Creativity Hack: Doodle To Discover Your Assumptions

We are starting a new blog category called “Creativity Hacks”. Each blog will contain one concrete technique that can be used in the classroom to help bring out student creativity. Our first one is a technique to help students find underlying assumptions they hold. 

About The Hack

A highly effective creativity technique is to reverse a commonly-held assumption which often gives radically new insights. 

When we teach our invention class one of the tasks we give students is to find an assumption they are making about the object of their innovation. As a warm up activity, we play a game called “Opposite Day”, where students work in teams and pick an assumption to reverse and present their solution to the rest of the class in about 5 minutes. For example, if the assumption is “Tables have legs”, then students have to reverse it (“Tables don’t have legs”) and then find a design or a situation where the reversal will make sense. When we gave this prompt to one group, they came up with a table that is held up with wires attached to the ceiling and can be lowered when needed or raised to make more space in the room. 

The nice thing about this technique is that it often gives very original ideas that one would normally not come up with. However, we found that while older students (middle school and up) are reasonably comfortable with coming up with assumptions themselves, elementary students have a harder time. They are able to come up with solutions once an assumption is given to them, but finding an underlying assumption itself is tricky. 

This brings us to a creativity hack we discovered. We found that asking students to first draw their object and then question each part of their drawing makes it easier for them to identify assumptions they can subsequently work with. We all hold mental models of objects that reflect commonly found real world implementations. By doodling we bring to surface the salient features of the object model, which can then be used to generate new ideas. 

Summary

Finally, here is a quick summary of the creativity hack and how to use it with students.

DescriptionDoodling your idea can help surface assumptions you hold about the object or idea. Once surfaced, it’s easier to reverse those assumptions and get new insights.
ExampleIf you ask students to draw a table they will typically draw a rectangular surface with four legs. They then question each part – “Should tables have four or any legs?”, “Does the tabletop have to be one flat surface?”. Examining each question can give students fresh ideas and insights for designing a new kind of table. 
Tips Give students <1min to doodle their object in order to bring out the most common held model.Reiterate to students that the quality of the drawing isn’t important but drawing all parts is. 
ExtensionsWhile we have used this technique on concrete objects (invention, design thinking), it is possible to extend this to abstract concepts like biases. For example, if students are asked to doodle a scientist, do most of them draw a man in a lab coat? If so, it can lead to a good discussion about women as scientists and different kinds of scientific disciplines. 
Hack: Doodle To Discover Your Assumptions

Inventor Spotlight: Geeth Nunna

Our featured student inventor is Geeth Nunna, who created an interesting storage pouch. Her idea won a national level award as part of the “Student Ideas for a Better America” competition organized by the National Museum of Education

Here is Geeth talking about her invention in more detail.  

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

My name is Geeth Nunna and I’m in 5th grade! My interests-hobbies-favorite subjects consist of video games, social network, drama, acting, music, science, social studies, etc. And, my dream job(s) are to be a model, an actor, or a doctor/investigator helping discover new medical research.

What is your invention and how does it work?

My invention is a multi conventional storage pouch! Basically it has several layers, and each layer has a certain item(s), for example: The top layer has your pens, while the bottom layers have something else like your notes, food, or anything else of your choice.

What inspired you to develop this invention?

At the time I had made this invention, I was very interested in d.i.y’s. However, as I researched further about these “do it yourself” crafts they were very harmful to the environment as they used lots of plastics that couldn’t be recycled. So I decided to make something that could be used as several things, a lunch box, pencil case, cosmetics case, etc. And not only is this invention making less waste, it’s also made out of recycled items, so that it can be made out of someone else’s waste, and when the owner wants to throw it away it can also be re-recycled.

Did your prototype work? How was that experience? 

Yes my prototype did work on the first try, however our inventions had to be made out of cardboard and paper. Yet I still managed to make it work!

What are some things you learned from your MindAntix camp that will help you in the future? 

I learned a lot about adapting to new situations. For example, if one of my ideas didn’t work, I learned to change it to make it more useful for my purpose rather than trash the whole idea itself.

Who is your favorite inventor and why? 

My favorite inventor is George Washington Carver. This is because, to me, the whole purpose of inventing is for safety to people and the planet. Mr. Carver found 300 uses for peanuts again being resourceful and his creativity with the plant helped the whole world, and using one thing to make several others is another way of reproducing, again also helping the planet!

What kind of problems do you want to solve in the future?

I want to help the loss of animals in the ocean, due to litter. And I also want to help the homeless! 

