Creative Thinking & Problem Solving

Walk in Song: Break My Stride

Topic

• CRI Skill: Problem Formulation

  • Description

    • Defining problems and posing and testing possible solutions

  • Next steps

    • Take courses that teach in-depth problem-identification and problem-solving skills

    • Make time to define problems you are trying to solve

    • Identify and use several different strategies to help you problem solve

    • Practice generating and assessing possible solutions to problems

  • Aspects

    • Hypothesize - to pose possible solutions to a problem that you can then research.

      • Think about the purpose of a problem when coming up with a plan to solve it.

      • Consider what information is available and what information is needed but missing.

      • Create a hypothesis.

      • Create multiple hypotheses and figure out which is best.

      • Use past experiences solving similar problems when formulating hypotheses.

    • Strategize - to consider different ways to solve a problem.

      • Think about how you've solved similar problems in the past and apply those strategies when solving a problem.

      • Make a plan or come up with a strategy to solve a problem.

      • Come up with many different ways to solve a problem.

      • Think of different ways to solve a problem and pick the best one.

      • Break problems into smaller pieces.

      • Try something different if your first approach doesn't seem to be working.

Lesson

• Creative Thinking

  • Connect the Dots Discussion

  • Questions

  • Make a paper plane

    • Paper plane making music

    • Paper Airplane Video: Michael McMillan - Creativity, Innovation

• Practical Thinking

  • • Define problem

      • Break it into smaller pieces

      • Think about underlying problem

    • List resources and strategies

    • List multiple possible solutions

    • Pick a solution / make a decision

• Stories:

  • • "We'll see"

    • Hawk

Additional Resources

• 10 ways to improve your decision making skills

• Think Like a Freak

  • Excerpt

  • Core Ideas

    • Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding them – or, often, deciphering them – is the key to understanding a problem, and how it might be solved.

    • Knowing what to measure, and how to measure it, can make a complicated world less so. There is nothing like the sheer power of numbers to scrub away layers of confusion and contradiction.

      • Soccer

    • The conventional wisdom is often wrong.

      • Don't be embarrassed by how much you don't know

        • What you don't know

        • Kimmel MLK

• Smart people don't think others are stupid

  • Being smart means thinking things through - trying to find the real answer, not the first answer.

  • Being stupid means avoiding thinking by jumping to conclusions. Jumping to a conclusion is like quitting a game : you lose by default.

  • When someone says “They are so stupid!” - it means they’ve stopped thinking.

• Finish Strong Videos - Problem Solving