Community Approaches to Enhancing Creative Problem Solving
How can we enhance problem solving and creativity within communities? One way may be to approach community problems in a playful way that encourages exploration and experimentation without fear of failure. In the past I have advocated the development of a community based Creativity Challenge that would organize individuals and teams to face a series of tests of their creative problem solving. The event would be organized in a way as to lead to more and more challenging tests until it culminated in a series of real world problems currently being faced by the community. While the event itself would be entertaining and instructive, the real value lies in the preparation for the event by individuals and teams. Participants will enhance their creative problem solving skills as they prepare for the test. These newly enhanced skills would then be available for use at work, in the family, and in civic life.
[You can find my older article on the topic – “Creativity Challenge: A Community-Based Approach to Enhancing Creat...” at the Journal of Extension.]
Do you have ideas for the types of challenges that would test people’s creativity in a community setting?
[You can find my older article on the topic – “Creativity Challenge: A Community-Based Approach to Enhancing Creat...” at the Journal of Extension.]
Do you have ideas for the types of challenges that would test people’s creativity in a community setting?
Tags: community, creativity, informal, learning, problem, solving
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Erica A Morin on -
Late comer to this thread. Did your program get off the ground? Any interesting challenges? Based upon what you wrote, how exactly did you get your community together to participate? I know I have a neighborhood monthly "community meeting" but it is the same people with the same ideas in the same rut (not that that wouldn't be the perfect experimental ground to work with). Did you have a target audience you were aiming to focus on first?
erica -
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Permalink Reply by Robert Domaingue on -
Erica thanks for your comments. No I did not get this project off the ground. I was seeking to do it in a large city and could not pull all the elements together. However I think the idea will work on very different scales. I think working with a neighborhood group would be a very good level to try out the ideas with (or bring together 2 different neighborhood groups and let the natural competition spur people on - the solutions to problems might be relevent to both neighborhoods). Start with small fun challenges and work your way up to dealing with real issues in the community.
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