Week 2-4 Reflection: Creativity, Mindfulness, and Collaboration

This assignment presents a student's reflections on activities related to creative intelligence, mindfulness, and collaboration, conducted over three weeks. The reflection on creative intelligence defines it as the ability to generate novel ideas and explores divergent thinking through an activity, referencing concepts like yogic exercises and the importance of diverse perspectives in innovation. The mindfulness reflection discusses the meditative process and its impact on focus and stress reduction, including personal experiences with mindfulness exercises and the importance of conscious attention. The collaboration reflection analyzes a tower-building activity, highlighting the importance of teamwork, planning, and communication, and discusses Belbin's team roles and the attributes necessary for successful innovation. The assignment incorporates references to academic sources to support the reflections.

Reflection Activity - Week 2
Complete all the questions in the worksheet below. This is worth 10% of your overall grade.
1. What is creative intelligence? Describe in your own words (up to 50 words)
Creative intelligence is when a person is able to create a completely new idea and which is different
from others. Creative people are usually described as they are flexible and open minded people, and
difficult to pin down. At the same time, they can express their emotions by creating creative ideas.
Not everyone can be a creative person, because everyone has different environment and surrounded
people. To be a creative person a person needs to think “outside of the box”, to think differently
while having a unique perspective to develop a fresh idea.
2. Choose one of this week’s activities. Reflect on your experience and what you learnt
about your own creative intelligence (up to 350 words)
1- Find distinct methods of using something or a tool that is creative or even innovative. What
can create completely fresh innovations and even alter whole stuff is different thinking..
If you can become a better divergent thinker, you can think deeply about thinking patterns
and even come up with a completely distinct manner of executing works.
High proportion of divergent thinking genius level, with the greatest amount of ways to use a
paperclip. As it turns out, children are the most divergent thinkers and have some of the
greatest ideas to start a new company because of that ( Lee and Therriault 2013). For fresh
companies, the most distinctive and innovative ideas come from divergent thinking that often
blocked in adulthood.
In some yogic exercises, you are asked to think of an easy item such as an apple, a wall or any
other easy object and write as many thoughts as possible linked to it ( Benedek et al. 2014).
After you are unable to come up with any fresh thoughts, which may be a small amount at the
start, you will shift your attention back for a while and then concentrate on the initial object
and attempt again.
A person will get more thoughts during that second moment than at the start and at the end a
person could be surprised at all the things he or she knew about the item. It not only helps a
person to create lateral thinking and creativity, it also enables the person to concentrate and
achieve authority ( Silvia 2015).

As you get better, the yogic exercises suggest that you move up into abstraction and
concentrate on concepts such as love, truth, strength and other characteristics and gain fresh
perspectives by doing so.
3. Eagleman & Brandt (2017) state that “ground-breaking technologies don’t appear from
nowhere”. Where do they suggest they come from? (up to 100 words)
As per Eagleman and Brandt (2017) the idea of an inventor to create a “ground breaking technology”
appears from the “best ideas of their heroes”. In other words, a creative person or inventive person
has to dive deep in the other great inventions and creative ideas. It allows an innovative or creative
person to understand the core thinking process to develop a new idea or a new creation. The authors
have also mentioned that musicians like Jumi Hendrix often quoted his favourite musicians in his
compositions. It is clearly mentioned in this book that for developing a creative indigence a person
needs to pensive other’s intellectual interventions in the world of creativity.
References:
Benedek, M., Jauk, E., Sommer, M., Arendasy, M. and Neubauer, A.C., 2014. Intelligence,
creativity, and cognitive control: The common and differential involvement of executive functions in
intelligence and creativity. Intelligence, 46, pp.73-83.
Lee, C.S. and Therriault, D.J., 2013. The cognitive underpinnings of creative thought: A latent
variable analysis exploring the roles of intelligence and working memory in three creative thinking
processes. Intelligence, 41(5), pp.306-320.
Silvia, P.J., 2015. Intelligence and creativity are pretty similar after all. Educational Psychology
Review, 27(4), pp.599-606.

