CREATIVITY &PROBLEM SOLVING CH: 1 INTRODUCTION To be successful, everyone needs to be able to identify and solve problems. Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Id like to attract more customers for my business I wish our family would find enjoyable ways to spend more time together My new invention would really be useful to people if could find a clever way to market it We need to get some new program ideas so our organizations members will attend our meetings. I wish I had ways to help my students be more excited or motivated about learning. Im looking for ways to empower people to take more responsibility for quality and improvement How do you feel when you have to deal with any of these situations, or others like them? Excited? Eager? Or, frustrated and tense? Everyone has the ability to think creatively and critically, and everyone can be successful in solving problems effectively and productively. By learning and using CPS you will increase your ability to: Recognize opportunities,challenges, and concerns; Examine data in your situation to discover the most important challenge at the heart of the situation; Consider many ways to state the problem, and then select a specific problem statement that will stimulate ideas; Generate many, varied, and unusual ideas for dealing with the problem youve stated; Identify and use tools for choosing, analizing, and developing promising ideas; Examine promising possible solutions and then plan for successful implementation; Design and carry out a specific and detailed plan of action. Foundations of CPS Understanding the meaning of creative & critical thinking Clearing away some myths & misunderstandings about creativity Clarifying the reasons why creativity is important Describing the basic guidelines to keep in mind when applying CPS Identifying several basic tools What is creative thinking? What is critical thinking? What do they have to do with CPS? Creative and critical thinking are often seen (or stereotyped) as opposites, poles apart and incompatible with one another. In this mindset, often supported by some of these misunderstandings; The creative thinker, Is viewed as a person who is wild and zany, eccentric, or at least a little bit weird or strange, who thrives on off the wall ideas that are usually impractical. The critical thinker, Is often stereotyped as serious, deep, analytical, and impersonal. We believe such stereotypes are neither accurate, nor useful. We believe that creative and critical thinking are two complementary, mutually important ways of thinking. They need to work together in harmony. Successful problem solving depends on using both, not just one or the other. Creative Thinking involves encountering gaps, paradoxes, opportunities, challenges, or concerns, and then searching for meaningful new connections by generating: Many possibilities, Varied possibilities (from different viewpoints or perspectives), Unusual or original possibilities, and Details to expand or enrich possibilities. Creative thinking is often described as a divergent process in which we begin at a single point or with a single question, but extend our search in many different directions, generating a wide variety of new possibilities. We prefer to use the more familiar word generate when our goal is to seek many, varied, or unusual possibilities, or to add details and expand on existing possibilities. Critical Thinking involves examining possibilities carefully, fairly, and constructively, and then focusing your thoughts and actions by: Organizing and analyzing possibilities, Refining and developing promising possibilities, Ranking or prioritizing options, and Choosing or deciding on certain options. Critical thinking is also often called convergent thinking, which is the process of attempting to take many different ideas and draw them together toward a single goal or result. When it is time to shift from generating possibilities in CPS to using critical thinking, we prefer to use the term focusing. THINK ABOUT A CAMERA Focus is important to bring an image clearly and sharply into view. This is true in thinking processes, too. EFFECTIVE PROBLEM SOLVERS MUST DO BOTH -GENERATING and FOCUSING- NOT JUST ONE OR THE OTHER Generating many ideas will not be enough by itself to help you solve a problem. Smilarly, if you rely only on the focusing side, you may have too few possibilities from which to choose. We believe that successful problem solvers can, and do, learn to use both their creative and critical thinking abilities in harmony, generating options and focusing their thinking. We refer to the balanced use of creative thinking and critical thinking (generating and focusing) in harmony as the heartbeat of CPS. Generating Focusing Many Varied Unusual Options Your thinking constructively Interesting Roads MYTHS and MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT CREATIVITY Myths 1: I am not a creative person Myths 2: Creativity is too mysterious to be taught Myths 3: Creativity equals arts Myths 4: Creativity as madness Summary Described the foundations of the contemporary CPS system. Defined creative and critical thinking THEN & NOW How many things have changed in your own life since your childhood? Ex: fast food restraunts, rapid transportations