Creativity & Innovation Toolkit

Some teaching and learning strategies to develop creativity

1. Brainstorming
2. Fishbone Diagram
3. Free Association
4. Mind Mapping
5. Other People's Viewpoint
6. Six Thinking Hats
7. Visual Brainstorming
8. Synectic Strategies

Visual Brainstorming

When traditional thinking has become stale or dried up, visual brainstorming using graphic conceptualisation may be a useful alternative. This proceeds in two phases:

Idea Generation Phase: set a high target: e.g. to generate 20-30 basic idea-sketches on a specific problem in one hour. If students are working in groups, they could begin with private sketches which are then pooled, perhaps in a round robin session. Quick, impulsive ideas put into sketches can help to avoid undeveloped “lost” thoughts/ideas. Rapid response to an idea with an immediate sketch creates momentum, preventing any critical thought processes from intervening.

Evaluation Phase: The collection of sketched ideas can now be evaluated.

• Each student presents their idea-sketches, trying to observe them with as much openness as possible;
• The students should think of themselves as critics, looking at the sketches from different perspectives;
• Rotate the sketches, place images on images, cover top or bottom half, for example. These varying tactics may inspire yet another idea.
• Comparison: Clustering all the sketches together, place complex ones with simplistic ones, make comparisons, etc. More ideas could be generated at this stage.

Creativity Techniques
Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 23 October, 2006.
http://www.mycoted.com/Visual_Brainstorming

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