Discover Bio-Design Thinking: Adopting Visual Images to Transform Our Information Processing Abilities

By Dr. Rudy A. Magnan

Our minds are organized into a certain mind-set based on our perception of the reality we develop in our socialization into society.

I believe that because we are living and operating a new creative paradigm filled with new ideas, concepts, and laws, we must begin to challenge our existing mind-set and seek creative concepts and methods that will allow us to see this new alternative reality that many refuse to recognize and accept. We can look at nature as a composite of isolated snapshots showing its beauty, or we can view the incredible and intelligent design and function behind every plant, tree, and living creature.

The intended goal of the book is to provoke your mind to see this incredible bio design from which we can begin to develop a higher level of understanding and meaning. We will soon realize that we will discover and recognize new patterns as we process new information.

We will begin to connect ideas and concepts previously not connected. We will raise the quality of our perceptions and thinking using the intelligent design found in nature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984525574

Dr. Rudy A. Magnan

AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY Dr. Rudy Magnan, author, cognitive psychologist and education consultant has conducted seminars and workshops in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. An expert in skill training in the area of creativity, innovation, thinking, and cognitive teaching strategies. Dr. Magnan’s ideas are provocative and they emphasize the importance of design thinking. His analysis and proposals offer a fresh insight into how we can solve our problems in education as well in the workplace. Dr. Magnan received special training in the teaching of thinking as a deliberate skill in his collaboration with Dr. Edward de Bono, the internationally renowned leader in the area of creativity and design thinking. This included the Cort Thinking Skills program, the Six Thinking Hats, and Lateral Thinking Techniques. He has also been involved in corporate training programs designed to improve communication and performance in many American companies. An adjunct assistant professor at Adelphi University in 1978, Dr. Magnan was instrumental in bringing college credit course in the social sciences to high schools. He has also introduced the Cort Thinking Skills Program of Dr. de Bono into schools in Italy where he has also written a series of articles in creativity and innovation for a leading Italian newspaper.

Book preview

DISCOVER

BIO-DESIGN

THINKING

ADOPTING VISUAL IMAGES TO TRANSFORM

OUR INFORMATION PROCESSING ABILITIES

DR. RUDY A. MAGNAN

Author of ‘Reinventing American Education’,

‘Mindsight’

‘Discover Design Pattern Thinking’

Objective

Developing Advanced Cognitive Processing Skills

Copyright © 2018 by Dr. Rudy A. Magnan.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2018905527

ISBN:                        Hardcover                        978-1-9845-2559-8

                                 Softcover                          978-1-9845-2558-1

                                  eBook                                978-1-9845-2557-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/30/2018

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 Discover Biodesign Thinking

Chapter 2 Developing Meta Cognitive Processing Skills

Chapter 3 Challenging Established Thinking on Education

Chapter 4 A Link Between Perception, Thinking and Observation

Chapter 5 Articulating Understanding/Meaning

Chapter 6 Facing New Challenges in an Age of Changing Values and Beliefs

Chapter 7 Seeking Design Thinking and Using Advanced Cognitive Training

Chapter 8 Understanding Natures Intelligent Design in Changing Perceptions

Chapter 9 Understanding Visualized Thinking

Chapter 10 Developing Visual Learning

Chapter 11 Developing Metacognitive Processing Skills

Chapter 12 Developing Metacognitive Fitness

Bibliography

About the Author

I wish to thank my typist Dawn Barrett for her time and effort and Richard Schinella for identifying all the errors and changes to be made. Finally, my wife Maria Magnan for her patience and her advice during the preparation of the manuscript.

Regards,

Rudy Magnan

PREFACE

T HE GOAL OF ‘Bio-Design Thinking’ is to offer an alternative method of thinking that provokes the mind to focus on the processes behind the ‘intelligent design’ in nature in order to incorporate new visual designs with which to generate new creative ideas and insights. Some of the greatest innovators and scientists deliberately focused on these natural designs in their attempts to recognize new patterns of understanding which previously were not apparent so long as they utilized their existing mindset. Some of these creative thinkers include Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison etc. Each of them were very curious about nature’s ‘intelligent visual designs’ in their attempts to figure things out.

Creative thinking methods should become a priority consideration in the school curriculum but also in corporate ‘management culture’ because we are living and operating in a new creative paradigm. Today, new ideas and innovations are sought after in the remerging creative economy that unfolds before our eyes every day in the form of multiple new gadgets and inventions that are advertised in the mass media.

