses to the questions. From the quality of the worksheet answers, majority of the pupils had correctly understood the concept of limiting and excess reactants. One improvement to this lesson is to have the students measure the mass of every single component of the Lego set and then measure the mass of the assembled car. This would have served as an introduction to the Law of Conservation of Matter whereby the sum of the mass of the parts are equal to the sum of the mass of the whole (matter can neither be created or destroyed).

Content and Posters designed by: Christabel Loh & Shahirah Bibi Bulletin designed by: Ng Wei Qi on behalf of School Innovation Team