Success: Practical Thinking Skills (edX)

Success: Practical Thinking Skills Online Course Overview

This award-winning, Success: Practical Thinking Skills online course by edX helps you succeed in work and life. It empowers you with the positive values for a resilient life and equips you with powerful problem-solving skills, demonstrated with the success stories and case studies on how to excel in a job interview and study in higher education.

The current version (2.1) contains new materials that show how people/businesses may adopt the creative thinking skills in addressing the new world challenges brought on by COVID-19.

Positive Values and Powerful Skills for Your Success

This course consists of three parts and twelve units, with abundant case studies and examples. You will learn that the key to the success of your work and personal life lies in the mastery of positive values and practical thinking skills.

Positive Values from Three Great Masters

In Part A, you will be inspired by the insights of Aristotle, Kant and Mill. Their advices cover the topics of your personal success, pursuit of duty and contribution to social happiness. You will learn from their wisdom how to construct your own positive outlook on life with meaningful purposes and resilience to challenges.

You will consolidate your knowledge through two major case studies in this part, in which you learn how to excel in a job interview and the study in higher education. In addition, to turn your study of the great masters’ ideas to fun, comic episodes are presented for your perusal and reflections.

Powerful Problem-Solving Skills

In Part B, you will study a bundle of effective problem-solving skills and decision-making strategies. They include the five faces of creativity, ten methods of provocative operations and six thinking hats.

To be successful in your work and life, these creative thinking skills are proven very powerful and adopted by creative geniuses, innovative managers and corporate businesses around the world.

Success Stories and a Micro-Movie on Life and Death

In Part B, eye-opening success stories of Bruce Lee, Nick Vujicic, Jack Ma and Steve Jobs will heighten your personal motivation to strive for success in work and life. On the other hand, as a major case study, a micro-movie has been filmed for this course, featuring local TV actors.

The micro-movie raises the question how to make a life-and-death decision for your family member. Guidance will be provided on how to apply the problem-solving skills in such a life-and-death decision.

Unique Creative Success

Part C is a brief conclusion. It highlights the next step of upgrading your creative problem-solving skills by securing your unique creativity in accordance with personal traits, potentials and talents.

A Timely Course in Thinking through the Challenge Posed by the Pandemic COVID-19

The wide applicability of the practical thinking skills of this course helps you creatively address different sorts of challenges, including the one brought on by the pandemic of COVID-19.

Should doctors provide medical treatment only to the selected patients who are more likely to survive because of the shortage of resources? With regard to this type of question, can you spell out your position with proper justification? You will find the discussion of the pros directly in Unit 3 and the cons indirectly in Unit 2. In addition, can you tell how individuals/businesses creatively meet the specific challenge of the pandemic?

You will find the creative problem-solving skills expanded and discussed in Unit 6 with a case study specifically devoted to the challenge of COVID-19.

Course Instructor

Currently Interim Director of General education Centre at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Jack Chun has been Chief Examiner for HKEAA and Consultant on Thinking Skills for the HKSAR government, the commercial sectors such as SmarTone-Vodafone and professional groups, including medical doctors, C.E.O.’s and the former Chief Executive of HKSAR government.

Dr Chun has also provided consultancy services to universities, including the Cornell-VinUniversity project in 2019. He has taught Creativity and Creative Thinking and Life and Death for over two decades. Apart from the three MOOCs he has developed on edX, he has also created a mobile app on Ethical Thinking adopted by the four Faculties of the university.

The publishers of his writings include Oxford University Press, Routledge, McGraw-Hill, Springer and others.

Course Syllabus

Part1: Positive Values for Success in Work and Life

• Introduction
  • Aristotle – Personal Success
  • Kant – Pursuit of Duty
  • Mill – Contribution to Social Happiness
  • Case Study: Smart Study in Higher Education
  • Case Study: Success in a Job Interview

Part 2: Practical Thinking Skills

• Introduction
  • Creative Problem-Solving Skills
  • Five Faces of Creativity
  • Ten Provocative Operations
  • Six Thinking Hats
  • Success Stories
  • Bruce Lee
  • Nick Vujicic
  • Jack Ma
  • Steve Jobs
  • Micro-Move
  • How to make a life-and-death decision for your family member

Part 3: Conclusion

What makes your life successful for you?

Teacher

• Dr. Jack Chun
• Dr. John Yuen
• Dr. Kam-por Yu
• Dr. David Wan
• Prof. Adrian Bejan
• Prof. Ole Döring
• Rev. Thomas Kwan Ven
• Dr. Sik Fa Ren
• Mr. Kasim Ma