Sheila Pontis nos habla en su blog sobre los Cursos de Creatividad aplicada a la Investigación Científica y las charlas publicadas en Spotify que ella junto a Mariana Salgado pensaron.
«Looking ahead
The goal with this course is to showcase the need for integrating imagination and creativity into any subject’s curriculum to equip students to (re)learn how to imagine and be creative. To be able to innovate and collectively tackle complex challenges, we need to start with individual creativity, as Ruth and Amabile suggested. Detaching imagination and creativity from only art and design subjects is the first step. By helping people regain control of these cognitive activities, we can start building the foundations for a creative, more healthy society.
The multiple editions of the course have generated large amounts of data – drawings, journal entries, divergent exercises, etc. – that we are analyzing to better understand the impact of creativity training in science as well as to identify pedagogical approaches that work better than others. The first paper we have published shed light on specific cognitive processes that such training should focus on to improve early-career scientists’ ability to generate both more and highly original ideas.
You can also learn more outcomes from the course in first person from students. Recently, I co-organized with Mariana Salgado a Creativity series (in Spanish) for the pod-cast Diseño y Diaspora. While some of the conversations in this series are with design or art related professionals, two of them are with former students from the Creativity + Science course, who afterwards joined the teaching team as teaching assistants. Yes, these interviews showcase the impact of thinking creatively in their scientific work, but, most importantly, they shed light on how both – Carolina and Nadia – have embraced their creative selves into their daily lives:
– Conversation with Carolina Vásquez (Spanish)
– Conversation with Nadia Marina Alves (Spanish)
– Conversation with Sheila Pontis (Spanish)
Building on this work, during summer, I am going to be teaching a few workshops on imagination and deliberate creativity aimed at helping people – scientists, educators, psychologists, engineers, lawyers, etc. – take control of their ability to imagine and create. Outcomes will bring benefits at individual and societal levels and in various domains: mental (spiritual, well-being, happiness) and physical health, science, the environment, politics, and technology.»