Creative Problem Solving: A Reflection

Our final assignment for the course Creative Problem Solving: a reflection on our experience:

1. Creativity techniques – I’ve used all of those offered in the course for many years – I taught people how to mind-map, brainstorm, free-writing, how to use webbing, W5 questions, look for examples… I learned a long time ago that just opening my mind and letting ideas out can be trusted. The latest instance was a recent writing task  – I had to come up with a bunch of surveys for people involved in the Canadian Path (Scouts Canada’s new, revised program) pilot program. For several weeks I let the ideas roll around in my brain (not actually putting anything on paper, although I know my brain was working unconsciously on the problem), but I couldn’t actually sit down and produce the surveys until the planning team had an online meeting one evening and with an audience the barriers disappeared and the survey questions came flowing out (fortunately, a couple of the others on the call took notes so I could return to the surveys and extend and edit them! In this case, instead of “freewriting” I was “freetalking”). With the quilting I do, I regularly spend time online looking for ideas – I collect photos from which I generate ideas – I never replicate a quilt I’ve seen, but am able to improvise around an idea. Really, my life is a continuous search for solutions to problems – little problems: how to replace a sock heel without having to reknit the whole foot; bigger problems: how to convince Scouts Canada’s leadership that this program revitalization ought to be driving all other decision-making they’re engaged in (about transportation policy, risk management, volunteer recruitment and training) – they aren’t there yet but they have to get there and I have to find ways to help them understand the problem.
2. Choose one DSD to do-over – truthfully while the DSD challenges were “fun” to think about and execute, they were just exercises I did for the sake of the course – I wouldn’t bother to do any of them over. I thought people were far ranging in their interpretation of each task and it was clear they were having fun executing them but nothing really motivated me to redo any of the DSD exercises. They were interesting to think about – certainly caused conversation with people when I did them in public. But since a lot of what I do daily seems to involve innovative problem solving these DSDs were just exercises for me.
3. Creativity Engine: that was a disaster – I stopped doing it quite quickly since it was obvious that the more I tried it, the worse I got. The fact that it was timed froze my brain – not that couldn’t think of unusual uses for the objects I was shown when I had time to think about it, but in the timed context I came up with less and less. Probably a factor of my aging brain – I am aware that it takes me longer to process than it used to, but I still innovate and make new connections when I’m not under pressure.
4. Where Good Idea Come From by Steven Johnson was interesting from start to finish. I downloaded the book from Kobo about three weeks before the course began and read through it. It was well written, organized in an interesting fashion – I liked the way he used historical examples of “creativity” (most in science, which I thought was interesting), to illustrate his main ideas: the adjacent possible, the characteristics of liquid networks, the slow hunch, serendipity, the role of error, exaptation, and platforms to show that creativity is dependent on a host of conditions to bloom which, when present, support the generation of unusual ideas that open windows on new possibilities. While Johnson doesn’t discuss the arts much (if at all) the arguments apply to people engaged in the whole gamut of creative endeavours.
5. My reason for taking the course was to see how a topic like “creative problem solving” might influence the online learning situation. I’d just worked about half-way through a course on Strategies in the Virtual Classroom that was dreadful – completely prescriptive, no room for the learners to interpret tasks in open ways or be involved in setting the criteria for their learning; the whole experienced annoyed me. I stayed with it because I’m currently involved as a member of the program rollout team in a humungous online learning situation with Scouts Canada as the Program Team attempts to help Scouters understand the experiences with/for youth have to have youth input into the planning – that’s a HUGE leap right now given that for the past 60 years Scouting has been predominantly adult-led and as a consequence enrollment has fallen sharply in the last decade. Any “training” we provide has to have learner input if we want the adult volunteers to reciprocate with the youth!

