Creativity & Innovation Toolkit

Ideas for Creative and Innovative Skills' assessment

A visual diary and an exhibition article, e.g., using an overarching theme that requires students to demonstrate essential knowledge and understanding of the discipline to produce creative solutions to given problems, i.e., using synectic strategies as methods of creative thinking through the production of design to express visual information or messages. Synectic strategies relate to lateral thinking "the process of discovering the links that unite seemingly disconnected elements." The strategies are "a way of mentally taking things apart and putting them together to furnish new insight for the solution of problems in both Art and Industry." (Fuller, B. (1975), Synergetics, quoted in Rourkes, N. (1988) Design Synectics: Stimulating Creativity in Design, Worcester: Davis).

The visual diary should demonstrate:

• A progressive and in-depth understanding of the concepts delivered throughout the semester;
• Evidence of design exploration and research;
• Careful collation and sequential collection of work;
• An approach that is focused upon the designated semester theme, e.g., 'form-as inspiration';
• The students' own visual and structural exploration and their preferred strand choice; and
• The students' progression towards the production of exhibition articles.

The exhibition article should demonstrate:

• All the above attributes; as well as
• The use of synectic strategy/s;
• A 'gestalt' of the article, i.e, as a rule, the article should be greater than the sum of its parts.

Effective methods for assessing Creative and Innovative Skills

Assessment is progressive and is based upon peer reviews and lecturer analytical appraisal sessions. Staff and peers provide written feedback on the progressive assessments of each student's work.

The visual diary is progressive and assessed three times. In the first assessment the diary should clearly demonstrate the following:

• Understanding of basic elements and principles;
• Breadth of design enquiry (personal experiment); and
• Innovation and creativity (applied synectics).

The second assessment of the visual diary should demonstrate the following:

• Concept development (emerging ideas);
• Depth of design enquiry (focus and relevance); and
• Innovation and creativity (applied synectics).

The third assessment of the visual diary should demonstrate an understanding of the concepts delivered throughout the semester and include:

• Visual diary - evidence of independent research;
• Visual diary - maturation and appropriateness of main concept; and
• Gestalt of exhibition/competition article.

The exhibition article assessment includes:

• Concept innovation - seen against the use of the principles of drawing
• Creative use of synectic strategy or strategies - appropriate use of synectic strategies
• Skills with media - representation of an object in an appropriate form, e.g., sketching a diagram for a machine design would need geometry, measurement and sense of perspective representation.
• Use of tonal and colour values - the use of tone helps to accentuate the impression on paper, e.g., an engineering design. Colour values can help to emphasis certain parts of the process that are critical to the explanation of the image. For example, creating an image of a printing press where rollers are in the contact with the paper may be important to highlight those as opposed to the other components of the press; and
• Presentation - student needs to demonstrate what aspects need to be emphasised to convey clarity of understanding, e.g., a technical drawing needs to be very clean and precise to suit its genre.

What students like about Creative and Innovative Skills' assessment

The students appreciate receiving feedback on their progressive work.

The variety of opportunities for the students to make their own discoveries.

The emphasis of this assessment is on creativity, which enables students to develop a visual language and build a vocabulary of concepts to accompany the technical knowledge that is set against a professional benchmark.

Further comments

The assessment of creative and innovative skills is based upon a problem-solving approach where theoretical knowledge is given practical expression through experiment by requiring the student to:

• Identify the problem;
• Analyse it, break it down and classify it;
• "Ideate" using a synectic strategy or strategies;
• Select the best option from the many that are generated;
• Realise ideas by putting them into action;
• Create something;
• Evaluate and judge the result; and
• Reflect on the process and the outcomes.

The level of accomplishment will be evident through progressive consultation during workshops, plus the combined context of the visual diary and the exhibition or competition entry.

The assessment provides a focus upon criteria considered critical in order to assist in developing an understanding of design industry methods and a personal repertoire of skills.

It is the students' interpretation that largely demonstrates creativity and innovation.

The assessment might be refined by:

• Changing the theme from year to year to ensure that it reflects the changes of the time and tides, e.g., electronic media;
• Continuously evaluating the assessment to ensure students remain engaged in the process and perceive the activities as being relevant.

The most difficult aspect/s of assessing Creative and Innovative Skills

The difficult aspects of the assessment relate to:

• The subjective nature of assessing creativity and innovation, as it is based on the assessor's own experience and knowledge and by comparison with the work of others.
• Communicating to the students that the work is clinically assessed.

Course information

Dynamics of Design - 1524QCA

Course details can be found at: http://www.ua.gu.edu.au/subject_outlines/QCA/2005/s1/1524QCA.pdf

Course Convenor:Mr Paul Barnes
Associate Lecturer
Design
Queensland College of Arts