CHANG, I-Fan
Fooyin Institute of Technology, 151 Chin-hsueh Rd. Taliao, Kaohsiung, Taiwan R.O.C., ifchang@cc.fy.edu.tw
Abstract: Technology creativity is utilitarian in nature, emphasizing on value. The modern industrialized society is the result of continuous technology innovations. The economy of a nation and the living standard of its people depend on the strength of its manufacturing sector, which creates the wealth of the country. To survive and thrive in the global marketplace, one must realize that the competing power is the synergy of productivity and creativity, and the ultimate goal is to create value. Technology creativity is the combination of imagination, reasoning and persistence. To be effective in technology creative activities, a person must possess the ability to sense and locate the points of interest, to gather information, to come up with new ideas, to evaluate and judge the ideas, to make a decision and to implement it. In simple words, it is the integrated ability of problem solving, particularly in an innovative way. Traditional engineering and technology education focuses on knowledge and skills. It is generally subject oriented. The emphasis is on the solving of close-end problems that is, finding the unique answer analytically. The assessment is based on individual achievement. Creativity is not on the agenda. Recently, there has been a wave calling for a paradigm shift, turning the focus from analysis to synthesis, from closed-end problems to open-end design, from the unique answer to the best solution, from individual performance to teamwork. The objective is to cultivate more creative or innovative professionals for the next century. In this paper, the effort of the National Science Council of Taiwan, R.O.C. to promote and enhance the teaching of technology creativity at universities and colleges is summarized. Specific projects are presented as examples to illustrate how a college, a department or an individual professor can make some innovative changes to help the students become more creative.
Keywords: creativity, education, projects
The Oxford English Dictionary defines creativity as "the ability to create", where to create means "to bring into being, to cause to exist, to produce, or to give rise to". It is a rather fussy definition. Ned Hermann, author of The Creative Brain, describes creativity with "Creativity in its fullest sense involves both generating an idea and manifesting it -- making something happen as a result."[1] Edward deBono stresses that there are three levels of "being creative" [2]. The simplest level means "bringing into being something that was not there before". Then at the second level, "the new thing must have a value". Finally at the third level, "there has to be something unique or rare about it". In his book Creative Problem Solving, Edward Lumsdaine gives a working definition for Creativity: "Creativity is playing with imagination and possibilities, leading to new and meaningful connections and outcomes while interacting with ideas, people, and the environment."[3]
Creativity involves three different aspects: the environment, the process, and the outcome. The environment provides the stimulus or motivation. The process is the total mental activities that generate and modify the new ideas. The outcome is either a product or an application based on the new idea. Sternberg emphasizes that the product of creativity must be novel and appropriate, and possess quality and importance [4]. In contrast with creativity in arts and literature, technological creativity emphasizes on value.
The modern industrialized society is the result of continuous technology innovations. The world has been changing very rapidly, primarily because of the speed and scale of the technology development. The economy of a nation and the living standard of its people depend on the strength of its manufacturing sector, which creates the wealth of the country. To survive and thrive in the global marketplace, one must realize that the competing power is the synergy of productivity and creativity, and the ultimate goal is to create value. Productivity helps the accumulation of value via the increase of the quantity of the product, while creativity uplifts the value of the product by raising its quality.
Technological creativity is utilitarian in nature. This is illustrated by Ned Hermann as he defines the process of creativity to include six stages: interest, preparation, incubation, illumination, verification and application [1]. The addition of interest and application to the four phases of creativity process originally proposed by Graham Wallas clearly indicates the significance of the purpose for creativity. Technological creativity is not creation for creation's sake. Rather it is the response to the environment that demands change. The "power to direct change", as Edward Lumsdaine puts it, enables us to bring forth value added that will benefit the whole society [3].
While new or original ideas can come just in a flash, bringing them into application is usually a painstaking endeavor. Therefore technological creativity is the combination of imagination, reasoning and persistence. To be effective in technology creative activities, a person must possess the ability to sense and locate the points of interest, to gather information, to come up with new ideas, to evaluate and judge the ideas, to make a decision and to implement it. In simple words, it is the integrated ability of problem solving, particularly in an innovative way.
Traditional engineering and technology education focuses on knowledge and skills. It is generally subject oriented. The emphasis is on the solving of close-end problems, that is, finding the unique answer analytically. The assessment is based on individual achievement. Creativity is not on the agenda. Recently, there has been a wave calling for a paradigm shift, turning the focus from analysis to synthesis, from closed-end problems to open-end design, from the unique answer to the best solution, from individual performance to teamwork. The objective is to cultivate more creative or innovative professionals for the new century.
In order for students to become more creative, schools and colleges must provide appropriate environment to encourage creativity. Since 1996, the National Science Council of the Republic of China has launched a series of projects aiming at the promotion of creativity education in various levels of institutions. These projects range from the very fundamental research to practical teaching and learning activities.
