Focusing on Creativity: Faculty Motivation in Teaching Brain-storming and Creativity in an Introductory Course

At Reykjavik University we run an introductory course for all first year engineering students in two phases: early in the semester we have two days of „brain-storming“, focusing on creativity, and then at the end of the semester an intensive course for three weeks focusing on design. In the „brain-storming“ phase almost all the faculty in the School of Science and Engineering (SSE) take part and act as tutors for the students groups, their role is to guide them but not to solve the task at hand for them. This puts many of the faculty into a new role and their reaction has ranged from very enthusiastic and interested to reluctant, critical and even drudging. It is important to give all faculty an opportunity to influence the development of the course, with the aim of developing the course in such a way that the faculty involved feel a sense of ownership in the course and become more engaged in their roles as tutors. To obtain more knowledge about the attitude of SSE faculty towards the course and their roles in the course, it was decided to design a questionnaire. This paper touches on CDIO standards 1, 2, 9 and 10. Standard 1 The Context: SSE has been adopting the principle that CDIO is the context of engineering education programs but what about the faculty motivation, are they convinced that the CDIO approach is what we want and that the implementation is heading in the right direction? Standard 2 CDIO Syllabus Outcomes - Do the faculty agree on the syllabus and the learning outcomes of the course? Is the emphasis on creativity justified? Standards 9 and 10 Enhancement of Faculty CDIO Skills and Teaching Skills: Are the faculty prepared to teach a curriculum emphasising personal and interpersonal skills and active learning with problem solving activities, team work, brainstorming and discussions? Do we need to prepare them better and coach them for this teaching situation? In this paper we will present the results of this survey and discuss the implications.

Proceedings of the 12th International CDIO Conference, Turku, Finland, June 12-16 2016