How has CATS helped me to be more creative

In my entire NPP journey, I must admit that CATS has been the most interesting and definitely, the most CREATIVE module throughout these seven weeks!

One of my most memorable lessons was during the presentation for our first CATS project - lo and behold - Peer Teaching of Thinking Tools!

In just one lessons, we learnt a total of four thinking tools, including my own group's!

Firstly, Group 1 taught the thinking tool - 6 Thinking Hats! Through this thinking tool, I've learn that there can be six different ways of looking at the problem, thus solving it with the most effective solution ever!

The 6 Thinking Hats are:

• WHITE which means INFORMATION
• which represents someone with all the details, research, charts, numbers, etc
• It is important as it is the quality that matters, not quality!

• BLUE which means OVERVIEW
• which represents someone who defines the objective of the meeting. 
• For example, the leader of my group could call for the meeting with specific objectives to go through during the meeting. Without it my team would have gone in the wrong directions, and that would waste a huge amount of time.

• GREEN which means CREATIVITY
• which represents the different and unique ideas the team can come up with to counter the problem, something no one has thought of before.
• Everyone is always on the lookout for NOVELTY. How important it is to come up with creative and original ideas that have not been used by others before?

• YELLOW which means BENEFITS
• which is highly important because in every situation there must be advantages and positive effects for it to be successful
• I have to always focus on the positive (+ve) outcome, effects, results, side of things, and not be a pessimist. "Always look on the bright side of life"

• BLACK which means CAUTION
• which can be useful in providing feedback on solutions that may not be a good idea
• Pause and ponder at what the team had come up with. Is it good enough to continue? Or are there loopholes that must be looked into?

• RED which means FEELINGS
• which is based on one's gut feelings, emotions and intuition, of whether it would be a good solution
• As the saying goes, "A woman's intuition is never wrong". With this in mind, it may be good to trust my instincts! I could get results I never thought I would! 

I began realizing that in every team, any member, at any point in time, could be applying these six thinking hats! I start to identify each hat with each member. Sometimes, one member could be applying more than one thinking hat! How amazing is that!?

It has greatly helped me to widen my thinking skills, thinking from so many perspectives. Usually, I could only be thinking of one solution from one angle. However, by thinking from so many angles, it could benefit me by stretching my thinking, tapping into the potential I never knew I had!!

Whenever I used this thinking tool to help me to solve problems, I am always reminded of how colourful the thinking hats are!!

Look at how adorable we are with the 6 thinking hats Group 1 made! 

I remember how cute those BIG heart-shaped shades are!

I have the smaller version! :D

*Laughs @ Thila* HAHAHAHA :D

At URA! Look Mr Tio, you did the *twist!* ^^V

My lovely and awesome classmates and group members for the projects!

I really have to thank my group members that we were all able to complete our projects on time, efficiently and effectively. I love all of them! ^^

P.S. Dear Mr Tio, hope you had enjoyed my reflections! Enjoy the photographs! Will teach you how to blog one day! ^^


Photo credits: Some were from Thila's and Jolene's Facebook! The rest were my own!

Jazmyne Gwee Yi Xuan
PO3 CATS NPP