At the university level, NSC refocused its "Engineering Education Improvement Program", which had been on going since 1994, from the enhancement of practical competency to the development of creativity. In September 1996, request for proposal was announced with the objective "to enhance the engineering students' ability for problem solving, design and innovation through teamwork", inviting projects to experiment on innovative ideas in engineering curriculum, teaching materials and methods. 15 proposals were submitted and three were selected after reviewing. These were all "group projects". They were granted funding for a period of 18 months starting from April 1997. The first group of projects was the extension of previous work of Professor M.H.Lee of National Taiwan University. The team developed a course "Invention and Innovation Engineering" and gave it first to Electrical Engineering majors and then to general engineering students. The course emphasized on the techniques for generating and implementing creative ideas. As a result, the students produced many useful inventions, a few of which were patented. They also built a "creativity forum" and created a database on WWW.
The second group of projects was a joint effort by National Chang Hwa Normal University, National Cheng Kung University and Nation Central University. The objective of this project, "Innovative Product Design and Manufacturing Program in Mechanical Engineering", was to develop the course content and teaching strategy for a capstone design course for mechanical engineering seniors. The research was based on the concept of total quality management and authentic assessment. The three participating universities each focused on one specific topic of Product Design and Manufacturing, Creative Mechanical System Design, and Open-end Mechanical Engineering Design, in which the subjects of the student design project were generated by the industry, assigned by the teacher, or created by the students respectively.
The third group of projects, organized by Yuan Ze University, is to build an Internet based teaching and learning environment to enhance creativity for mechanical engineering majors. They used the courses "Mechanical Design" and "Mechanical- Electrical Integration" as carriers, and established a WWW environment for students to collect and exchange information, to interact and collaborate. The ultimate purpose was to help students improve their problem solving ability.
For students in the vocational-technical system, which includes technical universities, institutes of technology and junior colleges, technological creativity is a very important element of their professional competency. In most technical programs, "special project" is a required course in the senior year. Students are asked to build something that works. Most of those projects are copies of existing devices or systems. Innovative ideas are welcome but not emphasized. In 1997, NSC sponsored a group of project to study how the students may be motivated to use their knowledge, skill, and imagination to become more creative in doing the special project. In this research, the investigators use multiple function robot as an example. In designing and building the robot, the interaction between the students and the teacher and among the students themselves is observed, and the process in which the students develop their creative ideas is analyzed.
In February 1999, NSC started a new program of "Research of the Cultivation of Technical Professional Competency". This program emphasizes on the innovative improvement of the curriculum structure, course content and teaching methodology of technical universities in order to strengthen the students' ability to solve practical problems and to enhance their technological creativity. Five groups of projects were selected from 33 applications, covering the areas of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, industrial design and even nursing technology. Although each project has its own focus of interest, how to enhance the students’ ability for creative problem solving is the common major concern.
In addition to research projects, the NSC has also sponsored a number of events, jointly with the Ministry of Education and other public or private organizations, in order to promote creativity among college students. Those events, such as Robot Contest, Homepage Contest, Fuel-Saving Car Contest, and Assisting Device for Disables Contest, have received very good response from the students. Later this year, the NSC will start a new annual event of "Creative Design Contest". Its objective is to encourage college students to use their imagination and try to manifest it through a systematic process of teamwork.
Technological creativity is essential to the economic strength and competing power of a nation. The National Science Council is making a great effort to put Creativity on top of the national agenda of educational reform. Researchers and educators in different academic disciplines are looking into various aspects of scientific and technological creativity or trying on innovative ways of teaching to encourage students to become more creative. However, most of them are cutting in from their own area of expertise such as mathematics, physics, biology, engineering, recognition science, or education, and are limited in that aspect. Since creativity is the manifestation of a diversity of intellectual and personal abilities, a comprehensive and systematic study of multidisciplinary nature will bring forth more valuable results. On the other hand, we must build an environment for teachers to implement their innovative ideas of teaching. After all, only creative teachers can make creative students.
The author wishes to thank Ms. Yen-Wen Kuo and Ching-Mei Tang of the National Science Council of R.O.C. for providing the detailed information of the projects.
| [1] | HERMANN, Ned. The Creative Brain, 2nd ed. North Carolina, USA: The Ned Hermann Group, 1989. |
| [2] | DEBONO, Edward. Serious Creativity. London, UK: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992 |
| [3] | LUMSDAINE Edward & LUMSDAINE Monika. Creative Problem Solving. USA: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1995. ISBN: 0070390916 |
| [4] | STERNBERG, R. J. The Nature of Creativity: Contemporary Psychological Perspectives. London, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN: 0521338921 |