Creativity in Engineering Education

1
Creativity in Engineering Education

• Caroline Baillie
• Faculty of Applied Science
• Queens University

2
Introduction

• Creativity and Innovation
• Creative potential
• Creative techniques
• Idea pathway
• Creative unblockers
• Recognising the creative sparks
• What can we do? Wake up and stay awake
• Transformational learning, critical pedagogy and
  phenomenography
• Support the needs of the creative person

3
Creativity is ...
SHARED IMAGINATION
4
Shared imagination

• Shared negotiated
• Negotiated with who?
• All people and our environment?
• Is the negotiation equitable?
• Does negotiation include the values of those
  negotiating?
• How does the negotiation take place?
• Where does the negotiation take place?
• What happens when we discover that it is not
  possible under current constraints to be
  equitable?
• Who is responsible for making the changes to
  ensure that it can be in the future?

5
...is INNOVATIVE when an application becomes
apparent
If this is not domain-specific it becomes an
INVENTION
6
Innovative

• Innovative means different things to different
  people
• Innovation in my sense means new and realisable
  ways of making the world a better place socially
  just and environmentally sustainable

7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
Preparation
Is this the right question? Gelb, 1996
Generation
If you want to get a good idea, get a lot of
ideas. Linus Paulling
Incubation
I call intuition cosmic fishing, you feel a
nibble then youve got to hook the fish, after
bathing the hook through preparation and
generation, and trolling deep waters with
incubation its time to reel in the catch
Buckminster Fuller.
Verification
10
TRIZ Theory of Inventive Problem Solving

• Based on 1500 person-years of research
• Systematic study of 2.5million successful patents
• The same Problems and Solutions appear again and
  again but in different disciplines.
• Students can learn to use TRIZ and develop their
  own creative thinking

www.creax.net
11
An equitable TRIZ

• Solutions which address the needs of all people
  and the environment
• Problem definition becomes ever more important
• How do we know how to define the problem?
• Whose needs or wants are we catering to?

12
(No Transcript)
13
Unblockers
Preparation Prior knowledge Problem
setting Freedom Immersing into a way of
thinking Generation Convergent/divergent
thinking Knowledge building Personal
development Creativity techniques Group/personal I
ncubation Verification Valid Student
evaluation And Assessment
Stimulators
Communicators
14
Factors affecting creative workshops

• The facilitator
• The conditions
• The participants
• The problem
• The process

15
Recognising the creative spark (Gardner, 1982,
Gruber ,1981)

• Organisation of knowledge to produce a coherent
  synthesis, a network of enterprises that engages
  curiosity over long periods of time, the ability
  to bracket off blind alleys and return to major
  nodes in the network

Peter and Adam playing Twister at the student
retreat
16

• A number of dominant metaphors are used to expose
  the researcher to areas otherwise invisible
• A metaphor is the capacity to perceive a
  resemblance between elements from two separate
  domains or areas of experience and to link them
  together

The Interface as a relationship
17
Bonding
.and de-bonding
18

• A guiding purpose or quest a series of self-
  conscious problems and projects, a sense of
  goal-directedness, pursuit of the skills needed
  to fulfil the goal, and the ability to keep a
  number of objects in mind or hand at anytime.

19

• Students learn best when self-interest orients
  and drives the search for information,
  understanding and skill (Sarason, 1990)
• draw what you want to see so that you see it
  in the way you want to see it, however simple
  that may be (Wilson, 1998)

20

• A strong tie to the subjects of curiosity, a love
  of the work

21

• The willingness to embark on a solitary journey
  where the chances of failure are high, to deviate
  from the pack, and face rejection in some cases

Navigating the Materials World visiting the
Land of Composites (Baillie/Vanasupa)
22
A Revolution

• as knowledge of the creative process drives us
  to conclude, although a problem which stubbornly
  resists solution by traditional means may perhaps
  be insoluble the concepts, attitudes and
  procedures employed are probably at fault and in
  need of being transcended in a fresh approachthe
  necessary change, if it comes at all, may have to
  be so quick and sharp an evolution as to seem
  revolutionary(Ghiselini, 1985)

23
A Struggle

• the creative persons struggle for realisation,
  may achieve no more striking manifestation than
  an extreme dissatisfaction with the established
  order
• How are we to differentiate this expression of
  the artists sense of unrealised possibilities
  from the petulance of incapacity dissatisfied
  with its lot? (Ghiselini, 1985)

24
Teachers - Waking up to the true self

• A teacher can remain still curious, still
  learning and okay about being confused
  (Bamberger, Wilson, 1998)
• It takes a teacher who is awake to awaken her
  students

25
Questioning yourself

• To support others when they develop a creative
  potential it is critical to find out what you do
  know. And look at it, really examine it, not just
  take it for granted, but ask yourself something
  about it.. you start looking at the ..nature of
  your understanding just something like Why is
  it that 5712? and if you arent careful you
  very quickly get to something like whats a
  number? (Wilson, 1998)

26
Develop educational strategies that give students
the opportunity to develop their potential

• Transform the students world view
  transformational learning (Mezirow)
• Teach the conflict, develop the critic, -
  Critical pedagogy (Friere)

27
Transform the students viewsMOMA New York
28
Teach the conflict

• One cannot teach the conflicts by assuming this
  neutral view from nowhere for it is no view at
  all. In other words, the Assumption of a View
  from Nowhere is the projection of local values as
  neutrally universal ones, the globalising of
  ethnocentric values.. (Goldberg in Friere, 2003)

29
Develop the criticProfessional skills First
year engineering

• 600 students
• Core course for first years
• 30 groups of 20 students run by 15 TAs.
• One intensive week followed by a project course
• Developing students ability to think like an
  engineer

30
Support students in their development

• Assess higher levels of learning - Give credit
  to students when they change as a person
  (Phenomenography , Marton)
• Meet the needs of the creative person (Gardner)

31
(No Transcript)
32
Assess higher levels of learning

• Group reports which require students to work
• together on a network of different issues
• self guiding and self seeking.

• One group of students plan to develop a nuclear
  energy plant
• One group of students act as an environmental
  lobby group
• One group of students act as a council protecting
  human rights and look at social impact

33
Meet the needs of the creative person

• Support system
• Cognitive support from someone who understands
  the nature of the breakthrough
• Affective support from someone the creator feels
  comfortable with
• (Gardner, 1993)

34
(No Transcript)