teaching assistants?

I would like to draw your attention and take a look at my presentation in my website as well as I would like from you to use the technique of collaborative learning in your case, you can also watch the presentation video,

http://falahfakhri.wordpress.com/presentations/presentations/

http://falahfakhri.wordpress.com/scientific-media-2/scientific-media/

I used a project where I had students identify a product (this could also be signage, graphics, instructions, etc.) that they use frequently that does not work as well as it should (.ie. a bad design).  The students identified the problems or inconveniences and made suggestions (written and drawings) of how to improve the product.  I found that teaching about bad design helped the students understand the need for effective, efficient, and ergonomic functionality.  The suggestions (redesign) helped them understand creativity in a manner that is not purely aesthetic.

Another idea would be to introduce a creative problem solving process (there are many similar ones out there) and have them work through that in theory, and then in practical application.

I teach management and very effective and also very popular among students are various forms of brainstorming. If there is a large number of students in a group (more than 20), students are divided into smaller groups, but they all work on the same simulated problem, each group represents different stakeholder in a simulated situation (eg. one group represents managers, second group represents employees , third customers and fourth public). Each group is defending its own interests, using brainstorming (brainwriting) technique they have come to a common conclusion respectively way of tackling the problem from their perspective. Individual groups present their own solutions. The aim is to arrive at a consensus of all stakeholders (which is rarely achieved).

Some ideas on lectures on creativity in the visual arts. 

I have visited lecture classes and done a painting, large enough for the audience to see while describing what I am doing, and fielding questions.  One such occasion was a painting visit over several classes so the audience could see the work evolve as the lecturer went on with their usual topics, pausing at class beginning and end to review the work's progress.  A notable aspect of this was the varied degree and kind of attention the audience could spend on the work, including passive distracted glancing, and effortful conscious analysis.  This shifting range of attention and involvement is a cornerstone of creativity.

When I am the lecturer on creativity I emphasize seeing for one's self by showing images of non-art things in the day-to-day environment as well as art works, in such a way as to follow themes of form.  The audience is invited to see form without jumping right away to meaning or function.  In this way the audience may develop a receptivity to direct aesthetic awareness, which underlies creativity.

To introduce making to a lecture audience, I show images, introduce sounds, do readings, etc., and having given out varied materials for drawing (intimate enough in size to allow for working on one's lap or lecture seat arm), I ask the audience to draw from the presented materials in such a way as to realize several avenues of attending to the things presented, several aspects of one's experiencing self, and several ways of approaching drawing.  In this way the audience can realize the breadth, variety, personalness, universality, and even eccentricity that can come into play in creative attention and work.

The last 15 years I have taught master students in creativity competences at our faculty Building.

See the evaluations of these lectures on my website www.fransvangassel.nl

Before implementing any new methods, I think we need to understand the students better to minimise wasting time and resources. By understanding their background, interest and themselves, a more personality approach engages each student and involves them in the learning process. Unfortunately due to time and monetary constrains, teachers and schools are being pushed into standarised unchanged teaching every year. Teaching innovation and creativity needs to be continually evolve and cannot remain static. Perhaps, the teacher needs to be refresh and retrain at the same time before we hope to train students to learn anew. 

70 students representing 70 individuality and may not have a common imagination.

And it proposes to launch a topic to be addressed individually by each.

Ex. say: designing a habitat for office work (as would each).

Depending on the abilities of each, can address individual communication strategy.

It is not hard, but it's not impossible.

Attractiveness comes from diversity.

success

Take a look at TRIZ. It is the most comprehensive creativity toolkit available. You will find that it provides a philosophical framework upon which virtually all other creativity systems can be hung. It draws on a huge store of existing knowledge. It's full of practical creativity-amplifiers such as "Trends of Evolution." Also it automatically generates sustainable results because of the "ideality" driver. Students can pick and explore parts of TRIZ that appeal to them personally. I have had great success with it. There's lots of material on the web.

Hello,

As a Senior lecturer at an Art and Design University,  students in my Subjects area specialise in Fashion Design, Textiles Design, Fashion Promotion and Costume Design. It is at a Foundation level and students will have completed their compulsory education and this Foundation year will be to 'diagnose' their interests before going onto an undergraduate degree.

So. I come to the point of how to teach large numbers (in my group their will be about 50 students all with different areas of interests from different pedagogical backgrounds all bringing - as in all classrooms/studios their insecurities and preconceived knowledge and experiences, positive and negative.

My solution, which works for me, is to write an open brief which has multiple possibilities, based on a live issue which could be happening in the news, which could lead to a design opportunity or a mode of working. A timed discussion in small groups with the lecturer walking around and listening in encouraging students to document then feedback to the rest of the group, which encourages competition and debate, tutor can collect ideas on a white board or large paper or somewhere where students can reference the feedback.

Teaching through workshops how to research properly and to be analytical will push students at all levels of learning. How to question, develop their practice and to have their creative voice heard. Creative subjects. especially design lead subjects are answering todays culture and a projection of tomorrows.

There is fantastic book for art and design lecturers:

'72 assignments: The Foundation Course in Art and Design today'. Pub. PCA press

The Projects can be translated and developed in accordance to the qualification. I think it has a lot of great ideas from various universities in Europe and the U.S.A.

