Practice Whole Brain

Whole Brain Post

By: Keiley Munsterman

Well, as a Biology major it is often difficult to find times to embrace my right-brain and all its creativity because Biology is such a left-brained subject. However, in the Chemistry Lab I have been taking, somebody along the way decided that we needed to have at least one lab that was dedicated to creating something entirely unique. And from the decision, "Chemistry in Art" came to life. This lab asked that we draw out a design and through the use of chemicals and science, we etched out the design on a small brass pendant. The lab intended for us to use both the left and right sides of our brains, but being who I am I didn't put much thought into using my creativity and I ended up drawing a very basic and unimpressive image that took very little time to create. However, in doing so, I missed the point entirely! As I look back on that lab, I wish I would have tried more to utilize both sides of my brain rather than only use my left-brain to simply complete the lab. I had this wonderful opportunity to be diverse in my thinking, and I completely ignored it. What a shame!

Whole Brain Post

Alina Sunoo

Whole-Brain Post

This past semester, I have been in a Lighting and Sound class. A few weeks ago for my class, we each were told to create a light plot for the production, “Assassins.” This musical follows different individuals who have tried (and sometimes succeeded) to kill a United States president. I mostly used my left-brain for this assignment. This is because I thought the light plot was supposed to just be a technical, not creative thing. However, now that I think of it, of course I could have used my right brain as well. After listening to the presentations from others in my class, I realized that there was more than one way of lighting a stage. For example, I could have experimented more with the colors of light and the positions of the lighting instruments. In addition to colors and positions of light, I also could have utilized my right brain by being creative with the different kinds of lighting instruments to use. Now I am convinced Pink’s A Whole New Mind was definitely correct in stating that left-brained thinking is not sufficient. Though of course left-brained thinking is essential, it simply cannot function as efficiently as it does when combined with right-brained thinking as well.

Whole Brain Post

Whole Brain Post

By Anna Rajala

I was in a graphic design class this semester, and so we did a lot of work on design software, creating arguments through images and design. One of my assignments was an unpopular unimportant opinion poster. Essentially, the prompt was to make a poster going against the grain on an issue that hardly matters. I decided to talk about how much I don't like Oreo's. Because I'm not very good at art, I approached my assignment from the perspective of creating something that was fun to make and had a lot of elements and color. However, that wasn't really the point of the assignment or the class. I wish I had added more left-brain analyzing to the project; good design requires detail-orientation and making sure every element has a specific purpose. The assignment was about being creative, but the creativity was found in forming an argument but making it attractive. The important part was making an argument. I didn't realize before this class that design is a form of rhetoric, and that images should be very intentional, like every sentence in an essay. Without ordered data or some other kind of information, there's no purpose for design, but without design, few people will be able to understand the information being presented: in this case, left-and-right-brain thinking need each other to be successful.

Whole Brain

One assignment that could have been made a whole-brain assignment is for my Business Info System’s homework in Microsoft Excel. Each week we learn a series of tricks that Excel can perform and then are assigned simulations for us to practice the ideas with data through the following of steps that go along with the simulation. These activities are in every way imaginable, left-brained. The only way to do well is to follow the steps exactly as they are written or the computer program that grades the assignment will mark the steps wrong. A good chunk of the steps do not even pertain to the data that is being analyzed. Instead, it will ask us to “format cell B7 with a 40% light blue fill” so that it makes sure we know how to change the fill color of cells, which is an important skill to know. However, this method leaves no room for creativity. Instead, the instruction could read “fill cell B7 with the color of your choice.” This would allow my classmates and I to pick what we think looks best in the spreadsheet and give me the freedom to design my spreadsheet how I think it should look. Also, these assignments could be made into whole-brain tasks by allowing us the ability to structure the tables, graphs, charts, and whatever else we work with in the way that we want. All the tables and charts are set up for us when we begin the simulation which is convenient, but restricts our creative minds from displaying them in a way that appeals to how our brain looks at data and makes most sense to us. There is probably little dispute that Excel is naturally a left-brain beast, but there are ways that right-brain thinking can be incorporated to into its use.

