I wonder which came first, the chicken or the duck? Creative thinking and analytical thinking are very different animals. Learning how to see (or create) new connections between radically different concepts involves different cognitive abilities than comparing and selecting between competing (generally similar) ideas. Industry tends to value the later intelligence, and our schools of engineering tend to teach it. But innovative thinking maybe taught more in English or Art departments than in Science in many schools. Creativity is usually a bad business -- its very unpredictable, most of the time it fails, and it isn't essential to meeting next quarter's bottom line in most companies. Most corporations promote good analysts who meet their deadlines, and layoff the creative ones to prop up short term profits (and reduce disruptions). Some creative types who through luck and perseverance turn their ideas into financial successes and get promoted turn out to be awful managers for their poor analytical skills. I think innovation only flourishes where risk is encouraged, and those in control are willing to cede their power.

Everybody can learn the from the course curriculum of his/her classes, but innovative ability, in it's true sense, is not expected from everybody. Nature of innovation power also differs among different persons. Everybody getting Ph.D. degree did not contribute a lot in their respective fields.

Now-a -days, such terms are used casually and students of every branch of study at every level may be advised to study their subjects carefully with full concentration so that the hidden innovative power of them may get a way to come out outside.

Thanks.

i see it as a question of knowledge generation in the context of innovation. science and technology is merely a depiction of knowledge in general and innovation outside of the strict sense of science and technology is possible

if you look at models of learning, you will find that both external and internal are necessary. you can conceptualize. you can learn from the environment. you need an environment to evaluate

Thanks all for the input!!

Monyer: the video mentions the relationship meaning nothing more.

Shibabrata: I do not agree with you that the capability to innovate should be something belonging to a portion of all people. Yes, it may be of tacit nature still we may be able comprend and learn, therefore synthesis and innovation belong to the things that can be learned. Yes to the disciplinary depth as long as the T-shaped individual as output is not forgotten.

Brian: You say that learning takes place in the knowledge generation embedded in the innovation context? Agree with balance, yet, who is to say that the balance of the two (internal and external) is something true, fair or even justified. Therefore the question on mechanisms and driving forces behind the guidance of tomorrow's innovations.

It's not always easy to tell whether one follows or precedes the other and I don't think that's as such important. But it is always important to create a learning environment that nurtures and encourages investigative/questioning minds that are critical to innovation.

I wonder which came first, the chicken or the duck? Creative thinking and analytical thinking are very different animals. Learning how to see (or create) new connections between radically different concepts involves different cognitive abilities than comparing and selecting between competing (generally similar) ideas. Industry tends to value the later intelligence, and our schools of engineering tend to teach it. But innovative thinking maybe taught more in English or Art departments than in Science in many schools. Creativity is usually a bad business -- its very unpredictable, most of the time it fails, and it isn't essential to meeting next quarter's bottom line in most companies. Most corporations promote good analysts who meet their deadlines, and layoff the creative ones to prop up short term profits (and reduce disruptions). Some creative types who through luck and perseverance turn their ideas into financial successes and get promoted turn out to be awful managers for their poor analytical skills. I think innovation only flourishes where risk is encouraged, and those in control are willing to cede their power.

Well said, I can back that up with past research by Byrd and Brown (2003) that made an innovativeness a products of the risk willingness and the degree of creative proposal. As stated the complexity is far more difficult to marginalize down to an innovation equation, how appealing that may sound on an overarching level. Once innovation is set free within organisations the control power, the decision-makers are the ones that can truly make or brake the for the people, the atmosphere and the living spirit to regenerate new thinking that break existing paths. If none of that is allowed, or rather if efficiency constraints shadows all creative upraises the skills that could make a difference will never even get a chance to proove themselves - at least not in the given reigns.

I think I need to answer this in two parts. It may meander a bit but in the end I hope to tie it all together.

Part one: " Which came first the chicken or the egg?" The answer to this will really depend on the background of the person you are asking. The simple "science" answer is the egg, as a genetic anomaly needs to occur in an embryo that would almost become what we called a chicken, that made it the first chicken.

But what of other disciplines? Would a Dr of philosophy debate this and come to the same answer, but from differing sets of facts? Would a lexicographer care about the question at all?

How to apply this to education? In my mind, and with the courses I have taken over the years, the balance of external versus internal forces vary on the subject matter. My views will be colored by my experiences of course.

I am a jeweler and have seen instructors who teach without a lot external forces in their classroom. Teaching that later, when the basics have been mastered, you can speak to external forces and have a message with your art.

And some that welcome external forces into the classroom and the quality of education falls off sharply. some to the point of why is this person allowed to teach others?

On the flip side, I have taken some basic computer language classes in the past. Almost every one relied heavily on examples from external example.

The instructor would pose a question for the students, we would work to answer it, and then we would look at examples already in use by large companies on their websites.

I have also taken a class by an instructor in order to learn Javascript, a simple language used on the internet to send information back and forth from servers and web pages to make them responsive.

He would use no external examples in his teaching. He did not see any use in learning javascript as anything other than a language to use on servers and there was no need to ever use it for the internet. I dropped the class and registered a complaint with the school. A fine example where external forces in the classroom would have improved the educational experience.

