Building a Physical Model to Teach Creative Problem-solving Skills in Online and Live Courses

Many faculty, especially new faculty, sometimes feel overwhelmed by having to teach both online and live courses while simultaneously pursuing scholarship and service activities. An effective way for faculty to improve their teaching efficiency is by creating assignments that can be taught in both online and face-to-face classes. An assignment the author has developed involves teaching creative problem solving skills for both online and face-to-face courses, by having students build a physical model of a problem and solution. In today’s competitive work environment, faculty need to provide students with the creative thinking skills that can help prepare them to deal with complex and unstructured problems that they will encounter in the workplace. At the same time, while developing their courses, sometimes faculty lose sight of the possible application of assignments for multiple modes of delivery. Faculty need to recognize the opportunities to create assignments and structure them for both online and face-to-face class delivery. In the paper, the author will describe the major components of the Creative Problem Solving Assignment. The paper will identify the benefits derived from using this assignment to develop creative thinking skills. In the paper, the author will assess the assignment on promoting creative problem solving skills using a pretest/posttest and an assignment evaluation. Also, the author will provide ideas for technology and engineering faculty on how they can develop assignments for both online and face-to-face course delivery. Finally, the author will compare the evaluation results of the assignment between his online and face-to-face classes. Key Terms: Brief, Creative Problem Solving Assignment (CPS Assignment), imagination, online and face-to-face course delivery, physical model, visualization, whole brain thinking.