Faculty of Design and Innovation
Creative and Innovative Studies
(CRET101)
Week 1: Lecture 1
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this Document should be produced without written approval from Limkokwing University of Creative Technology Sierra Leone
DEFINING CREATIVITY
1. The process of generating Original ideas that have Value
2. The generation of original ideas or a new way of doing things.
3. Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality.
4. Creativity is characterised by the ability to observe the world in new
ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between
seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions.
A famous psychologist named Robert Sternberg has argued that
Creativity requires three different types of intelligence.
• Synthetic intelligence: the ability to see or analyze a problem in
a new, unique way.
• Analytic intelligence: the ability to analyze relationships or
associations among ideas and then apply these associations to
the problem at hand.
• Practical intelligence: the ability to come up with new ideas or
ways of solving a problem based on the feedback of other people
or by learning from past experience.
“Our Creative Imaginations must have something to work on. We
do not form new ideas from out of nothing. The raw materials are
all there, the creative mind only sees possibilities in them or
connections that are invisible to less
Creative minds”.
ADAIR J. 2009
Activity 1: Summary and discussion
WHY CREATIVITY IS IMPORTANT FOR YOU?
• A recent World Economic Forum research predicted the top 10
skills that would be in demand by 2020. Complex problem solving
has emerged as the top skill on the list.
• Traditional system of education in Sierra Leone is obsolete hence
the high unemployment rate.
CREATIVE THINKING
A way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh perspective
that suggests unconventional solutions.
Creative thinking can be stimulated both by an unstructured process
such as brainstorming, and by a structured process such as lateral
thinking.
Divergent, Convergent Thinking and Lateral Thinking
Divergent Thinking
“Divergent thinking” refers to the problem solving strategy
characterized by multiplicity of possible solutions in an attempt to
determine the one that works. It usually happens in a free-flowing,
spontaneous manner, where multiple creative ideas are engendered
and evaluated.
A diverse number of potential solutions are studied in a brief span of
time, and unconventional connections may be drawn. Once the
stage of divergent thinking is complete, information and ideas are
structured and organized using convergent thinking.
Brainstorming and free writing are some of the processes that
involve divergent thinking.
Convergent Thinking
Convergent thinking is a problem solving technique involving the
bringing together different ideas from different participants or fields to
determine a single best solution to a lucidly defined problem.
In other words, this is a kind of thinking that concentrates on finding
out the single best or frequently, correct solution to a problem or
answer to a question.
Lateral thinking
Refers to using both Convergent and Divergent Thinking, solving
problems through an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning
that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be
obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic. The term was
coined in 1967 by Edward de Bono.
Differences
• Convergent is straightforward and simple, divergent thinking is
complex while lateral thinking uses both.
• Convergent is the type of thinking we do when solving a well-
defined, straightforward, correct answer to a problem. Convergent
thinking is used when there is a simple, correct answer to a
question. For example, what's the capital of England? The answer is
London. If you knew the answer, you used convergent thinking.
• Creativity is not relevant to convergent thinking because you
don't have to be creative to know the answer to this problem; all
you have to do is come up with the stated, factual answer. When
you're in school and you take a multiple-choice test you are
probably using convergent thinking - you might be supplying
definitions for terms or remembering a person's name that goes
with a particular theory.
Activity 2: Summary and discussion
DEVELOPING CREATIVE THINKING
• Curiosity: Leads to Discovery
• Observation: Leads to Understanding
• Intuition: The ability to understand something
instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.
LOGIC RHYTHM
LISTS COLOR
LINEARITY IMAGINATION
WORDS DAY DREAM
NUMBERS DIMENSION
SEQUENCE SPACIAL
AWARENESS
ANALYSIS
MUSIC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this Document should be produced without written approval from Limkokwing University of Creative Technology Sierra Leone
Activity 3: Summary and discussion
Activity 4: Who’s that ?
In this activity, students will work in pair.
They need to find out information on their partner and draw the
image of their partner based on their interpretation of the
information that they had gathered.