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Will the same results in education happen in say an architectural class? IT training? English Literature? History? Probably not. So the nature of what is taught, depends on the subject matter, how useful the teaching is about including external forces, and how those skills will be needed later in the "real world".

Much of this depends on the instructor and how they incorporate the balance of internal / external forces into their curriculum.

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Part two: Or rather, what is the dualistic nature of innovation and learning?"

From Part one I hoped I was able to show that a balance of internal / external forces is needed in education.

So I think my answer to "what is the dualistic nature of innovation and learning" is that I think the question is vague and needs reworked. Vague in the idea that it does not need to be asked with the first part. it stands on its own as a question. In addition, I think I would rewrite it just a bit to ask "How does the dualistic nature of innovation influence learning?".

There are many differing opinions about "the dualistic nature of innovation". Adding "and learning" makes the conversation hard to grasp and hard to pin down to a point of agreement with all of those in the conversation.

So let me answer part two as the modified question: "How does the dualistic nature of innovation influence learning?"

Answer: Depending on the material being taught, and the instructor, the dualistic nature of innovation can have a positive or negative effect on learning. Most subjects need a good balance of internal / external forces to influence what & how the subject is taught. A balance is essential. Swing the pendulum too far either way, and education and learning stops.

In addition to having a balance, the instructor must also have the ability to see how this affects their students, and be able to adjust.

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If you have any questions about my answer, feel free to contact me.

Great input! Okey, I will try to provide an answer on the question formulation...

First part is to attract attention, to distinguish the two elements and If possible to position each element relative to one another.

Second part is the core question to be answered, it is open ended and free to be interpreted based on individual preferences. The dualistic nature concerns the dilemma of the chicken and egg brought up in part one..

Speaking from a chemical engineering perspective (spread out to chemistry and engineering) I think that creativity is claimed vastly more than it is delivered, and that innovation is rare, and largely should not be encouraged.

An important duty of the engineer is to be safe. Thus using proven techniques, materials and methods of design (especially design standards) means that the engineer is not relying on their own limited knowledge and experience, but that of others, generally largely experts in the field.

Something innovative is by definition untried and not well understood (though the innovators may kid themselves they do). Companies and individuals should only do so when they are sure they can cope with failure. Individual inventors commonly fail many times for every success. Many small and innovative companies go out of business for every successful rise you read about.

In chemical engineering degrees we run design projects as the capstone of the degree courses. We can encourage students to attempt a new process or market, safe in the knowledge that the plant will not actually built, so any errors of safe design or economic evaluation will not have consequences other than the loss of a few marks.

The fundamental safety feature of engineering is getting the sums right, and this should be the service that universities can deliver to industry, along with an awareness of some proven technology and techniques. The average graduate is not expected to come up with something totally new, and in my personal experience companies are very wary of novelty.

Many papers I have seen claiming to teach creativity in engineering give examples of the occasional group where one bright student (possibly with the help of a relative in the field) has come up with what sounds like a good idea, but offer no evidence of getting all graduates to produce even one good idea. Others talk about taking a holistic view. This I am happy with. We can teach ways to explore more options and consider wider aspects, which will sometimes suggest a different way of going about things. The example I give is this:

A factory is being doubled in size, so the effluent treatment is also being doubled, using the same design as before at a cost of say £5 million. Consider if you could spend some of that sum to improve the process to produce less effluent and/or to improve the current effluent plant.

Great input Martin!

Thanks for bringing the importance of safety in to the discussion. Although an innovation might look new and untried it would never reach market, at least in the best of worlds, unless numerous iterations, testing and refinements would be part of the process.

Depending on nature of the innovation the process has different faces. This is also where innovation claims simply makes too much untested "bad stuff" to come out. The safety dimension in consideration for learning purposes is very interesting.

Safety in true facts, learning objectives, and in correspondance to internal/external drivers. The outcome should then have a safe and sound employability level, or?! To what extent is it possible today and what can be expected to change in the near future?

I have often seen the story of Thomas Edison's thousands of failed lightbulbs used as an example of the necessity of failure in design. He has a famous quote about all of his failed prototypes, "Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! I know several thousand things that won't work!"

We use it as an inspiring story to encourage students to take risks and not focus entirely on their grade. However, it often feels disingenuous. Outside of Elon Musk's empire, how many companies are willing to fund years of seemingly failed research? When Edison started working on the lightbulb, he had already achieved success with the phonograph, which afforded him a great deal of financial independence.

Thank you Miklos,

Wouldn't it be possible to say that we are far more daring today than before? Face it, when it gets down to designing test beds and partnerships we are better off than ever before. That could take out some of the financial burden that otherwise restrain game changing actions just because we are better connected than ever.

Information of bits and pieces can be interwoven to seamless innovation flow/sources, rather something that is used occassionally, ont stand-alone basis and individually.

I Wouldn't be very surprised on those that simply state that it would be a money issue. The true cause is deeply rooted in fear of efficiency drain, and tightly sealed in a dysfunctional innovation culture that NO one from the inside would ever admit existed.

Do you learn to innovate, or innovate to learn?

If you believe in evolution, the egg came first.