Did Creative Problem Solving offer me any useful insights into the problem of student-led engagement in online learning – some. The tasks were interesting, and being able to respond to other people’s interpretation of these tasks in a couple of different ways was useful. Each of the DSDs required me to make sense for myself of something that was minimally defined. I wasn’t bound by any particular way of interpreting the tasks. The part that wasn’t helpful were the rubrics for evaluating other students’ input. While the categories for considering each project were reasonable, the criteria within each weren’t broad enough to allow me to discriminate among the presentations; I wanted to be able to choose among many more options within each category.  As a result I found myself selecting “2” for most of the categories most of the time, unless the DSD represented minimal effort and then I was forced to choose “0” which wasn’t always a good choice. I could have written more in the comments text box, but having given maximum scores for the categories I didn’t feel it worth the effort to do an in-depth analysis of those presentations I was responding to.

As I participated as a learner in the course, I really was watching the “teaching” – trying to understand the goals of the instructors as well as the impact the challenges had on the learners. I was thinking about how the context limited what learners were able to do as I explored this online learning environment. While the discussion forums provided an opening for me to express my responses and thoughts, it’s not a vehicle that supports real conversation – which is one of the elements Steven Johnson pointed out was essential for creativity. I think we’re still some distance from being able to replicate the face-to-face learning situation in an online world. The tools aren’t there for large groups to allow vibrant small group interactions. Attempting group tasks in this formal situation bears little resemblance to the online meetings I’ve been having for months with people in this Scouts Canada project – we spend an hour or two at least once a week working through an agenda, brainstorming ideas, problem solving, planning experiences for our adult volunteers, discussing new materials. We are totally engaged as our personal learning unfolds. There was an artificiality to my engagement in “Creating Problem Solving”.

Challenge #6: Give Something Different

This week’s assignment is to “give something different”: “this should be something you have never done before, or an act of giving to someone you never have given anything before.” OK so what do I do here? Truth is, I give gifts of my time in many different ways to all kinds of people. Ultimately, all anyone has to give is time – purchases represent time spent earning in order to be able to buy something. I try mostly to make or do things for people without receiving payment in return – so for example, I gift my time to an elderly neighbour weekly when I take her grocery shopping, or I gift my time when I prepare food for a friend. I knit daily – I find it relaxing and it turns what would otherwise be wasted time in front of the TV into productive time – at the end of 25 hours I have created a pair of socks! I give these socks away – as gifts – because nobody is willing to pay me what they’re worth! The yarn costs $20 before I’ve knit a stitch – I spend 25 hours knitting the socks – I refuse to work for less than $1 an hour so I ask $45 for a pair of my knit socks. Since very few people are willing to pay me that, I give away the socks I make.

I have two piles of socks on my dresser – the new ones just finished but not yet given away:

and a pile of used socks – socks I’ve had in my drawer but need to give away because I’ve got too many pairs at the moment and had to make room for the more recent ones I decided to keep: As you can see, they are still in very good shape. Two pairs of these will go to a neighbour who is happy to receive them, and two pairs to a friend also delighted to have new-to-them wool socks.

So I decided for this Do Something Different – to give one of the new pair of socks to someone I really don’t know but see regularly: the bank teller I often deal with. She’s always cheerful and we have a chance to kibbitz when I go into the bank. Why use the automatic teller – no more convenient and a lot less social! No, I make a point of having a visit with one of the tellers, but I always try to get a moment with Tamara if I can. So I chose a pair of socks from the “new” pile: I thought she’d like the soft colours. I wrapped them in sparkly tissue paper and put them in a gift bag: Added a note: that said: This may look like a pair of socks but it’s really a gift of my time (it took 25 hours for me to knit them). They’re a small thank you to you for always being cheerful. I took them to the bank this afternoon and gave them to her – she was delighted to receive them: I didn’t explain why I was giving her a pair of socks/a gift of my time – that would have demeaned the giving – I did manage to get a photo without explaining why I wanted it. But the point of the giving, from her perspective, had to be just an unexpected act of thoughtfulness. I know she’ll comment the next time I see her about how comfortable they are. They really are wonderful to wear – no seams on the toes to rub. She said as I was leaving: “That’s just made my day!”

Challenge #5 (Cont’d)

This challenge has had me confused for days. In my previous blog entry I explored some potential ideas but nothing really seemed to me to fit the bill.

