Creativity & Problem Solving

Making Holistic Education

Relevant & Interesting

1
 Objective and Structure
Context Examples Methods

-Applying
-Everyday Life
Individual Thought
-Harnessing team
Objective: Students thinking
experience the possibilities
-Student Life and benefits of innovation -Drill Down
and creative thinking -Cause & Effect
-Brainstorming
-Business
-Role Play

Exercises

2
 The Queen of Sheba Puzzles
• Early examples of creative problem solving. In
Solomon’s shoes, how would you solve them?
Problem 1: Two flowers are presented to King Solomon. Both look and
smell exactly the same, however one is real while the other is artificial.
Without feeling them, how could the King tell which one is real?
The Solomon Solution: Place them in the garden. The bees went only
to the real flower.

Problem 2: Two mothers claim the same child to be their own. How
would the King determine the real mother?
The Solomon Solution: Orders the child to be cut into two equal
halves. Only the real mother pleaded to give away the child to the
other, rather than kill it.

Creative Problem Solving has always defined Wisdom.

3
 Home Grown Creative Thought
• Birbal

• Gandhiji: Innovation in thought.

– Non-Violence: One of the pioneers to use organized
non-violence as an effective method of protest.
– Dandi March, Home Spun: Innovative and simple
methods of self-reliance.
• Tata Nano: Design & Manufacturing
– Challenging the constraints
– Using talent effectively
– Self-belief
4
 Creativity in real life
• Birbal visited Persia. The king received him well.
On returning he was asked to compare the
Persian king with Akbar. Birbal said that the king
of Persia is like the full moon while Akbar like a
quarter moon. The King of Persia was pleased.
On returning Akbar was furious. Then Birbal said
the full moon is slowly disappearing and
declining while you will become brighter and
brighter.

5
 More examples……..
• A thirsty crow spotted a
water jug with some
water inside it. But the
neck of the jug was too
narrow for the crow to
drink the water. The crow
hit upon the idea of
picking pebbles and
dropping into the jug so
that the water level rose.

6
 “Everyday Life” Exercise 1
• The Problem: Poor waste management in our homes
and surroundings.
• Method: Individual Write Up + Group Discussion.
• Exercise:
1. Each individual student to write out the problem as he/ she
experiences it in his/her own surrounding.
2. Write out as many creative solutions to the problem as
possible.
• Evaluation:
– Faculty to invite 5 students to discuss their exercise.
– Class critiques on the following lines
• Application (Can it be really done in Indian conditions?)
• Completeness (Waste disposal vs. waste management)
• Range (Does it cover all possibilities?)
• Execution (Does the solution examine who will execute and how
that will be managed)

7
 “Everyday Life” Exercise 2
• The Problem: Tackle poor time management
• Method: Individual Write Up.
• Exercise:
• Each student to write out one essential activity that he/she
would have liked to do in the past one week but was not able to.
• Write out all the major activities/ tasks done in the last one week.
• Separate them into essential, non-essential tasks.
• List out ways in which the desired activity could have been
carried out.
• Evaluation:
– Faculty to discuss learning from the exercise.
• Differentiating between essential and non-essential tasks.
• Problem solving is required in everyday life.
• It can be incremental, not just break through
• Structuring a problem yields solutions
• Everybody can be a problem-solver.

8
 “Everyday Life” Exercise 3
• The Problem: Solving traffic snarls in Bangalore.
• Method: Brainstorming.
• Exercise:
1. Students to be given one Post-It each.
2. Students to write out one idea each on their most creative and practical
approach to solving the problem.
3. Faculty collects the Post-Its and arranges them on the whiteboard
based on approach themes- e.g, infrastructure, personnel, parking
spaces, vehicle management, Pooling etc.
4. Combine ideas into 3-4 central ideas within each theme.
5. Get the class to debate on which idea and a combination of ideas
across themes is likely to succeed.
6. Arrive at creatively thought out solution(s)

• Evaluation:
– Class to discuss
• Brainstorming as an effective method to channel creative thoughts
• Organizing creative thoughts and combining to work out effective solutions.

9
 Student Exercise 1
• The Problem: Event organization on a tight budget
• Method: Team Exercise
• Exercise:
1. Split the class into groups of 7-10 students each.
2. Each team to make a presentation at the end of 20 minutes of
discussion.
3. Problem statement:
1. Each team needs to plan an excursion to Ooty for the class.
2. Students are unable to spend more than Rs, 500 per person,
3. The Estimated Costs per head for the trip are:
• Transportation: Rs. 400 ; Stay: Rs. 200; Food: Rs. 150; Incidentals:
Rs. 50.
4. Each team to come out with solutions on how to make the trip possible.
• Evaluation:
– The class to discuss and evaluate each team on
• Problem resolution
• Out-of-the-box thinking (e.g., organizing an event to raise funds)
• Turning adversity to advantage (e.g., change a-la-carte meals to buffet
around a bonfire, find a better place closer to college etc)
• Ability to convince the rest of the class on the ideas generated.
10
 Student Exercise 2
• The Problem: Thinking creatively on someone else’s problem
• Method: Role Play
• Exercise:
• Split the class into 4 groups.
• One student from each group to be given one of the following problems to be
acted out. (Each problem needs to be fleshed out sufficiently to aid role-play).
• Other team members to discuss the stated problem for 15 minutes and choose
one member to role-play as a councilor/ friend etc.
• Faculty to declare one of the teams winner at the end of the exercise.

Student A is a Student B is Student C is facing Student D is finding

new student and new to the city pressure from it hard to cope with
faces ostracism and has few his/her parents to his/her studies
in class. friends chose a particular
stream of education.

• Evaluation:
– Discuss traits of effective counselors
– Discuss the art of listening and empathizing
– Creative solutions by looking at the problem from the outside.

11
 Business Exercise 1
• The Problem: Building Innovative Teams
• Method: Team Exercise
• Exercise:
1. Split the class into groups of 7-10 students each.
2. Each team is given a cardboard sheet, scissors, glue and coloured
paper.
3. Each team has to nominate a leader (manager).
4. The team needs to come up with the most creative way of using the
materials in an alloted time.
5. At the end of the time alloted, each team needs to display the product
and discuss the process
• Evaluation:
– The class to discuss on:
• Problems they encountered in getting the team to innovate together.
• Accepting and rejecting ideas, listening, team spirit, conflicts.
• The process of getting the team to work together once the idea was firmed
up.
• Did it turn out to what they had wanted, what were the challenges.
• Discuss about successful companies that have innovated – IPOD, 3M,
Google.
12
 Business Exercise 2
• The Problem: Saving costs for the organization
• Method: Cause and Effect Diagrams
• Exercise:
1. Split the class into groups of 7-10 students each.
2. Each team is given one element of organization costs- Travel,
Energy, Infrastructure, Staffing, Marketing, IT.
3. Teams to draw out cause and effect diagrams for the problem
assigned to them.
4. Teams to write out innovative solutions and examine
implications.

• Evaluation:
– The class to discuss on:
• Studying causes and drilling down to root cause.
• Solutions themselves have implications in a complex organization.
• Innovation can bring about change.

13
Thank You

14