-Brett T.

A Whole Brain

In my International Relations class, we were given a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of columns of data on it. The amount of data was overwhelming: statistics had been recorded from the early 1900s to 2010 for hundreds of countries (displaying their Foreign Direct Investments, percentage of the population living in poverty, gross domestic product, gross domestic product, gross domestic product with allowances for purchasing power parity, etc.). We had to, using this data, find some sort of correlation between the sets of data. Because I consider myself to be more right brain oriented, I had a hard time trying to understand the hundreds of columns of data, much less trying to identify some sort of correlation between the sets of data. The assignment would have been more inclusive of right brain reasoning patterns had it included, for example, some metaphors or colorful diagrams that would serve to explain what each of these financial terms are and how they relate to each other. If these terms could have been visually represented/explained somehow, I think the assignment would have been more impactful because I would have understood it a lot more.

Whole Brain Post

Josh Tandy

I took an Interpersonal-Communications class this semester to finish up one of my gen ed credits. Right before Thanksgiving, my professor gave us a paper on analyzing a movie with one of the theories we discussed in class. He had multiple suggestions on the syllabus and the movie I chose to examine was Crazy, Stupid, Love with Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling. I had never seen the film before, but I heard good things about. I was jotting notes down while I was watching it and it was a pretty good romantic comedy. After that, I almost immediately hopped on my computer and started typing the paper. I was mostly talking about how the film related to the theory I was talking about and not the other merits of the film. I just kept typing and typing and then I hit a wall on about halfway through the third page. I couldn’t figure out what more to write. I took a deep breath and took a little walk around Duvall to try and clear my head. I eventually got back to my room and reread what I wrote, and I had a realization. I somehow took a relatively right-brain movie and made it almost entirely left-brain paper. I thought back to Pink’s book and this assignment and realized I needed to take another crack at this. So, I started to incorporate more right brain ideas and I eventually got the paper to be about 4 and a half pages long. This isn’t technically what you were looking for but this was about the only project that was close to the prompt and I think it made for a good story.

Whole Brain Post

For most of my fall semester Calculus I have struggled fully understanding and comprehending the content of the class. The first chapter we went over was especially troubling for me. I could not get any of the information I learned to stick in my brain. I feel that if I had taken a more creative approach or reached out to others for assistance, I wouldn't have had as many issues with the class. The big issue I had was understanding the abstract concepts that are present in some parts of Calculus. The concepts in Calculus are ultimately left brain oriented. By taking a different, more creative approach, I could have more easily understood what I was learning. Although Calculus is predominantly a left brained subject I could have integrated right brained thinking in order to alleviate some of the stress of learning a complex subject. This is not specific to a certain event or project from this semester, but I think over all right brained thinking could have been applied to my Calculus class. Even after that first tough chapter, I did not try to find more creative ways to retain information. I will try in incorporate right brained thinking into my future difficult classes.

Whole Brain Post

In my sociology class, one activity was to search for crime rates in Spokane. We were trying to determine what areas in Spokane have higher crime rates and what crimes were the most prevalent in these areas. We used the data to figure out that Spokane has extremely high rates of property crime, but really low homicides. This activity mainly focused on the left-brain, as we only had to look at numbers and determine the areas with high crime rates. In order to make this activity focus on both areas of the brain, we would have to think about why the crimes in Spokane are centralized and are typically non-violent. We could have been looking at why areas have higher crime rates, such as demographic, poverty, etc. Also, we could have tried to think of solutions to high crime areas which are typically the result of social structures, poverty, and demographics. Another area we could have looked at that involves more right-brain thinking is why Spokane has high property crimes, but fairly low homicide. While we typically use both sides of our brains in Sociology, this activity was geared towards more left-brain thinking which is required for data analysis. However, sociologists often delve deeper than the analysis of data and also look at social structures and the interactions between individuals as well as groups. Most sociologists stay away from using solely data that relies on numbers, and use observations as well as social trends to evaluate certain situations in society.

