Focusing on Creativity: Faculty Motivation in Teaching Brain-storming and Creativity in an Introductory Course

Focusing on Creativity: Faculty Motivation in Teaching Brain-storming and Creativity in an Introductory Course

At Reykjavik University we run an introductory course for all first year engineering students in two phases: early in the semester we have two days of „brain-storming“, focusing on creativity, and then at the end of the semester an intensive course for three weeks focusing on design. In the „brain-storming“ phase almost all the faculty in the School of Science and Engineering (SSE) take part and act as tutors for the students groups, their role is to guide them but not to solve the task at hand for them. This puts many of the faculty into a new role and their reaction has ranged from very enthusiastic and interested to reluctant, critical and even drudging. It is important to give all faculty an opportunity to influence the development of the course, with the aim of developing the course in such a way that the faculty involved feel a sense of ownership in the course and become more engaged in their roles as tutors. To obtain more knowledge about the attitude of SSE faculty towards the course and their roles in the course, it was decided to design a questionnaire. This paper touches on CDIO standards 1, 2, 9 and 10. Standard 1 The Context: SSE has been adopting the principle that CDIO is the context of engineering education programs but what about the faculty motivation, are they convinced that the CDIO approach is what we want and that the implementation is heading in the right direction? Standard 2 CDIO Syllabus Outcomes - Do the faculty agree on the syllabus and the learning outcomes of the course? Is the emphasis on creativity justified? Standards 9 and 10 Enhancement of Faculty CDIO Skills and Teaching Skills: Are the faculty prepared to teach a curriculum emphasising personal and interpersonal skills and active learning with problem solving activities, team work, brainstorming and discussions? Do we need to prepare them better and coach them for this teaching situation? In this paper we will present the results of this survey and discuss the implications.

Proceedings of the 12th International CDIO Conference, Turku, Finland, June 12-16 2016

Authors (New): 
Ásrún Matthíasdóttir
Ingunn Sæmundsdóttir
Haraldur Audunsson
Hera Grimsdottir
Pages: 
10
Affiliations: 
Reykjavik University, Iceland
Keywords: 
Creativity
brain-storming
Introduction to Engineering
educational changes
CDIO Standard 1
CDIO standard 4
CDIO Standard 8
CDIO Standard 10
Year: 
2016
Reference: 
Audunsson, H., Saemundsdottir, I. and Matthiasdottir, A. (2015). Introduction to Engineering as a twophase course. Proceeding of the 11th international CDIO conference, on Engineering Leadership in Innovation and Design, Chengdu, China.: 
Crawley, E.F., Malmqvist, J., Östlund, S., Brodeur, D.R. and, Edström, K. (2014). Rethinking Engineering Education, the CDIO Approach. 2 ed. Springer International Publishing.: 
10.1007/978- 3-319-05561-9
Fang, N. (2013). Increasing high school students’ interest in STEM education through collaborative brainstorming with Yo-Yos. Journal of STEM Education, 12, 4.: 
Fullan, M. (2007). The new meaning of educational change, 4 ed. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.: 
Kamp, A. (2014). Engineering Education in the Rapidly Changing World. TUDelft, Netherlands.: 
Lee, L., Lee, L-S., Kuptasthien, N., Tien, D. B., Saad, N. H. and Leong, H. (2015). Comparative study on CDIO implementation in selected Asean countries. Proceedings of the 11th Annual International CDIO Conference. Chengdu University of Information Technology, Sichuan, P. R. China, 8-11 June 2015, 14 pages, code No. 5.: 
Maskit, D. (2011). Teachers’ attitudes toward pedagogical changes during various stages of professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 5, Pages 851–860.: 
10.1016/j.tate.2011.01.009
Osborn, A. F. (1953). Applied imagination: Principles and procedures of creative problem solving. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons.: 
Go to top