I woke this morning with yet another idea for “Do Something An Other Would Do”. I get an ant invasion every spring – late May when the weather turns warm (finally). They come in a couple of places – in the window over my kitchen sink and from the back wall in my living room. Last spring I first noticed a swarm by the door leading to my basement! I’d put a box there to take to the recycling pile and when I picked it up it seemed alive with ants. I stomped on most of them but left a couple alone to see where they’d go. These are the foragers – the ones who are sent out to see what they can find – they really are looking for starch so my kitchen cupboards are a target but once disturbed, these couple headed back for the living room where I discovered they had come in – through the heating vent just above the basement window (when I checked there was a “tiny” opening near the bottom of the caulking and there were ants entering there). So this morning, I decided to show you what an Ant’s Eye View of my house looks like – it starts at the basement door. Click here for a link to the movie itself.

Needless to say it’s too early in the season for me to have recruited ants to be in my movie! They won’t show up for nearly another two months but turn up I’m sure they will.

I learned some interesting things from this: the view close to the ground is really quite different from my usual view either sitting or standing. When I’m near the floor I’m usually doing something practical – putting a quilt together, for example, but this time, the purpose was to just see the space from as close to the ground as I could get the camera.

Challenge #5: Do something your “Other” does differently

Now what in the heck does that mean? The explanation says do something your significant other does that you don’t do – significant “other” could be partner, parents, siblings, close friends, pet… This challenge doesn’t connect for me AT ALL. I’m single, my parents are long dead, while I do have two sisters and friends – nothing about their lives strikes me as so “different” that I should try it out. I understand the point of this one – an opportunity to step outside of yourself and try the mantle of another – but nothing comes to mind here.

I am and have been, as Lewis Thomas has written (The Selves, in Medusa and the Snail, 1979) many selves – I am composed of a number of “others” – as Lewis describes it – I am a collection of “selves” picked up from various experiences at various times throughout my life. I seem to be working on my “creative” selves at this point in my life – through my knitting, the quilting in particular, I’m exploring an artistic self – or other – that I didn’t have time for when I was younger. My educator self is also alive and well in the work I’m currently doing with Scouts Canada and their program development. My “nature” self will show up in a couple of months when it’s time to work in my garden again. My social activist self is still lurking – not quite willing to step to centre stage but she may still…

So what “other” do I explore for this challenge? I don’t see a point in doing something silly for the sake of the challenge – wear a moustache for a day – why bother? I’ve looked through some of the responses of other participants in the course, their experiences don’t trigger anything for me.

My child self is active from time to time – last fall I pulled out a few of my kites and took a couple of young people kite flying (I hadn’t flown a kite in several years). Perhaps I should just share that experience and be done with it!

Or perhaps I should showcase my creative problem-solving self – inventing a way to replace the worn-out heels of socks, for example: Replacing Sock Heels.

 

 

Challenge #4: Do Something As A Child (Cont’d)

OK, I finally did something as a child! I revisited a wall I used to walk along 60 years ago and walked along it (well, some of it) again.

I climbed on the wall:

There happened to be a couple walking their dog – they lived a short distance down the street and I asked them for help – I needed them to take my picture standing on the wall:

Here I am, just like I was 10 years old again. I used to run down this wall regularly because it was alongside my Aunt Esther’s house (60 years ago there was just the wall – no wooden structure to prevent children from running the length of the wall). It was just across the street from my house and on the way to my Grandmother’s house.

It doesn’t look high in this photo but there was (and still is) a considerable drop on the side by Aunt Esther’s house

The back corner of the backyard has been filled in against the wall quite a bit – the drop used to be substantial – that didn’t stop us running along the wall, however.

Standing on the wall where I am, I can see across the street to what used to be my house:

Turn to my right and I see my Grandmother’s house (the white house behind the parked car):

The wall is old – you can see the moss has taken over the shade side:

So I revisited my childhood – I haven’t visited the street in what 40 years – in some ways the neighbourhood looks the same but looking closely you can see how much has changed – the modifications each new owner has made to the houses – the neighbourhood has been well kept-up.