We can no longer ignore the importance of raising the quality of our thinking necessary to find solutions in light of the multiple new challenges in our personal and professional lives. In the past ideas and methods of thinking remained constant through many generations. Now, it is not unusual for us to outlive ideas, existing technology and inventions. Consequently, I believe that attention should be devoted to researching and incorporating new higher level information processing skills so as to reconnect current notions with new insights and ideas to broaden our web of understanding. As we implement new thinking methods, we will realize that our minds are capable of making these continuous connections and associations. This mental practice will also help to develop an ability to articulate what we understand. As we generate new patterns of recognition, we will create meaningful ‘personal knowledge’.

The ideas presented in the chapters attempt to bring clarity and relevancy to what is involved in developing processing skills related to ‘Bio-Design Thinking’. They include rethinking mental operacy, questioning current education model, applying nature’s visual designs to recognize new information patterns, understanding importance of visualized thinking methods, significance of metacognitive thinking, etc.

Our natural environment provides examples of its creative manifestations which help us to understand its unique visual designs and their functions. As we focus its unique visual creations we discover opportunities to generate higher levels of thinking and understanding. But we must demonstrate an interest and a willingness to understand and apply nature’s unique processes using a new ‘visual metaphor’ for connecting ideas with graphic symbols and different visual designs found in nature.

CHAPTER 1

Discover Biodesign Thinking

Transforming the Mind into an

Idea Generator

Reconceptualizing Mental Operacy

‘The Earth itself moves through cycles, rhythms and seasons as do plants, animals, and insects.’

I N THIS NEW millennium, we realize we are faced with many serious problems and challenges that will require new ideas and concepts. There is a thirst for new ideas and insights. But we suffer from a kind of information anxiety due to the daily bombardment of new information and data that is not understood through ideas. Consequently, we cannot extract meaning and find a design web of understanding. As a result, we seem to continue to fall back on established mindsets to figure things out which do not produce the results we were seeking. For example, consider the American model of education, that not only fails to provide a return on investment but tends to sterilize student minds to operate as information sponges that have to be tested to validate their learning.

This system is antiquated, unable or unwilling to change because of vested interests of teacher unions. The bureaucracy is suspicious of new ideas that might undermine their control. Many of the attempts to improve the industrial model fail because the solutions fail to really redefine what education should be doing in an age where living and working involves solving the new emerging problems using new design ideas. The current concept of education fails to fulfill its original goal, developing student’s minds prepared to face new challenges.

‘Relying on text written material and the use of textbooks is similar for many students to expecting them to learn another language before being able to engage in the learning process.’

What is Visual Learning

The new reality is that we are living in a new creative paradigm which involves new ideas, new laws, and new ways of thinking. Today new creative ideas are sought after, yet we seem to lack the skills necessary to generate new ways of thinking to face many daily challenges, which seem to overwhelm us.

Consider for a moment the problems we encounter in this world in which we live and work. We sleep too little, we hardly exercise, we tend to eat poorly, we can’t find enough time to spend with our families, we are continually in a hurry rushing from one place to another. We often do not realize that this lifestyle will eventually impact our physical and mental health. We are too busy to reflect and realize that this lifestyle brings unnecessary stress and pressure. What is suggested is that we refocus on the designed living systems in our natural environment that have an effective and stable rhythm that successfully repeats every season. As we take the time to connect with nature as many have done in the past, we will begin to appreciate the visual perceptions of landscape artists, naturalists, poets, etc. whose artifacts expressed our humanity.

‘Ever since the dawn of mankind, we have evolved as a society because of a few individuals who took the time to identify patterns within the environment’. Pattern Recognition is Link to Evolution.

Visual Thinking and Pattern Recognition

I have seen the power of new ideas and methods of thinking that can transform individual behavior. I experienced new mental outcomes after collaborating with Dr. Edward de Bono, a world authority on developing skills to produce creative and design thinking. He created a very successful method of thinking known as Lateral Thinking, which has been used by many international companies to develop new products and services. This method continues to be implemented worldwide. I now realize that there is a real need for new thinking methods that can transform our minds into Idea Generators. It is now possible to achieve success in this new creative paradigm. We have an opportunity to step into a new reality that many of us do not believe exists. We seem to remain trapped in the old reality, unable to imagine that there is a new way of thinking.

‘In our early existence we identified the behavior patterns of wild animals and used this knowledge to hunt them to avoid being hunted by by them.’

Visual Thinking and Pattern Recognition

But the reason for our inability to think differently has to do with our being socialized into society starting with our upbringing, our education, and the daily mass media bombardment that creates a fixed mindset which is very difficult to change unless we live in a totally different cultural environment. When we experience living and interacting in a new international environment, we tend to note the different values, the different attitudes, and behavior in a new social setting. I can attest to the impact that living and working in a different culture has had upon my fixed perceptions and thinking. This is the reason why I strongly recommend that college students spend a year working or studying abroad.

The second reason why