Team 14 Assignment 2 : Disillusion & Reillusion

The innovation in our course is not just kinds if innovation of course contents and processes, it also be related to improve the creativity of students who attend this course.

Introduction

Since there are 40 students in our course, professors will assign 10 teams composed of 4 students each to design a product or service in a specific range like stationery. Each team can take one week to design the product and then have a presentation in the class. Finally, professors and other 9 teams will choose the best three ones as winners by vote. However, when we talked with one of the stakeholders-parents, we found the curriculum was normal to some extent. The parents argued that what you have done already was not enough to inspire creativity for students. They said that: “you know, we are parents we know that:

•Need is the Mother of Invention      

•Competition is Father of Innovation

•Cross-fertilisation is an innovation accelerator

•The Innovation Equation:

Innovation = (Need x Competition) ^{Cross-fertilisation}

Yes, we admit that in you course, there exists competitions and I mean competitions with other teams. Also, there are requires from professors and those are specific ranges of product or service. Just like in a company, it restricts the functions of products. So it is normal, we guess in this course the needs from our children’s hearts are what we real want”. As a result, by considering the feedback from the parents, we modify two points.

At the same time, we noticed what Ray Dolby said: Creativity Can Be Learned

 

“Inventing is a skill that some people have and some don’t.  But you can learn how to invent.  You have to have the will not to jump at the first solution because the elegant solution might be around the corner.  An inventor is someone who says, ‘Yes, that’s one way to do it but it doesn’t seem to be an optimum solution.’  Then he keeps on thinking”. 

That means: One time attempt is far beyond enough, you need to find the elegant solution at the corner by “Refusing to Give Up”

Thence, the first modified point is we will have two rounds in every contest. Apart from three winners in the first round, all other teams who experienced disillusion should design the product having the similar functions again whose creativity has been questioned in the first round. After disillusion of the first round, we required you to design again as you cannot just do it one time and need try again to find the great idea around the corner. That is what we call ‘reillusion’ (重塑梦想). After all teams present their products and then professors and other teams will choose the best three ones as winners by vote.

Then, as the greatest genius Albert Einstein said: “Problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework within which the problems were created”.

So you should jump out of the framework and forget the limitations to products and just release what you have in nature by your heart.

Hence, the second revised point is there are no limitations to types and ranges of products in both two rounds. You can design everything you want, even perhaps one dream in your childhood time. You need follow your heart and “lost self”. After presentations of the remaining 7 teams, three teams can have a chance to be the winners by professor and other 9 teams’ vote.

----- ‘Lose self’ and to minimize self concern and ego issues within one’s creative work.

That is what we want in round two – reillusion (重塑梦想). Just like what Simon Sinek have said, do things from your heart and forget the limitations. Please create things by your heart like Steven Jobs or Wright brothers, not others, you know, others whose name we cannot remember already. 

Teaching creativity

 Focus on no subject---- General Education

Create a platform for a blast of knowledge

The definition of creativity used to be recognized without being able to define it. This extended use of the term has shaped a strong connotative value: creativity is often perceived as synonym for imagination and originality, and is allegedly connected to the visual arts, music and artistic performance.

If one were to build on these assumptions, the implication for education would be reductionist: creativity would be seen as the domain of the arts only and therefore restricted to certain specific subjects. Thus the first concern for us in this curricular is to enhance students’ conceptualization of creativity that all areas of knowledge and all subjects can benefit from creativity. It also contains some needs in the daily life to utilize the creativity so that do help to the life improvement which we encourage that creativity can be from the life source.
Another illustration of this point is the amount of knowledge required to be creative. Weisberg (1999) holds knowledge as a fundamental, unquestionable building block of creativity. Previous studies fomented the assumption of an inverted U relationship between creativity and knowledge. However, affirms that great mastery of a field is needed to come out with a creative breakthrough. Consequently, in our general education course, our goal is to set no limitation to the students’ creativity as they can choose whatever subjects or areas they are interested in to perform their creativity in front of the class. By this means all the students are accessible to different kinds of knowledge from others in the class which is a useful storage for their own creativity. 