Reflection Activity - Week 3
Complete all the questions in the worksheet below. This is worth 10% of your overall grade.
4. What is mindfulness? Describe in your own words (up to 50 words)
Mindfulness refers to the meditative process that allows being aware of own body sensations,
surrounding, thoughts and feelings. In mindfulness meditative state when a person can experience the
present moment and rid of of the past or imagining the future.
5. Choose one of this week’s activities. Reflect on your mindfulness experience and
something new you learnt about yourself (up to 350 words)
I think People who meditate are more successful and happier than others or who do not
meditate.
It was the first time for me to practice this kind of meditation and I found it so helpful to be
relaxed. It feels like stoping the word of running thought and getting a relaxed state of mind
and body while forgetting about the past and stop thinking about the future. I found practicing
mindfulness is a simple and easily available for everyone and anytime. At the meditative state
moving and breathing slowly for a few minutes makes me feel lighter , brighter , and more
relaxed than before. The mindfulness meditation is a special kind of mental exercise for me
that have the potential to remove the dullness of the afternoon and energize us for the
remainder of the working day.
The process is very simple that is sitting down with feet on the floor, closing eyes in a
completely quiet room (class) followed by raising hand, and stretching slowly ( Creswell et
al. 2014). After a minute when I opened the eyes first time I noticed that I am feeling clearer
and brighter. I knew that the important is that you should recognize that these simple
movements , breathing , stillness and silence can help me to shift the feeling to more relaxed
and clear From feeling confused to feeling more concentrated. I have realised that few
minutes of meditation can increase energy and keep a person focused for the rest of the day.
Apart from that, there are many other benefits of practicing mindfulness such as it can
reduces stress , anxiety and depression, it is very easy process for anyone to shift moods to
happier and content ( Malinowski 2013).
Another benefit of this mindfulness mediation that I have felt is that it improves decision
making capability, since people are less reactive and make decision in a calmer state where
they are able to break habitual pattern and consider more option. Finally I have realised that it
can enhance brain function by improving attention span, working memory and reaction speed.
Moreover, it can be sated that motion is a excellent way to cultivate consciousness,

concentrate, and attention. Careful motion can reduce stress and anxiety as well as increase
calmness, relaxation and happiness — helping to generate learning circumstances ( Hoge et
al. 2013).
Coordinating the breath with these easy stretches is a great activity to dive into academic material
as well. For taking mental break from long tome study it also helps to make the mind fresh again
for learning. From the method of this mindfulness practice I can tell that it would be also a
wonderful outdoor activity.
6. According to Penman (2015) what is wrong with being mindless? Why does he believe it
is important for us to consciously paying attention to our life experiences? (up to 100
words)
As per Penman (2015), being mindless makes a human being automated in his or her life. An
automated person who does not have proper copiousness about “self” and “surroundings” cannot take
a decision properly in their regular live. Eventually it restricts the potentiality and makes the person
depressed. The author also mentioned that a conscious person can pay attention to both inner and
outer world that helps to experience the life with better clarity. It helps to take decision and to
flourish in career.
Reference:
Creswell, J.D., Pacilio, L.E., Lindsay, E.K. and Brown, K.W., 2014. Brief mindfulness meditation
training alters psychological and neuroendocrine responses to social evaluative
stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 44, pp.1-12.
Hoge, E.A., Bui, E., Marques, L., Metcalf, C.A., Morris, L.K., Robinaugh, D.J., Worthington, J.J.,
Pollack, M.H. and Simon, N.M., 2013. Randomized controlled trial of mindfulness meditation for
generalized anxiety disorder: effects on anxiety and stress reactivity. The Journal of clinical
psychiatry, 74(8), p.786.
Malinowski, P., 2013. Neural mechanisms of attentional control in mindfulness meditation. Frontiers
in neuroscience, 7, p.8.

Reflection Activity - Week 4
Complete all the questions in the worksheet below. This is worth 10% of your overall grade.
1. What is collaboration? Describe in your own words (up to 50 words)
Collaboration is a method of conducting any activity where two are more people work together with
coordination, cooperation and mutual understanding while having same goal. Collaboration increases
the efficiency and decreases the execution time of an activity (Styron 2014). In collaboration every
stakeholder works in different sub frame of a complete framework.
2. Reflect on your experience of this week’s tower building activity. What were your
insights about collaboration based on how you and your group members worked
together? What would you do differently next time? (up to 350 words)
Collaborative activity is a very effective strategy to develop team-work environment in any
environment. We were thee members in a team and we have collaboratively developed a complex
structure through straw. Initially we have divided the team in three functional components. In team
based work taking different responsibilities by different members allows a ordinal and structural
workflow, which is very easy to control as well. In our team my work was to shape the drinking
straw so that one straw can be easily attached with other. Placing the cardboard in a proper position
so that it can hold the 3d structure was my another responsibility. Throughout the structural building
process I had to talk with other two members to understand their requirement and perspectives. I
conveyed my perspectives and opinions as well to make their works synchronised with mine. After
completing a small section of the planning and structural development we communicated with each
other for both internal and external reflective analysis. Based on our review we changed our work
process many times to make a perfect fit.
From this activity I have learned that sharing information with each other in a very healthy procedure
for team members to develop and strong and collaborative work process. However, there are some
mistakes that we have made during this activity that did not allow us to build the most effective
construction possible. One of those mistakes is lack of planning. We have not used any particular
framework of performing tasks. As a result we need to edit our work many time to adjust with each
other. Apart from that we did not set up any team milestone that could work as short achievements.
Due to lack of proper communication timing we were unable to track the work process of each other