How will you use your prize money? 

I’m not too sure right now, but I’m sure that I’ll find a good purpose for it.

Congratulations Geeth for winning the award! We hope to see you solve bigger challenges in the future.

Inventor Spotlight: Pahal Sah

Our featured student inventor is Pahal Sah, who created a more useful backpack. Her idea won a national level award as part of the “Student Ideas for a Better America” competition organized by the National Museum of Education

Here is Pahal talking about her invention in more detail.  

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

Hi! I’m Pahal Sah, a 5th Grade Quest student at Albert Einstein Elementary. I love reading books about mystery and fiction, arts and crafts, playing board games, and playing with friends! My favorite subjects are Reading and Social Studies, mainly because of the fun projects we have.

What is your invention and how does it work?

My Invention is the Fluffy Carrier 9000, and it is a backpack, a normal one, but with a few extra features. One of them is the wheels and handle, like a suitcase. Whenever you pull the handle, wheels pop out of the bottom. I also added an expandable pocket in the middle, and if you unstrap it, the other side turns into a blanket! There are many pockets for school supplies, and another great part is that the backpack itself is waterproof.  

What inspired you to develop this invention?

Two problems inspired me – how wet backpacks got during rainy days, and that most of the time I couldn’t fit all my supplies in my bag at school. It was a real pain carrying my water bottle, folder, and lunchbox while trying to board a bus.

Did your prototype work? How was that experience? 

Yes, my prototype worked! I made a bag using construction paper; the hardest part was shaping it. I’m pretty sure I used some cardboard for the base, and I decorated it with even more “pockets”. For the wheel, I taped a small circle and the handle, I used a piece of construction paper to sort that out. I was very happy at the end when my prototype looked like an actual backpack! 

What are some things you learned from your MindAntix camp that will help you in the future? 

To think out of the box and to be creative. Later, I will have to make my own ideas not copy them from other people. I really loved how we were supposed to make our own inventions! 

Who is your favorite inventor and why? 

I don’t really have a favorite inventor. All the inventors stand out to me!

What kind of problems do you want to solve in the future?

In the future, I want to solve the problems that are affecting nature such as Global Warming, helping save endangered animals, and more. 

How will you use your prize money? 

I actually haven’t thought about that…maybe to get something I really want? Or maybe I could use it to get a new game or book!

Congratulations Pahal for winning the award! We hope to see you solve bigger challenges in the future.

Inventor Spotlight: Manan Ghosh

Our featured student inventor is Manan Ghosh, who designed an interesting board game. His idea won a national level award as part of the “Student Ideas for a Better America” competition organized by the National Museum of Education

Here is Manan talking about his game in more detail.  

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

My name is Manan Ghosh. I’m in 5th Grade Quest at Ella Baker Elementary School in Redmond. My favorite subjects are Science and Math. During my free time I like to play Minecraft and build items in Paint 3D that I can use in Minecraft. My dream job is to be a scientist.

What is your invention and how does it work?

My invention is a board game called “Castles at Battle”. In the game, you move your pawn across the board to collect  resources such as Wood, Rock, Metal and Bricks. You then use these resources to build parts of your castle that then do battle with each other. As part of this, you can enhance the defenses of your castle by adding  things like Walls, Towers and Drawbridges, using the resources that you have collected. Resources also let you attack your opponent’s castles by buying attacks, like Knight Attack and Archer Attack. It is a game of moves and countermoves, as you try to get enough resources to defend your own castle while also collecting resources to attack your opponent. You win if you eliminate all other players, this is done by sending out an attack that deals more attack points then the defense points of the other castle.

What inspired you to develop this invention?

I like games involving war and when you have to focus on more than one thing to win. Making 3-D models of castles, walls and towers was a lot of fun and made playing the game more real.

Did your prototype work? How was that experience? 

I could not finish my prototype though I did make some of the 3D printed items for my game. Since it was my first time doing 3D printing and my game pieces were a bit complex, it took me more time than I expected. It was still a lot of fun.

What are some things you learned from your MindAntix camp that will help you in the future? 

I learned how to design 3D objects using new tools and print them. I have played board games, but it is different to think about board games from the point of view of the designer. You have to think about different things.

Who is your favorite inventor and why? 

Leonardo Da Vinci is my favorite inventor. He was an artist and also made many inventions in various fields.

What kind of problems do you want to solve in the future?

I would like to find ways to solve the problem of too much plastic and pollution in the oceans.

How will you use your prize money? 