Challenge #3: Talk To Someone Different

Talk to someone to whom you would not normally talk, and with whom you would not ordinarily speak. You must do this in person and not via any media: i.e. no telephone, email, chat, video, cell phone, or other communication technology. In advance, select the person, contact them and ask them at least five open ended questions…

Too bad I didn’t know about this ten days ago! I flew to Toronto on Friday afternoon for a Scouts Canada National Leadership Summit, spent the weekend there and flew back home Sunday evening. I had a ton of interesting conversations with people I’d not known previously! Five stood out for me:

#1 – Next to me on the flight from Halifax to Ottawa was a young man, a university student, who was a knitter – once we were in the air, he hauled out his knitting (he was working on sleeves for a sweater he was knitting for his husband), I brought out the socks I was working on. We had a wonderful chat, about what he was studying, his trying to decide whether to attend graduate school straight away or to take some time off, about his favourite brand of knitting needles, the kind of knitting he liked to do, how long he’d been at it, what had started him off. We were in Ottawa before either of us knew it (it’s an hour flight).

#2 – From Ottawa to Toronto, a young university professor (Carleton) sat next to me and we had a great conversation about climate change and teaching and technology. We exchanged email addresses so I could send her some resources I had on hand I thought she’d find interesting.

#3 – Friday evening at the Leadership Summit, in the lobby bar, I became involved in a conversation with a Scouter from Calgary – involved as a Council Commissioner in charge of program – he had lots of questions and concerns about The Canadian Path and the pilot testing of the 4 Elements on which the revised program is based – we started out quite a distance apart (in part because of what he does, he’s VP Business Excellence, Operations Support Teams for a Calgary based oil company) – language was the barrier, but it didn’t take long for us to understand we were supporting the same process for how to roll out The Canadian Path – a revamping of scouting in Canada based on Baden-Powell’s belief in youth leadership, youth planning and youth input into the scouting program. I found his business perspective on how to educate/re-educate close to 25,000 adults involved in scouting in Canada helpful – he pushed me to think differently about aspects of the implementation problem the program development team is currently grappling with. We, too, exchanged email addresses – me to send him some of the new material we’ve prepared for the implement phase of The Canadian Path for his thoughts on how we could proceed.

During the weekend I had substantial conversations with several young people – most of them high school students involved in scouting who had interesting things to say about why they were involved, what they wanted to get out of it, what they wanted to see the program become; all of them involved in leadership roles in their councils/areas.

#4 – At dinner at the Pub Saturday evening I sat beside a lawyer from Newfoundland who is also a scouter – we had an engaging conversation about the kind of law he practices, how he got involved in scouting (his children, of course), why he’s continued as his children have grown.

#5 – On the return flight Ottawa-Halifax I was sitting next to a woman who was deeply focused on some work she was doing in a workbook – turned out, she’s just about to retire from her job with a dental equipment/supply business out of France, she wants to become a translator so she’s currently studying French (she was clearly Francophone) to brush up on the technicalities of the language as a lead into courses for translators. We had a great conversation about challenges of learning with a slowing brain, how memorization was much easier for each of us twenty years ago.

However, these conversations don’t count for the challenge! I didn’t prepare in advance – who knew what interesting people I’d actually run into. I certainly didn’t take any photographs of the people I talked to.

So now I’m back home and “talk to someone different” is going to be a challenge – my routine is rather set, I don’t run into new people all that frequently. Yesterday I stopped off at a local fabric store to pick up some indigo-dyed fabric to use to back the quilt I’m currently working on. I realize that while I know the women who work there, I don’t really know much about them at all. So I guess I’ll head back there in a day or two and see if one of them will spend a few minutes with me in conversation! And I’ll be sure to take some pictures this time.

Challenge #1: Eat Something Different

Conceptualize, plan in advance and eat something different. Eat something different; that is, eat something completely different, not something that has been just left out of your diet; suggestions: a different culture, an entirely new creation, or a different manner or definition of eating. You should understand that this is not an assignment solely about food, but about the process of eating, literally and figuratively. Again, plan and implement your plan; report on the results.

