Fostering Creative Thinking in Student Engineers

Authors:
  • CBCaroline Baillie
    Caroline Baillie
  • PWPaul Walker
    Paul Walker
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Abstract
In order to prepare engineering students for a changing future and to help them develop their own capacity for independent innovative thought and creative problem‐solving, we are faced with the need to explore ways of fostering creativity in students within engineering programmes. We see the need to focus on how to access creativity, how to develop an environment which is less constrained and which will allow creative flow. Three case studies are presented which demonstrate the importance of establishing the freedom of the learning process as well as providing motivation, whether extrinsic, in terms of the assessment scheme, or intrinsic. This latter might take the form of helping students to realize that the process of learning is a process of invention in itself and that students need to recognize their existing creativity and capacity for engagement. The very important and yet elusive issue of evaluation is also considered for each course. We discuss how to monitor the level of success in achieving the given objective of fostering creativity in students.

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