Whole Brain Approach 

By Amanda Pool 

In my Wisdom Literature theology class, we were first asked to dive into scripture and really analyze what the text was saying and then analyze different perspectives, cultural/time context and all the metaphorical details of what was being said in the passage. This was clearly left brained usage, because of the tactical and logical reasoning that we were using to come with educated evaluations of the scripture. After this, the professor asked us all to get into groups and grab markers and poster board. We were then instructed to get creative, and draw out our vision using pictures or diagrams to explain what we thought was happening. This activity encouraged us to think outside of the box, and to stop thinking so literally about what we had read. As a group, we were able to play, collaborate by working as a team, and share our individual ideas together until we came to consensus. This part of the activity was more right-brained because we were getting to create a visual for our words.

Personally, the right-brained section of the activity benefited my group by allowing each of us to share our thoughts and represent that image on paper. We then got to share what we learned with the class, which was much more than what we had learned on our own. Working as a team was beneficial to our learning process.

However, the left-brained section at that start was helpful so that we were able to gather our thoughts and feelings before jumping right in to group work. Therefore, Both left and right tactics are important to the learning process overall. In the future I will be more intentional with my work and make sure that I am taking care of both left and right brained processes to benefit my projects, etc. 

Story/Empathy Post

By Amanda Pool

The summer had always been filled with pink skies and beach filled days,
climbing trees, camp fires that made our clothes smell of smoke.

Our perfectly still reflections in the water became rippled by the splashing,
our smiles were not shaken.

 Now, nostalgia is ever so present in the pink skies.

Practice Whole Brain

     Jacqui McPeck      

         Unfortunately, many of the assignments I’ve completed thus far have had pretty unforgiving guidelines that didn’t leave much room for right-brained thinking. The one project that really could have benefited from a more whole-brained response was the “Maker’s Project” in my writing course. In it, we could either pick a pre-existing museum, memorial, or work of art that had historic significance and write several paragraphs describing how specific aspects of the piece highlighted elements of rhetoric and manipulated the piece’s impact, or we could design our own memorial or artwork and explain our own intended purpose. For the sake of time, I chose to examine Edgar S. Paxson’s Custer’s Last Stand despite my initial excitement at the opportunity to create something more artistic. While I was happy with my finished project and the high marks I received, I still can’t shake the feeling that I should have taken the other option and set my right brain free. I would have loved to draw out my own memorial complete with well-thought-out landscaping and hidden meanings or even pull out my well-worn paint set and used a symphony of colors to convey emotion and importance. In the end, I chose to follow the relative safety of a run-of-the-mill paper instead of taking the risk and using the whole-brained approach to this project. In the future, I hope to challenge myself to tackle the more engaging project options, like designing my own memorial, head-on and use the inevitable time crunch to motivate myself instead of being intimidated back into a strictly left-brained or right-brained approach.

Whole Brain Project

Whole Brain Project: by Alyssa Peterson

Over this past semester, I have had a variety of projects, papers and assignments due. One particular one was a stock pitch for the Whitworth Student Investment Group. In preparing this, I faced a lot of quantitative data, formulas and statistics, and spent hours trying to represent and rectify them to the company. However, without somehow harmonizing the numbers and making it appealing to the right-brain of the audience, I would have succeeded only in boring them with data. My partner and I put a lot of time into carefully crafting the details of our slides, such as the color, layout and fonts. In this, we tried to incorporate a right-brain element of harmony and symphony and reach our audience in this way. Had we not done this, our arguments may actually not have proved as valid because they failed to fully reach our audience, even though our numbers were accurate. We likely could have added even more right-brain elements by some sort of playful humor or story to put the audience at ease and help them feel that the company was a personable one too. In this way, even though something like a story is not necessary to our stock pitch, it could have made investors more likely to purchase it because they felt a more personal connection through it. As I will likely give many more similar pitches in the future, I will keep in mind the value of incorporating right brain elements to my presentation. 

