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CTS A | Week 12 Compulsory Question 3

Connect CTS A to your learning and professional journey.

Q1. What kinds of collaborative projects would you like to do?

Q2. What kind of final project would you like to do?

Q3. Consider “Community Engagement and Professional Skills”.

One collaborative project that I would like to take part in is with the Diploma in Creative Direction for Fashion course under the School of Fashion. An idea that I had is for Design for Communication and Experiences students to design a fashion magazine that features the works of Fashion students. It can also double as promotional material for school open houses and student admission initiatives. One idea that I have for my final project in Year 3 is to tackle the topic of racism in Singapore. Even though Singapore is well-known for being a harmonious multiracial and multicultural society, there are still many prejudices against minorities to this day that don’t properly get addressed due to the reputation that Singapore has built up to itself and other countries. If I choose to take on this topic, I will make a communication campaign of posters, brochures and other promotional materials that encourages Singaporeans to confront their internal and external racism and learn more about how to unlearn this behaviour. One community that I would like to work with is the Health Promotion Board. One idea that I have for a project working with them is to create a series of promotional posters and other marketing materials about the importance of mental and physical health, or informing and educating about the stigma surrounding mental and physical disabilities.

Q4. How might CTS A help you professionally?

One job position that I have an interest in is in book and zine design. The CTS A module, along with my other modules, have helped me develop my growth mindset on a topic that I have some interest and experience in already. Another job position that I have an interest in is in digital marketing. The CTS A module, along with my other modules, has allowed me to develop my understanding of digital media and finding reliable sources and filing them, allowing me to better organise and document my research on what appeals to my audience for a project.

(Word count: 326)

[wlwutenanthy]

CTS A | Week 11 Compulsory Question 2

Q: Connect CTS A to all your other modules (and components)!

A:

Studio

In our Studio module, we learned about Data Space, which is about finding relations between different data sources. For our class activity on this subject, we used collaborative skills by working together in our groups, and across all the classes to categorise our items that we brought from home in different ways.

In our Studio module, we have many chances to work in groups for class activities. We exercise assertion and conflict resolution by learning how to resolve disagreements among groupmates by compromising. This way, we can all come to an agreement through everyone’s shared ideas.

In our Studio module, we often have to look up artist and designer references for our assignments. We exercise facts, reliable sources and filing them by creating a catalogue of references and sources so that we can easily refer back to them.

In our Studio module, we have our Creative Process Journal to record our journey through each assignment. We use digital media: documentation for art practice through noting down our references, activities that relate to the assignment and our progress all in one place.

Craft Workshop

In our Craft Workshop component, one of our assignments was to draw an abstract turtle based on a plastic drink bottle. We used critical thinking through analysing the graphics and elements of the bottle and thinking about how to incorporate it into our design.

Digital Skills

In our Digital Skills component, some people may struggle to keep up with what is being taught during the lesson. We exercise emotional intelligence by being empathetic towards our classmates and helping where we can.

Photography

In our Photography component, sometimes when taking photographs, they may not come out as desired. We exercise the growth mindset by learning how to enhance our photographs through taking suggestions from our lecturer and classmates.

(Word count: 301)

[wlwutenanthy]

CTS A | Week 10 Compulsory Question 1

Q1. How do you understand the Critical Thinking Skills module? Explain your choice of visual metaphor. Do you personally have an alternative visual metaphor? Include image/s in your response.

A1. I understand the Critical Thinking Skills module through visualising it as a brain. The brain is like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets, and I believe that is also true for what we have learnt in Critical Thinking Skills. I’m happy that my group used my idea for our group visual metaphor exercise, though some other examples that other groups used also appealed to me, such as using a hamburger.

Q2. Which was your favorite activity or session? Why? Which aspects of it were memorable for you?

A2. My favourite Critical Thinking Skills class activity is during week 5 of the semester, where we learned about the growth mindset. For that lesson, we ventured out of (but still kept nearby) school to take photos of different products. Then, we had to draw 15 different variations of that logo using our non-dominant hand. It was difficult to draw and make it look neat, but I didn’t give up, and managed to draw all 15. Once we were done, we looked over everyone’s logos together.

Q3. What is the value of working in a group?

A3. The value of working together in a group is that you gain the opportunity to learn different things from your groupmates, as well as possibly discover new things about yourself. Through working with others, you learn the value of collaboration, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and more skills that are crucial for working together with people who may have different ideas and perspectives than you do.

Q4. What do you wish you did more of, or better?