(Inoue and Liu 2015). Therefore, from next time we will make a collaborative plan earlier before
starting to work in a collaborative activity. Apart from that, we will need to set out our personal
objective points that will allow us to communicate with each other in specific time gaps.
3. Why does Belbin (1991) believe that complimentary team roles are important for
successful creative teams? What are the three essential human attributes he believes
successful innovations require? (up to 100 words)
As per Belbin (1991), each team member have individual strengths and weaknesses that can be
suited for a specific job role. Allocating all team members in a single framework restricts the
opportunity to utilise the maximum potentialities of the team members. Therefore, to build a
successful team each team members should have different set of responsibilities where each team
member can give their maximum potential.
The three essential human tributes for human innovation that is required in a innovative team
building are the alliance between Genius and orchestrator, a well-balanced team and the socially
versatile team ( Belbin 1991).
Reference:
Belbin, R.M., 1991. Design Innovation and the TEAM. Design Management Journal (Former
Series), 2(3), pp.38-42.
Inoue, H. and Liu, Y.Y., 2015. Revealing the intricate effect of collaboration on innovation. PloS
one, 10(3), p.e0121973.
Styron, R.A., 2014. Critical thinking and collaboration: A strategy to enhance student learning.

Reflection Activity - Week 5
1. What is diversity? Describe in your own words (up to 50 words)
Diversity implies having different individual as well as interconnected element which allows
considering different perspectives and opinions to perform a activity while prioritising. In an
organisational view the diversity implies gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, physical ability, religion
and other diversity. Different thinking patterns, skills and experiences ( Wang, Kim and Lee 2016).
2. Reflect on your experience of one of this week’s diversity activities. What interesting
insights did you learn about yourself and others? (up to 350 words)
In this week I have undergone through 3 types of activity. In first activity I was participated in online
test to identify my personality. After watching the result I was surprised to see that there are so many
personality traits in me that were completely hidden in my personality. I realised that these
underlying differences in personality taints make a group of persons diverse. In second activity I have
conducted an on road interview session on immigrants to understand their cultures and perspectives
on different problem solving and regular life factors. From this activity I have found that persons
from similar demographical background have similar choice, perception and attitude towards
antheming. I have also found that different economic background can also cause different perception
in practical problem solving solution (Harvey 2013). From this activity I was realised that to
incorporate multidimensional work efficiency in a team we need members from different perception
that can induce their different abilities and limitation. This is the cause of making a team diverse
from every aspect to make the team more dynamic and adaptive. From the 6 hat activity I found that
from different perspective even I have different opinion about legalisation of Marijuana.
This week was very essential for me because the weekly activities allowed me to understand the
essentiality of diversity and parallel thinking. I have realised that from every aspect diversity is a
major part of making a collaborative work process successfully. It also allows the members to utilise
their diverse abilities and limitation in a synchronised way to achieve the goals. Therefore, In a
collaborative work process cultural competency is a crucial part that allows holding the collaborative
environment in a team with proper value sharing and mutual performance uplifting ( Kohls 2015).
From this understanding I have come to this conclusion that in my future academic and professional
career I need to focus of diversity appraised collaborative work process to increase the potentiality to
reach success. I believe it will also help me to solve problems by perceiving the situations from

different aspects.
3. Why does de Bono (1987) believe parallel thinking is important? (up to 100 words)
Parallel thinking is thinking process that considers all substituting thinking together instead of
considering a particular thinking as ideal to negating others. According to Bono (1987), every
thinking perspective has different advantages and limitations that can be utilised likewise in different
phase of innovative intervention. Therefore, for a team work prioritising each perspective or through
process can increase the creative ideas and successful intervention ( De Bono 1987). Therefore, it can
be clearly seen that parallel thinking is a very essential part of collaborative work process with an
innovative goal.
Reference:
De Bono, E., 1987. The direct teaching of thinking as a skill. Thinking skills instruction: Concepts
and techniques, pp.217-229.
Harvey, S., 2013. A different perspective: The multiple effects of deep level diversity on group
creativity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(5), pp.822-832.
Kohls, C., 2015. Collaboration tools and patterns for creative thinking. arXiv preprint
arXiv:1503.01065.
Wang, X.H.F., Kim, T.Y. and Lee, D.R., 2016. Cognitive diversity and team creativity: Effects of

team intrinsic motivation and transformational leadership. Journal of Business Research, 69(9),
pp.3231-3239.
Complete all the questions in the worksheet below. This is worth 10% of your overall grade.