Teaching Creative Processes

Developing Design through a Creative Problem-Solving Process

In ‘Developing Design through a Creative Problem-Solving Process’, author Chia-Ying Hsieh describes how students are taught to use creative problem solving in a collaborative art project in cooperation with the Kaohsiung City Zuoying Old City Cultural Association. The students were from a variety of different departments including engineering and art. They were tasked to, “design a door plate that reflects the community features and image for their office. The creative door plate design activity was planned as a nine-week curriculum; students could experience a creative problem-solving process in sequence through rigorous and step-by-step procedures so that their imagination and creativity could be activated.” (p.545)

The focus of their research was to bring out students’ creativity and improve their learning by applying Dewey’s concept of education, “learning by doing, and connecting learning venues to actual environments.” (p.541) The interdisciplinary collaborative project utilized the, “eight stages of the creative problem-solving teaching strategy proposed by Ming-Hui Hsu (2003) as the basis for a six-step design activity; the steps were (1) constructing a creative topic, (2) collecting information, (3) confirming the creative topic and substance, (4) developing the design composition, (5) solving design problems and (6) design reflection.” (p.545)

They also used the divergent thinking processes of, “fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration.” Many groups used the creative processes of, “brainstorming, proposed personal ideas and then collectively decided on the most suitable topic”. (p548) In order to provide an historical background, creative problem-solving or CPS is a systematic problem solving method proposed by Wallas in 1926 that outlines, “four stages of the creative mental process: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. This process must involve the complicated thinking processes of recognition, memory, divergent thinking and convergent thinking.” (p. 543)

One student claimed that due to the group discussions they, “learned how to propose a question, how to turn a problem into a question before discussing it with group members, and how to work together to complete a work that realizes our concepts. (p.550) Another student claimed that they could only design circuit layouts related to electronic engineering and do some drawings, but that they “didn’t have any relevant experience in art design drawing. However, a sense of indescribable achievement hit me when I saw the finished products.” (p.550). Another student explained that students from, “different departments actually had different thinking styles. I also learned how to communicate and respect other people’s opinions and ideas.” (p.550)

It is clear from these examples that collaborative art projects have the benefits of improving student’s communication skills, negotiation skills, and creative problem solving skills. While group projects can be challenging, they also provide a sense of accomplishment while improving student’s creative and artistic adaptability. These ‘learning by doing’ experiences help students to ‘increase learning participation and learning effectiveness, cultivate students’ problem-solving ability and develop their creative potential to form the basis for the creativity education.” (p.552)

As an art educator I believe that CPS (creative problem solving) is a teaching tool that should be used early on with art students because it teaches them how to break down creative projects into manageable and understandable steps. Why is this process so rarely taught in schools? I see the benefit for artists and non-artists to learn this process because it helps students to think critically, problem-solve, and ask the questions required in order to figure out the answers to complex questions. Teaching the creative process has been a valuable tool in my own pedagogy. I find that it helps students to think in both logical/linear and creative/non-linear ways at the same time. What other research has been done to explore the topic of using creative problem solving in education?

Reference:

Hsieh, C. (2018). Developing design through a creative problem-solving process: A group community art project. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 37(3), 541-553. doi:10.1111/jade.12155