A4. What I wish I did better than what I have done for this module is work harder to make my voice heard than I have during some group projects. Even though I do speak up with my thoughts when it is needed, sometimes I am ignored or the conversation has already moved on to something else, so I do not feel it is worth mentioning. I will work on this by repeating my points to make sure what I am saying gets across.

(Word count: 308)

[wlwutenanthy]

CTS A | Week 5 Growth Mindset

Q1. Describe an eventful moment you have experienced in this class, bearing in mind the key ideas of the day.

A1. An eventful moment that I experienced in the class this week was learning about the growth mindset. Before, I have heard of this term in passing, but I never really gave it much thought as I wasn’t fully aware of what it meant. Now, I know that it means not giving up in the face of failure, and taking every setback as an opportunity to grow and better myself. We learnt this through drawing 15 versions of an existing logo with our non-dominant hand, which for me was the left hand. It was difficult to draw, and the drawings definitely would have looked better if I drew them with my right hand, but I didn’t give up and I managed to draw all 15 logos. That exercise taught me that I shouldn’t give up, no matter how hard it may be.

Q2. Include selected images of your personal sketches, and explain them. In particular, which sketches did your like the most? Which least? Why?

A2.

I like this logo as I like how the “&” wraps around the lemon.

I like this logo as I like how the lemon slice positioned above the words looks like a sunrise.

I like this logo as I like how the words are positioned inside the lemon.

I do not like this logo as even though I drew the two “C”s to look like lemon slices, it’s not very clear here.

I do not like this logo as I do not like how the lemon slices are positioned around the words.

I do not like this logo as it is only words, and there are no interesting details.

(Word count: 250)

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CTS A | Week 2 Collaboratve Skills

Q1. Describe your strengths and weaknesses as a collaborator. What did you do well, and what are some areas to improve? Discuss with reference to today's activities.

A1. My strengths as a collaborator are that I am able to listen to the ideas and suggestions of my teammates, even if I may not like or personally disagree with some of them. Though with some discussion where we sketched out our own ideas, we were able to reach a compromise to satisfy everyone, resulting in our final product. I also did my best to stick to my tasks of cutting up strips of paper and rolling them up into leaves/branches and flowers while my other teammates worked on their own individual tasks, ensuring we did our best for the project. One difficulty I faced was that I did not have enough time to make more flowers, hence why the trunk of our tree looked bare.

Q2. If you had more time and an unlimited budget, how would you design the monument differently? Include pictures of the group's work, and your personal re-design.

A2. If I had more time and unlimited resources, I would have made it larger and added words to the trunk. Since my idea for the monument initially was to gear it towards the topic of racism, I also personally would have made it a community oriented project by cutting up individual leaves from coloured paper and inviting minorities in the country to anonymously write down their own experiences with how they encountered racism in Singapore and tie it to a branch on the tree. Everyone can then read it and become more conscious of how these experiences affected these people and be more mindful when interacting with other races and ethnicities, therefore promoting racial harmony through showing how minorities are treated in Singapore.

(Word count: 250)

[wlwutenanthy]

CTS A | Week 1 What is Critical Thinking?

Q1. Describe your understanding of critical thinking that you had before the class, and reflect on what you may have learned.

A1. My understanding of critical thinking before the class was that it was about finding the flaws in anything that seemed to be far fetched or false to my understanding of the subject. But now, during and after the class, I have learned that critical thinking is more about observing a subject, anything in the world, and taking into consideration how that thing can be improved for the better. As a designer, I know now that critical thinking is an essential skill for me to have as I observe the world around me and think about how I can implement certain elements into my projects.

Q2. What have you learned about Mindfulness? How might you integrate this into your learning environment?

A2. What I have learned about mindfulness is that it is a form of focus and state of calm that keeps us in the present moment. It can also help one keep in touch with their senses and their bodies. I can integrate mindfulness into my learning environment by listening to my body’s needs and taking breaks like for food, water, or just to do stretches when I need them and not push myself to a breaking point.

Q3. Describe an eventful moment you have experienced in this class.

A3. An eventful moment which I experienced in this class was when I made three new friends, Aretha, Hylin, and Stevany. We got together in a group for our class discussion on how we can make the space in our basement studio more productive for us students, and we came up with solutions on how to better utilise and improve on the walls, tables, and the spacious area in general. (Word count: 250)

References:

"Critical Thinking and Reflection." engage@oa.mo.gov. , 4 May 2023, engage2.mo.gov/2023/04/may-2023-critical-thinking-and-reflection/

Elena Lewis. "Embracing Mindfulness: A Pathway to Inner Peace and Clarity." GPS Guide to Personal Solutions, Jul 12, 2023, www.linkedin.com/pulse/embracing-mindfulness-pathway-inner-peace-clarity-gpslansing