In a highly competitive society, there is an urgent need for an engineering curriculum that enhances the creativity. While many creative problem-solving (CPS) strategies have been developed, a convergence strategy to come to the single solution still remains a priority. This is partly due to the lack of creative educational tools that can be readily adapted to various educational settings. Recently, visual literacy was suggested as an augmented way of promoting creativity through creative thinking and deep reflection on what students experience when they draw or view images. However, visual literacy was not fully implemented into engineering education yet. To this end, visual presentation-based CPS strategies are designed in a way that promotes student engagement and creativity in an image-rich environment. Particularly, visual representation using rough drawings is designed to include five essential stages, namely fact-finding, problem-finding, idea-finding, solution-finding and acceptance-finding. A series of CPS exercises in engineering problems start with critical reflection in which students identify the engineering problem (fact-finding); reflect on what they have already learned, and then undertake active inquiry and deep research on subject matter (problem-finding); brainstorming (idea-finding) that propels imaginative and divergent thinking from different perspectives; visualization and creation of unorthodox creative solutions (solution-finding); and contextualization linking between creative ideas and the underlying principle of the subject (acceptance-finding). The initial outcomes are positive and highlight visual representation as a new and authentic experience and creative and thought-provoking processes that allow students to better understand the subject, rather than memorize the equations and key characteristics.

Authors:
Gon Namkoong, Old Dominion University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Professor Gon Namkoong is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at Old Dominion University, United States

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