Whole Brain Post

By: Kyle Schmit

Looking back over the last semester, there are a number of projects and assignments that could have benefited from a more 'whole brained' approach. Specifically, we had an assignment in Spanish class to participate in a "Cultural Experience" and write a brief one page description of the activity. I decided to do one of the preset options, a trip to De Leon's Grocery on Francis. There was a list of questions that I was supposed to answer, and as such, I went into the experience, clipboard in hand, to answer those questions. This was a very right sided approach to the assignment, question and answer. Had I gone into the project with a whole minded approach, I could have gained much more from the experience. I know that I would have been better able to interact with people from another culture and to glimpse through to what the Hispanic world is really like. Instead, I spent my time at De Leon's with my head down, looking at my paper, and navigating the store looking for specific items rather than having a true cultural "experience."

Whole-brain Post

By Dana Lambert

     For my C.S. Lewis class we were assigned a group project where we had to choose one of Lewis's books to read and then present it to the class through a skit. My group chose to read Reflections on the Psalms. The main message of the book that we chose to focus on was judgment. Through his writing Lewis reminds us that while some people may seem to be in the wrong based on their actions, God continues to judge us based on our treatment of other people despite their actions. 

     Our skit began with a thief stealing books from someone. The next scene was the resulting court trial in which God is the judge and the thief is let go, while a camera crew walks in to reveal that the character who initially appears to be the Plaintiff is being "pranked" and is really the Defense. This project was mostly right-brain oriented. The plot twist, as well and humor infused throughout the skit, helped to make our presentation more engaging, and we had a lot of fun inventing a wide variety of characters. While were creative in our way of communicating Lewis's message, however, we failed to explain Lewis's logic and reasoning behind his argument. This could have been improved by our reading of a quick follow-up analysis of Lewis's though process, describing the main points he made to arrive at his conclusion on the definition of judgement. By adding this left-brain element to the project, we gain a better understanding of Lewis's argument in the context of his viewpoint.

Whole-Brain Post- by Krystal Roberts

For my US History Before 1877 class this semester we have a final research project that we are working on. The project is a five-page research paper and my assigned section is the American Revolution. In order to break up the research into smaller stages, we have been completing smaller assignments in which we pick a topic, do research on that topic, gather primary and secondary sources, develop a thesis, create an annotated bibliography, and then create an outline before writing our final paper. Much of the work we are doing to prepare for the paper is analytical and left-brain focused work. One way to add a right-brain dimension to this assignment would possibly be to tweak the research project a little to include both a research paper and an additional performative or supplemental work that physically and creatively demonstrates our research. For example, the assignment could be to write a 3-5-page research paper and also come up with a creative component that engages the class in learning about our topic. For my specific topic on the impact of education and literacy in the American Revolutionary War, one possibility for a creative supplement would be to create a short video or a PowerPoint presentation explaining how education and literacy were the key link between Enlightenment ideals and fostering the revolutionary spirit.

Whole Brain Post- by Angie Brasher

I had a project I just finished for my Financial Accounting class called the “Monopoly Project.” We started off by playing Monopoly and recording our transactions, then we completed the full accounting cycle using the records from the game. Each document was put as a separate sheet in Excel. The main point of the project was to have a real example of accounting, rather than just submitting homework problems and exercises. However, because the main point of the project was to get the accounting part, and Excel linking, correct, I didn’t focus on design and the appearance of the worksheets as much. I feel that if had more time I could have used more of my right-brain in being creative and making my document more presentable. Currently I am taking CS-125, which is an Excel and Access class, and I’ve learned a lot that really helped me in this project with the more technical part, but I felt like I could have done a lot more with design and color schemes.