I will save my money until I find some good use for it.

Congratulations Manan for winning the award! We hope you enjoy playing your board game with your friends and family.

The Educational Challenge For This Decade: A Story In Two Graphs

As we start the new decade and move towards the post-pandemic phase with cautious optimism, the question of how education needs to evolve is still looming. The pandemic shone a light on challenges like the magnitude of inequity in our society, but it also became a catalyst for better technology adoption in schools. Without technology platforms that made remote learning feasible, it is scary to imagine what last year could have looked like. 

However, the role technology has played in education so far has been to enable the same teaching that took place in person to occur in remote settings – it hasn’t really transformed education in deeper ways. But transformation is what’s really needed to address underlying issues.

The problem with our current educational system has been in the making for several decades – we are simply not adapting fast enough to keep up with the technological progress. The gap between skills that students acquire in schools and skills that are needed in the workforce continues to widen. 

Jonathan Rochelle, who started the Google Apps for Education team, captured the essence of the problem we face in education today. While comparing the progress we have made in machine learning to human learning, he quippedwe are teaching machines to be more like humans and we are teaching humans to be more like machines.” 

Is Creativity The New STEM?

The impact machine learning is having on human livelihood brings us to the first graph (Fig. 1). 

Research by economists Henry Siu and Nir Jaimovich shows that economic growth over the last two decades has come entirely from non-routine, or creative jobs. Routine work – both manual and cognitive – has been steadily declining due to automation. Machines learning is getting better at increasingly complex tasks, performing them with fewer errors compared to humans. 

We are teaching machines to be more like humans, and we are doing that quite well. 

As a side note, the graph also shows that every recession accelerates the decline in routine work, and in a few years we will learn the full impact of covid on long-term job trends.

The current situation is reminiscent of the early 2000s when various reports (e.g. Rising Above the Gathering Storm) raised concerns about the quality of math and science education, and the shortage in the STEM workforce to meet the growing demand. 

In response to that Obama, who had earlier called STEM education our “Sputnik” moment, announced incentives for schools that create STEM programs for their students in his 2013 State of the Union address. That triggered an intense focus on STEM education from many players including schools, nonprofits and the technology industry. These efforts have paid off to an extent. Access to coding and other STEM programs is much more easily available to students of all age groups and backgrounds now. There are indications that although we have a scarcity of STEM graduates in certain geographical areas and domains, we also have a surplus in others. 

We are yet again at a junction where economic forecasts are pointing to the need for a skill that isn’t being adequately addressed. It’s likely that Creativity is the STEM of this decade. 

The Decline of Student Creativity

How well students are doing in their creative thinking abilities brings us to the sobering reality of our second graph (Fig. 2). 

Professor Kyung Hee Kim first discovered that student creativity as measured by the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) has been declining since the 1990s and her analysis led to the highly popular Newsweek article, The Creativity Crisis. She found that measures like originality (thinking of novel ideas) and fluency (thinking of several ideas) – the hallmark of creativity – have shown a significant decline over the years. 

Part of the reason for this decline, according to Prof. Kim, has been the heavy and narrow focus on standardized testing which doesn’t leave room for building higher order thinking skills. Learning in school heavily prioritizes “one right answer”, which machines are good at, as opposed to multiple possible solutions, which give students the opportunity to exercise their creative muscle. Or as Sir Ken Robinson expressed, “we are educating people out of their creative capacities.

Current EdTech tools used in schools aren’t helping either – they primarily help students express their creativity instead of building it. 

In other words, we are teaching humans to be more like machines, and unfortunately, we are doing that quite well too.  

Navigating the Skill Gap

Educators have long recognized the importance of fostering creativity as part of student learning but the current economic environment is making this an urgent need. 

The good news is that creativity is a cognitive skill that can be developed with practice, and cognitive creativity programs have shown promising results

The not-so-good news is that most focus on divergent thinking which is disconnected from academic content students are learning. As one study pointed out, “It is hard to see how listing 100 interesting and unusual ways to use egg cartons will help Johnny improve his scores on state-mandated achievement tests.” 

One approach taken at MindAntix is to identify thought patterns, like associative or reverse thinking, that aid in creative thinking and actively incorporate them into school curriculum. Other educational approaches, some of them domain specific, have also been effective in improving creativity which offers room for some optimism. 

If we start teaching humans to be better at what makes us uniquely human – our ability to think creatively – we stand a much better chance at improving educational and career outcomes for our students. 

This article first appeared on edCircuit.