Hi I'm teaching architecture and finding new ideas for their designs is main object in my work. For couple years I'm with my colleagues using “fast model” to improve their creativity. Part of this is intuitive model that more represents key ideas of the project than design itself. The other step and this require some teacher experience is to show that almost everything is possible and that from simple shape, picture or even sound of music one can develop idea to create design.

Ah one more thing: let them play.

Regular individual Positive feedback for each student. 

It might be somewhat inappropriate to comment on your question with the opposite problem, but I find it more challenging to encourage students to reduce their creativity than to encourage it. Not that I am against creativity, certainly not, but in my experience there are a few problems with it. First of all there is some confusion, especially with design students, between self-expression, which has no real place in design, other than in the few cases in which the designer is also the final and only user, and the tool we call creativity. The second is that creativity is often used as argument for selectively addressing the constraints and limitations of a given problem. Charles Eames once famously said: "design depends largely on constraints" and in my (limited) experience I find that those students that are less able to cope with the constraints, use the “creative” or “thinking outside the box” argument to hide the inability to produce the concept that unifies in a solution the given constraints. So I have made it my mission to put more weight in learning to think inside the box. In order to clarify what I call inside the box I use a simple illustration on what the box is made of.

I am not going to disturb your discussion with a description of the different elements and which ones I consider more flexible than others, but I wanted to share the analogy with you. We know for a fact that most successful products are the result of evolution rather than revolution. The idea of putting a thick line over the past and pretend that what we have done is brand new and innovative is far to tempting. So we do not want to see the link between our latest Iphone and the Nokia Mobira Senator (1982), nor acknowledge the hundreds of small steps that have been taken in between. It does not take away anything from the urgent need to educate designers and architects in contributing to solve the full complexity of the problems we are facing. I know that creativity is one of the important tools to achieve this, but I find the confusion around the notion of creativity a growing obstacle preventing us to from doing so and from teaching that ability. Sorry to interrupt your interesting discussion.

Hi Filippo,

I find your distinction between the need of for self expression through other means than verbal tools, and the social needs to express ourselves as a culture, very interesting. The question it raises is wether it could be more than a choice based on motivation and situation and if it requires a particular type of creativity....

"Lecturing about creativity seems oxymoronic."

When In film school my instructor was discussing editing and cinematic storytelling. He demonstrated the concept by pantomiming a dramatic sequence from the movie  German film "M". The scene was in a phone booth while a child was calling for help to escape from a stalker.

-He mimed entering the phone booth,

-then dialing the phone,

-he used his hands to frame his eyes, which he opened very large as in great fear,

-and then raised his arm, and let it swing from the elbow, explaining that was all we saw, the phone dangling from the cord. The child had been abducted!

The brilliance of the editing had been forcefully demonstrated with equal brilliance, and creativity.

His physical involvement in the description engaged everyone in the room. These many years later it still is visible to me.

A lesson in creativity had been given. This is his IMDB entry http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0315314/

Robert

Thank you for this!

One activity I use is to have the students design and make a paper tower, using only sheets of paper, and a few other simple materials. They have to make a tower of a minimum height, and have only a limited time. In addition, we repeat the activity in the same task, but with fewer sheets etc, and it has to be higher. This really emphasises both the creativity of what they design, and also includes an element of some real-world constraints. Send me a message and I'll reply with full details of the exercise.

Agreed: "Lectures and creativity are oxymoronic"  along with "education technology."

Last 15 years I have developed and taught some courses about (facilitating) creative thinking at our faculty ‘The Built Environment’. I based the course design on the following design principles which can be briefly described as follows: produce an accurate meeting scenario, invite diversity participants, explain method in simple terms, have participants listen to each other, set a reluctant participant to work, give rhythm to activities, reformulate the question, don’t adhere strictly to the scenario, continuously change the circumstances, take participants out of their comfort zone, make the participants do the work, let the hands do the thinking, alternate between strict and relaxed, end with perspective and choose the most suitable method.

Derive from the design principles a number of learning objectives and choose didactic methods and tools. Choose the approach experiential learning; no lectures but exercises with creativity techniques.

My approach is Handstorm: a concept to design, organize and run creative and collaborative practices, e.g., creative meetings, workshops, lectures, sessions, symposia, graduation studios, courses, etc. It is also a concept to design creativity techniques, construction systems, simulation games, etc. to enhance collaborative working. The concept is based on a set of design principles and uses not only the left and right brains but also the rest of the body, by hands, taste, gestures, feelings, voice etc. with the help of artifacts, images, photos, language, analogies, stories, boundary objects, natural materials, writing implements, paper, etc. Handstorm (working with materials, tools, constructions and machines) can be considered as an enrichment of brainstorm (cognitive, intellectual process).

See also link handstorm.

www.handstorm.nl

Dear Brenda,

You may consider presenting real case studies or stories on creative designs to your students and discussing the creative sources behind these designs with students. In my experience such activities engage them well and bring students to conclusions that adequate problem representation and reframing are very important and that some existing ideation methodologies are worth to learn. Also, vivid case studies are remembered by students and in the future can trigger innovative designs via analogical transfer.

Regards,

Iouri