Creativity and Concept (Divergent & Convergent thinking)

Concept extraction was the topic for session two and we then considered Divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking is a method used to generate ideas which can then make possible solutions. You start with one object for example a paper clip then find as many different uses for that paper clip as possible. The more ideas you come up with the more unique your answer will be. This helps with trying to think outside the box and getting rid of the first ideas that come into your head. It somehow digs the unusual ideas out which can be more relevant to the question asked, even if your idea is not possible. Convergent thinking on the other hand is often used in conjunction to Divergent thinking. It brings as many ideas as possible together to form one object or one idea.

This is used in many schools during multiple choice test for intelligence. We gave this test a go to find out what intelligence type we were. I found this type of creative thinking really interesting and it helped me a lot in being able to branch out to new ideas and not worry about them being wrong as there is no right or wrong answer. The test showed that I was special-visual am better at looking at art work or drawing my ideas on paper rather then writing them down. After doing this test it was time to think of ways in which to transform the teaching room into a better space for learning, we generated ideas and concepts and also placed these on the wall. We placed concepts on top of the line but didn’t give anything to specific to give to the contractor. We matched up the ideas and concepts and then added ideas below concepts and concepts above ideas - to generate more ideas and concepts. Overall I found this way of thinking to be more challenging because some of the concepts weren’t as straight forward as some of the ideas where. It was easier to find ideas then concepts because we were constantly thinking about ideas and most of them weren’t doable. This challenged are creative mind in order for us to come up with exclusive ideas. Also it helped with teamwork and working in groups you wouldn’t normally work with so it gave me an insight of how other people work and what ideas they had.