Accessing creativity: Disillusion and Reillusion

Break it & Renew it

The result of the first round is based on the whole class while the final decision still counts on professor. After the presentation of each team, other teams are allowed be brokers to point out the shortcomings of other teams, otherwise they will vote for a passed winner. This process is to expand the range of thoughts based on different peoples’ views which we mean dapping out of the framework to solve problems. The failed teams will participate in the second round competition to revise their products with the other teams’ suggestions. The second round we call it ‘reillusion’.

As we adopt the Phase-oriented studies that recite'creativity is not seen as and sudden but as being built on several stage'. In the other words, it distinguishes between a generative phase and

an exploratory phase, the first being the construction of the mental representation, the second is the interpretation and validation of these constructions. The two phases are not linear, since a Non-satisfactory output will bring the thinking process back to the generative  phase through a re-focus or expansion of the original concept. As we promote that the creativity is at the corner and refuse to give up, we direct students to restructure the creative ideas in the second round and validate its feasibility. 

Unhelpful Points and How to Improve Them

1. The Rounds of the Contest.

Status quo: Just two rounds at each contest. The losers should participate in the second round and design the products (just a design program not a product entity) having the similar functions with the previous ones based on the criticisms and suggestions by other teams and professors.
Problems:

1) Although to some extent everyone is capable of being creative; however, most people do not exploit their full creative potential as they do not sustain the flow of their ‘creative juices’. As a result, one more attempt is not enough and you need to find the elegant solution by repeated disillusion & reillusion.
2) That 3 winners are voted by professor and other 9 teams in each round is irrational since all creative design programs should be recognized and not necessarily three ones

★Improved points:

1) There is no limit in times of rounds. It means each loser must design the product in the next round which is related to the previous one until the design program is passed while the winners can have a chance to design new products in the next round. “Be related to the previous ones” has two meanings. 

The first one is that innovation implies improvement and don’t give up easily and thence design the products having the similar functions with the previous ones based on the criticisms and suggestions.

The second one is the losers can use any old ideas or concepts in the former round to design other new products whenever feasible by analogy as the best innovators can systematically use old ideas in new places, new ways, and new combinations and old ideas can become powerful solutions to new problems if brokers are skilled at analogies.

Ultimately, the scores of each team in this innovative course are based on the amount of successful product design. 

2) In each round, the judgers are still the professor and other 9 teams. But they should say yes or no for each design and as long as there are 7 votes, the design program can be passed and the team will be one of winners.

2. Unhelpful Team Dynamic

Status quo and Problems: There are 10 teams in our course and each team is composed of four students to design a product or service. However, in the usual case, many team members are lazy to some extent and don’t exploit their potential to participate in the design and innovation.

★Improved points: In Pixar, any team members give constant feedback on other’s work and expert groups like “brain trust” also offer advice in progress. As a result, in order to develop the potential of each student and cultivate their innovation and creativity abilities, we should change the composition of the team. Each team can be made up of two students and professor should direct them how to support each other by two ways. One is questioning other side’s ideas and concepts to stimulate his/her creativity which is called ‘internal disillusion & reillusion’. The other is if you agree on the other sides’ ideas you should help him/her search for the relevant product and technical information, or consult the relevant technical experts like professors or staff in R&D dep. to ensure the program has a certain degree of feasibility since good ideas need technology to make it work.

References:  

1. Andrew Hargadon & Robert I. Sutton, Building an innovation factory, Harvard Business Review, May-June 2000.

2. Ed Catmull, How Pixar fosters collective creativity, Harvard Business Review, September 2008.

3. Edward De Bono, Parallel thinking: from Socratic thinking to de Bono thinking, Viking 1994.

4. Anusca Ferrari, Romina Cachia and Yves Punie, Innovation and Creativity in Education and Training in the EU Member States: Fostering Creative Learning and Supporting Innovative Teaching, European Communities, 2009.
5.Sinek, Simon, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, 2009.