Creative Thinking: The Generation of New and Occasionally Useful Ideas

Authors

  • Mary A. Sadowski Purdue University
  • Patrick E. Connolly Purdue University

Abstract

Most of us admire the trait of creativity and many of us wish that we had more of this somewhat intangible trait.  We encourage our students to be creative or tell them that they are not being creative enough, but how many of us actually foster the growth of creativity?  Engineering and technology students often do not think of themselves as creative even though their occupations will require them to use a wide variety of problem solving skills in many different situations.  If we accept that being creative is the means to produce and express new, novel and occasionally useful ideas then we should be able to apply this to our students.  A creative thinker should be better equipped to find and define problems and implement the resulting solutions.  There are almost as many theories about creative thinking as there are authors writing about the subject.  This paper will examine some of the theories about creative thinking, the process, and some of the aspects of teaching and learning creativity.

Downloads

Issue

Vol. 63 No. 1 (1999): Winter

Section

Feature Articles

License

By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright for their article is transferred to the publisher if and when their article is accepted for publication. The author retains rights to the fair use of the paper, such as in teaching and other nonprofit uses. Membership in EDGD-ASEE does not influence acceptance of papers.

Material submitted should not have been published elsewhere and not be under consideration by another publication.