Course Description
An introduction to creativity and ideation, including practices in sketching, researching, mapping and prototyping, employing methodologies such as self-reflection, brainstorming, collaborations, scientific method, and taxonomy. It engages the core of inventive practice, applicable in any design-oriented field, including the sciences, engineering, and entrepreneurship as well as art.
Athena Title
Ideation and Methodologies
Prerequisite
Second, third, or fourth-year student standing
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall and spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course engages students in the process of creativity and idea generation. It introduces a wide range of approaches and methodologies in ideation. Students will acquire and execute creative thinking methods and processes, including self- reflection, brainstorming, collaborations, scientific method, and taxonomy. They will employ skills in sketching, researching, mapping, and prototyping, developing an understanding of a cyclical process of design thinking to generate questions and solutions. Students will be required to develop inventive concepts using various problem-solving techniques, such as divergent and convergent thinking, metaphor, and collaboration. In presenting his/her work, each student will be expected to assimilate and analyze the topic of the assignments and present work orally as well as through various modes and media. Students will be expected to engage other students' work with dialogue that is stylistically appropriate and mature, discussing and critically assessing the strengths, weaknesses, and innovative potential of proposals and work from peers. During critiques students will learn to communicate for academic and professional contexts, supporting a consistent purpose and point of view while considering and engaging opposing points of view. Students will be required to interpret inferences within each work being discussed, building an understanding of emotional, symbolic, and cognitive influences in perception, and developing subtleties of symbolic and indirect discourse.
Topical Outline
This course will engage with the topic of ideation, the process of forming and relating ideas, through creativity, innovation, and concept development. A wide range of methodologies in convergent and divergent creative problem solving will be explored, such as brainstorming, word association, storyboarding, dream state, analytical and perceptual thinking, intuition, scientific method, taxonomy, research, cross- disciplinary fertilization, mapping, and prototyping. Students will be exposed to strategies for identifying questions, problem- solving solutions, and post-production review in the development of a cyclical working process. The course will include readings, discussions, exercises, and critiques.
Syllabus