CEDec13

=Manifestos for Creative Thinking and Problem-Solving= // (part of the Fall 2013 [|Collaborative Explorations: Creative Thinking for All] series) //

A Collaborative Exploration (CE) in which participants develop their own program—or "manifesto"—for creative thinking and problem solving. >> on hangout for 1 hour each week in December at 5pm Monday 2, 9, 16 & 23 (=a time and day to be arranged to suit those who registered). The URL for the first hangout will be provided only to those who register (via http://bit.ly/CEApply), which entails making a commitment to attend that 1st session and at least 2 of the other 3 hangouts. >> a) tangible: a program or manifesto for creative thinking and problem solving; and >> b) experiential: being impressed at how much can be learned with a small commitment of time using the CE structure to motivate and connect participants.
 * //**In brief, CEs are an extension of Problem- or Project-Based Learning**// and related approaches to education in which participants address a scenario or case in which the problems are not well defined, shaping their own directions of inquiry and developing their skills as investigators and prospective teachers (in the broadest sense of the word). (For more background, read the prospectus.)
 * //**If you want to know what a CE requires of you**//, review the expectations and mechanics.
 * //**If you are wondering how to define a meaningful and useful approach**// to the topic, let us present a scenario for the CE and hope this stimulates you to apply to participate. We will then let CE participants judge for themselves whether their inquiries are relevant.
 * //**Intended outcomes of this Collaborative Exploration**// are of two kinds:

> "If there is one basic rule... that I, as a novice, have learned it is > DON'T BE AFRAID! (Frangie, Novice Sage Manifesto)
 * Scenario**

Books such as Julia Cameron's __The Artist's Way__ provide readers with a program for developing one's creativity. If, however, a mark of creativity is to develop one's own program, not to follow someone else's, what would your program—or "manifesto"—for creative thinking and problem solving look like? Can it make clear the set of principles or elements—in Ben Schwendener's terms, the "vertical unity"—from which changes (i.e., improvisation or creativity) "horizontally" flow?

If that charge is not quite enough introduction or guidance, consider the following additional detail:

All invention involves borrowing, so the challenge is really to synthesize elements from sources encountered during and before this CE. These syntheses or manifestos should be selected and organized so as to inspire and inform your efforts in extending creative thinking and problem-solving. For a brief intro to the experience of graduate students who wrote manifestos for //critical// thinking, see section 2 of http://www.faculty.umb.edu/pjt/journey.html. (The full manifestos from a 1999 class, including Frangie's, will be made available to participants on the private google+ community.)

In asking that the manifesto express the //vertical unity// of the field you are working in, we are following Ben Schwendener, a musician, composer, teacher of music and composing, who offers a graduate Seminar on Creativity at UMass Boston. One way to convey the vertical unity is to lead into the manifesto with a publicity bio that explains how you came to be the person for whom this creative work is important. Now, Ben does not give us a recipe for articulating the vertical unity. Indeed, he is critical of method because to work from method is to pursue the horizontal without attention to the vertical unity of elements upon which change flows naturally. An example of this problem might be a curriculum that says topics A-H must be covered. In contrast we might identify the six themes that underlie the subject matter (as proposed by science educator Paul Jablon, Lesley University). The student in a course that "covers" the required topics is assumed to be able to draw on knowledge stored in their brain (subject to an inevitable decay if the knowledge is not used). However, a student who appreciates the six themes approach has a coherent, integrated perspective from which to address future areas of learning. Other approaches to articulating a vertical unity, even though they were not created with that idea in mind, are the 4R’s sequence (Respect->Risk->Revelation->Re-engagement) of developing as a collaborator or the many Rs of developing as a Reflective Practitioner during the CCT program of studies.

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