Applying Aspects of Creative Thinking and Problem Solving

1. The Skill of Incubation

Before taking the CPS course, I would hear the word incubation and not know what it means. It is the skill of being able to take a break from actively pursuing a solution when the problem is not consciously worked on. In other words, allowing options to develop without my full awareness.

In class today, the material was overwhelming and I wasn’t able to connect some parts of the material together or focus. Luckily, the teacher gave us a break and I walked away from the class- allowing myself to be engaged in the activity of walking for a short break.

I might apply the skill of incubation in my life with my family when there is a family issue that we need to discuss and come to terms with. I will allow time for incubation as this cognitive skill is essential in creative problem solving especially when things get tough in taking decisions and we need a break. However, we can step away, come back rested and more mentally prepared. In other words, we should rethink and then come up with a solution. In my subconscious, I accepted the process of incubation and therefore, was making new connections.

To my surprise, when I came back to class, my mind was clear and well rested. Moreover, when tackling the same material once again, I was able to reconnect ideas together in a way that made more sense than before and made new connections as well. I will make sure to develop this skill by practicing it in my life situations with my family, friends, relatives, and colleagues etc… I will make sure that I will allow time for incubation when it’s needed, as I will promote this new skill.

I have shared this skill with my CPS class as well.

2. The Skill of Visioning

It’s my 80th birthday and I’m celebrating the achievements of each one of my family members. I envision myself surrounded by my husband, my two sons: Basil and Matthew along with their wives and children. I also picture my Sarah with her husband and children. In total, I have ten grandchildren and they are all gathered around the table and had just sung to me. I’m about to blow out my birthday candles as I looked at each one of them and saw love, pride, laughter, peace, satisfaction, appreciation, and faithfulness in their eyes.

I’m the one who is giving the speech. The speech of feeling grateful for each one of them for keeping our family bonds strong, for being genuine not fake, and for the care and support that we have for one other. As I see the fruits of my garden had ripen, I have learned along all the way that I reap what I sow, that I’m contented with all what I have, and that I’m thankful to God who blessed me with my family.

Thank you Lord.

Visioning is a key aspect of creativity and visionary thinking entails our ability to imagine. It allows us to believe that anything is possible and I would like to focus on visioning. I will maintain using it to get the subconscious engaged during creative sessions. I will use it with my students, as I want each one of them to have a compelling goal to aspire to make their efforts worthwhile. Furthermore, I want to get an understanding of what I really want to achieve with them, for them, and through them with my creative leadership skills. Using the right tools and activities this will get them to master new ways of thinking.

3. The Skill of Mindfulness

Mindfulness leads to positive results for individuals and organizations. For myself, I always practice it as it decreases my negative feelings, improves my attention, and puts me in a more thoughtful mode when I’m stuck with various challenges. I find myself being able to attend to feelings, thoughts, and sensations that are relative to my current situation. Thus, this skill helps me identify that I need to move my challenges forward one at a time- by thinking of the suitable response to every challenge as it gives me full awareness of my current situation. I favor this skill because it involves diagnostic thinking of my present.

In class or any workplace it is essential for our growth and development. We need to implement mindfulness in schools. If we can help students find the focus that they need then they can achieve their academic goals. Moreover, this morning, I reminded my family that we as a family need to be mindful of our obligations towards one another and people around us. I reminded my family members to practice being mindful in their workplace.

4. The skill of Flexibility, Fluency, Originality

I like how the card starts with: Make 2+2 = 5

Use “ Yes And….” To build on existing ideas and make them more novel/exciting/different.

I like this approach as it has more openness, less ego, and there is room for more positivity and possibility.

Flexibility: Being able to generate a variety of ideas and responses across different categories and to look at things from different points of views. Flexibility is about generating ideas that are different from each other. It is important as it allows us to get out of the thinking rut in order to come up with a whole new idea. We need to direct our learners to creative thinking to let them think out of the box and to forget the boxed thinking.

I learned from this course to be more flexible, to think about my problem in many different ways to envision it because if I can find the different ways to represent my problem then it means I can have the solution for my problem suddenly and unexpectedly.

Fluency: Being able to generate a large number of ideas and deliberately generate alternatives. This skill is very valuable as when I have many different ideas, my options are more and my solutions to my problems are viable.

When practicing fluency, I write fast, idea after idea, making sure the flow of ideas keep going. I mainly care about writing them all down then I can review and analyze them later.

I was subbing at ACS the other day in the elementary school for the 4th grade teacher, the original teacher had a workshop in school and I asked him if I can practice some activities for creativity skills with the class during the last 30 minutes after the students came back from Art class. The students were very excited about generating ideas for the different uses of a pencil. They generated ideas for a class party, and alternative titles for a book that they read in class. To my surprise, the students were very excited that they want me to do it very often with them when I substitute again.

Originality: Being able to get away from the obvious and commonplace to generate novel ideas and responses to challenges.

We learned in the CPS course to combine existing ideas and create new unusual ones. Originality is important because it is a deliberate mix of origin and novel ideas to increase breakthrough ideas. It is important to encourage learners to come up with ideas and to not have to keep them to themselves and be shy about it or think it is weird. We want them to be able to say their ideas loud.

I did another activity with the 2nd graders on another subbing day. I asked my students to be creative in the Art lesson. I asked each one of them to draw their favorite animal and add something unusual to it and rename the animal after.

Students came up with titles like (The big-tongued cat) where a student drew a cat with a very long tongue. Another student drew a dog with a huge rounded tail and called it (The huge-tailed dog) and more.

One last thing I like to mention here is that Flexibility, Fluency, Originality, and Elaboration, these four elements in creativity often come together.

I like this formula from E. Paul Torrance the Father of Creativity:

Fluency (# of ideas), Flexibility (variety of ideas), Originality (uniqueness of ideas), and Elaboration (details of ideas).

Resources

www.creativitycards.net