Observation from Workshop on IIT Campus

As much as the professionals can be benefited on learning how to be more creative in problem solving, I am passionate and excited to apply this art-based learning process for university education as well.

Watching the students' smile and hearing their cheers and laughers for a few hours was priceless. Feeling their excitement when they pulled their first painting off the water and their appreciation of each other's work were marvelous. The creative smell of the innovative air at IIT was a dream come true.

A few students spoke up at the closing debrief. They shared their positive experience of artistic creativity and the learning process of building up the confidence. Also mentioned were the different perspectives to viewing a problem and the increased Chinese culture awareness.

Some students came up asking about where to get the ink and paper. One suggested that I supply them for sale as most students do not have easy access to transportation. Good point. Up till now, I avoided the merchandising by providing the attendees a pdf file of the supply list. This time, it motivates me to package up some supply for the next group, for the attendees who are excited and want to do more. And I would also provide them with a handout on site.

Most of the students came together and sat together. They got mixed pretty well with a color paper exercise. Then I gave them permission to photograph and video each other during the activities. It was a great ice breaker. They had a natural excuse to exchange email addresses in order to get in touch with one another later on. Some did express verbally that they were pleased to meet new people during the session. However, I spotted a few introverts. They were pretty quite. For future reference, I will give an explicit exercise for them to break their glacial position.

We ended a few minutes early to allow those who needed to leave for meetings. Some stayed and chatted, asked for an autograph and took photos.

Always ready to refine and improve, I look forward to knowing the students' perspective and suggestions. The real feedback comes from them. I am anxious to read what they wrote down and how they rated the session.

Here is the video clip to ensure that I was not hallucinating.

YouTube - IIT Students Painting On Water Workshop