Increasing student innovation by immersing students in an intensive design thinking workshop

Abstract

Innovation is the currency of modern industry. Students need to possess an understanding of, and abilities directly related to innovation, where they possess the aptitude and capacity to generate, develop, and implement new and meaningful ideas. The purpose of this paper is to present how we are making this happen at our university. The paper outlines our curriculum decisions and development, associated instructional activities, and assessment and evaluation methods. The curriculum we have developed, has been culled from several resources: our personal research in creativity, collaboration with the Stanford d.School and IDEO, and several other educational and industry institutions. Our findings thus far according to the Torrance Creativity Test, and our own innovation student assessment survey suggests students who participate in collaborative cross-discipline innovation focused training, will increase in innovative understanding, aptitude and skill set. We believe the findings from our study thus far have broad implications for industry, higher education, and the K-12 environment. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2010.