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EXPLORING 21st CENTURY SKILLS and ISSUES
Expand your sources of data Not only does the ability to think associatively require exposing your brain to new and novel ideas, it requires a large database of information for your brain to work with. For many students, their teacher and textbook are their only sources of intellectual stimulation. Expand your sources of intellectual data beyond your teacher and textbook. Mix up the medium of delivery. Incorporate new data sources and mediums into your daily routine. Here are some ideas: Listen to/watch podcasts - there are thousands of amazing podcasts on iTunes, NPR, Open Culture. Read blogs. Many of the world’s leading experts on all kinds of subjects are regular bloggers. If you are interested in a topic, it’s easy to consult an expert. Read their blog! Watch a webcast. NASA, United Nations, concert series, and all sorts of top notch universities have awesome webcasts. You can even ride a SpaceX Rocket from launch to 600 kilometers above the earth on the SpaceX website. Download audio books. There are thousands of titles, including lots of free ones. Don’t just listen to music – listen to a book on occasion. It’s possible be well-read, without even reading! Compare opinions from liberal newsites with opinions from conservative news sites without making a judgment as to who’s right or wrong – just to identify the differences. Listen to archived interviews of famous people. Read or watch foreign news sites like BBC, JapanNews Today, Aljazeera, Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks. Watch TED Talks. There are thousands of really interesting short talks by people who are not only expert speakers, but brilliant associational thinkers. Think differently Associational thinking skills require flexibility of thinking. This enables the brain to examine concepts or problems from different perspectives and shift approaches to solutions. Just like exercising your body, there are lots of ways to exercise your brain to improve its flexibility and agility. These exercises help you learn how to make connections between random ideas by figuring out why and how they connect. Visualize an issue or idea as a hologram. Walk around it. Walk under it. Examine it from every perspective. Think in metaphors, such as how is a traffic jam like an egg? or How is a virus like a Mayan pyramid? Degrees of Separation exercises are a fun way to develop the ability to find connections the discovery of solutions for difficult-to-solve problems. Select 3 things, events, or people at random, then figure out how they connect. If an idea could talk to you, what would it say? PRODUCT PREVIEW
Lesson 9 | The Trait to Innovate 166
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