Session Information
ERG SES C 13, Media, creativity and career development
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
As tomorrows graduates will need to collaboratively contribute expertise across multiple disciplines and perspectives in this turbulent and competitive global economy fueled by rapid innovation, creativity becomes the focus in preparing current students and future citizens to deal with these uncertainties (The research agenda.., 2006). Even though engineers acknowledge creative thinking as a necessary skill in their work life, this skill of creative thinking is often overlooked by the traditional engineering curriculum (Craft, 2006). At the same time there is growing need for engineers and scientists to understand business, because companies need real world results that contribute to the economy.
Jackson & Sinclair’s (2006) research, that focuses on students’ creativity development and appropriate pedagogy for enhancing it, emphasises the importance of integrative and creative thinking. Integrative thinking that connects cognitive and emotional aspects of knowledge in thinking; integrates objective and subjective information; connects implicit and explicit information; as well as theoretical and practical knowledge (Tynjälä, 2010) is closely related to the concepts of creativity and creative thinking. Creativity and integrative thinking are also important aspects of entrepreneurial learning (Täks et al. in press) which, when supported by conscious reflection and evaluation (Kallio, 1998; 2011; Tynjälä, 2010), lead to sense-making in on-going decision-making processes in novel and uncertain decision contexts (Cope, 2005). Referring to the social psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who stated that “creativity is no longer a luxury for the few, but…a necessity for all” Cunnigham (2011) claims that at least in principle, creativity is learnable, teachable and assessable and it’s key is the ability to work interdependently to address trans-disciplinary problems.
“Creative Thinking & Innovation” from the Innovation Academy in UCD, is a module that intends to inspire an entrepreneurial and creative mindset in non-economic/business interdisciplinary students. For the ECER/EERA workshop the authors will be focusing on the impact of the course of with Estonian undergraduates (N=21), and with Irish PhD students (N=25).
The presentation will explore mixed discipline students’ acquisition of creative thinking skills throughout 5 days of an intensive “Creative Thinking & Innovation” course and compare the results of Irish and Estonian students’ experiences. We will demonstrate some ideas of analysing the impact and of how it can be used to improve the teaching process (the teacher becomes the learner), as well as a brief look at the differences experienced by the various students during the course by focusing on a single activity in detail. The research question focused revealing whether there was a change in the mindset of students during the course.
The key single activity, ‘The Newspaper Challenge’, focuses on:
- Developing confidence in creative thinking (turning problems into opportunities)
- Evolution of innovative ideas in multidisciplinary teams (valuing inherent skills)
- How to translate ideas into value creation.
For the context of this research we had multidisciplinary teams create value in a single day from an opportunity identified in that days newspaper that could be linked to individual team members experiences and strengths.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Cope, J. (2005a), Toward a dynamic learning perspective of entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 29(4), 373-397. Cunningham, S. (2011) Can creativity be taught? And why should it be? 'Creativity Money Love: learning for the 21st century' (PDF) presents a wide range of Creative Industry practitioner's and organisation's reflections upon the nature of creativity, work and learning in the 21st century. Published by the Creative and Cultural Skills (CCS) sector skills council. To order hard copies, go to www.creativitymoneylove.co.uk Craft, A.(2006). Creativity in Schools. Developing Creativity in Higher Education. N. Jackson, M. Oliver, S. M. and J. Wisdom. New York, Routledge. Jackson, N. & Sinclair, C. (2006). Developing students’ creativity: Searching for an appropriate pedagogy. Developing Creativity in Higher Education: An imaginative curriculum. N. e. a. Jackson. Oxon, Routledge: 118-141. Kallio, E. (1998). Training students’ scientific reasoning skills. Jyväskylä studies in education, psychology and social research vol. 139. http://selene.lib.jyu.fi:8080/vaitos/studies/studeduc/ 9513912922.pdf Kallio, E. (2011). Integrative thinking is the key: An evaluation of current research into the development of thinking in adults. Theory and Psychology, 21(6), 781-801. Lave, J. and Wenger, E (1991) Situated learning: legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. MacGregor, J. and Smith, B. L. (1992). “What Is Collaborative Learning?" in Collaborative Learning: A Sourcebook for Higher Education, by Anne Goodsell, Michelle Maher, Vincent Tinto, Barbara Leigh Smith and Jean MacGregor. National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment at Pennsylvania State University. The research agenda for the New discipline of Engineering Education (2006): Journal of Engineering Education, October, 2006, 259-261.’ Täks, M., Toding, M., Tynjälä, P., Kukemelk, H. and Venesaar, U. (In press) Engineering student experiences of studying entrepreneurship. Tynjälä, P. (2010). Luovuus, oppiminen ja asiantuntijuus. K. Collins, S. Paloniemi, H. Rasku-Puttonen & P. Tynjälä (Eds.) Asijantuntijuuden kehittämisen pedagogiikaa. (pp. 79-95).WSOYpro Oy.
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