SEMINAR: The Learning Space: seminar �Enhancing creative thinking in engineering students�

The Faculty Academy for the Scholarship of Education (FASE) is delighted to present a series of lunchtime seminars with the aim of disseminating good practice in education across the Faculty.

The first seminar ‘Enhancing Creative Thinking in Engineering Students’ will be led by Winthrop Professor Caroline Baillie on the 20th of April.

Students of art and design will know that they are supposed to be ‘creative’, whilst students of engineering design are less familiar with this idea. In spite of this, there is an increasing perception of the need for graduates of engineering to be creative thinkers and innovators.

Regardless of the discipline, it is not clear how creativity can be nurtured or fostered within graduates, or how it can be assessed. A project called ‘Fostering Creativity in Engineering Students’ enabled a team at Imperial College in the UK to explore several issues surrounding creative thinking, creative problem solving and creativity in relation to engineering. The research explored the most appropriate means of enhancing a student’s creative thinking.

In this interactive seminar, a model to consider the ‘creative potential’ will be presented in order to promote discussion on the subject of appropriate education developments which may be incorporated within an undergraduate program.

During this seminar, a full understanding and appreciation of our own set of barriers and constraints, as well as the assumptions regarding those constraints, will serve as a backdrop to the discussion.