Not sure where the idea to eat an alphabet came from but once I had it, I realized I had an alphabet book in my collection of alphabet books: Eating The Alphabet

I immediately had two ideas both of which I intended to implement:

1) To find out how quickly could I manage to Eat an Alphabet – including everything in addition to fruits and vegetables. After a day, I discovered I was likely to eat an alphabet in 2 days (with some creative eating). What I discovered was  “i” and “u” were going to be next to impossible (when I googled for ideas, I found indian corn for “i” and ugli fruit for “u”; “x” turned out to be possible with food additives like xanthum gum which turns out to be vegetable-based). I kept a list and it filled up pretty quickly from avocado – zucchini (with fish and grapefruit and nori included – 23 letters in all – no “i”, “u”, or “x”). This was a solitary activity.

a – avocado b – bread, broccoli c – cabbage, cheese, chocolate, cilantro d – dumplings, dates e – eggs f – falafel, feta, fish g – green onion, grapefruit h – havarti, haddock i – (ice cream) j – jalepeno pickle k – ketchup l – leaf lettuce m – miso soup, muffin

n – nori (japanese seaweed) o – olives p – pork, pecans, paremsan, pistachios q – quinoa r – raisins, radish s – sesame cookies t – turkey (sliced) u – (udon noodles) v – vinegar w – walnuts x – (xanthum gum) y – yoghyrt z – zucchini

2) Friday I headed for Toronto to a largish gathering – I planned to Eat an Alphabet at the Saturday night dinner in a pub by asking the waiter for an extra plate, and then polling the group for a taste of what they might have that “begins with ‘a’, begins with ‘b’ and see how far I could get – I was guessing  a pub wouldn’t be an alphabet friendly milieu! I’d just do the best I could – and take lots of photos.

2a)  In fact my Eat an Alphabet began with lunch on Saturday: a buffet – so there was lots of variety – I filled my plate with as many different foods as I could, sat down to eat, explained to people what I was attempting (there were lots of laughs) and then tallied what I’d managed to put on my plate (15 letters in all):

a – artichoke b – broccolini c – cannellini, creme caramel, chocolate d – e – endive, eggplant f – fennel g – green pepper h – i – j – k – l – leaf lettuce m – mushrooms

n – o – onions, osso buco p – parmesan cheese, pistachios q – r – radicchio, red pepper s – squash ravioli, strawberries t – tomato soup u – v – w – watercress x – y – z – zucchini

2b) At the pub: Because the group was so large (~150 people) we had a set menu – which immediately limited my alphabet options. Most of the 18 people at my table had the filet mignon plate (including me)! Nevertheless, I managed to eat more of the alphabet than I had anticipated I might (13 letters in all – the gal who had risotto gave me a taste, as did the gal who had the Shock Top beer). The salad contributed significantly to the list having spinach, raspberries, walnuts, blueberries, watercress and a vinegar dressing:

a – b – beer (Shock Top), blueberries, bacon c – carrots, cheesecake d – dolce de leche e – f – filet mignon g – goat cheese, green beans, graham crackers h – i – j – k – l – lemon m –

n – o – p – potato, peppercorns q – r – raspberries, risotto s – spinach t – turnip u – v – vinegar w – walnuts, watercress x – y – z – zucchini

The challenge generated a lot of conversation at both meals – particularly about those letters that were difficult to find. I definitely found myself looking at food differently afterward! Each item took on a different significance. I could have delved deeper and investigated the seasonings but I was happy with what I was able to catalogue easily.

Of course, I can now think of a gazillion book related eating ideas – a counting book: 1 carrot, 2 small potatoes, 3 green beans, 4 scoops of ice cream…; meals of all one coloured food – a red meal, a green meal, a blue meal…; a calendar eating: on Monday I ate–, on Tuesday I ate–…; meals from food all grown/harvested/prepared in the same place…; food suggested by specific novels…; the foods I hate book…; lots of ideas

Creativity

http://www.newsweek.com/creativity-crisis-74665
I’ve just started a new course – on creativity. The link above is an article on research into creativity – researchers are beginning to understand what goes on in brains of creative people and it’s becoming clear divergent thinking as a child is a strong predictor of creativity as an adult.
And the good news is creativity can be learned – that is, it can be enhanced if learners are engaged in challenging problem solving!
Ill blog more as I work through the course.