Teaching innovative design reasoning: How concept-knowledge theory can help overcome fixation effects

Armand Hatchuel (), Pascal Le Masson () and Benoit Weil ()
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Armand Hatchuel: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Pascal Le Masson: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Benoit Weil: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: How can we prepare engineering students to work collectively on innovative design issues, involving ill-defined, "wicked" problems? Recent works have emphasized the need for students to learn to combine divergent and convergent thinking in a collaborative, controlled manner. From this perspective, teaching must help them overcome four types of obstacles or "fixation effects" (FEs) that are found in the generation of alternatives, knowledge acquisition, collaborative creativity, and creativity processes. We begin by showing that teaching based on concept-knowledge (C-K) theory can help to manage FEs because it helps to clarify them and then to overcome them by providing means of action. We show that C-K theory can provide scaffolding to improve project-based learning (PBL), in what we call project-based critical learning (PBCL). PBCL helps students be critical and give due thought to the main issues in innovative design education: FEs. We illustrate the PBCL process with several cases and show precisely where the FEs appear and how students are able to overcome them. We conclude by discussing two main criteria of any teaching method, both of which are usually difficult to address in situations of innovative design teaching. First, can the method be evaluated? Second, is the chosen case "realistic" enough? We show that C-K-based PBCL can be rigorously evaluated by teachers, and we discuss the circumstances in which a C-K-based PBCL may or may not be realistic.

Keywords: Design theory; Innovative design; K-Theory; Knowledge theory; Project based learning; Project-based; Teaching methods; Concept-Knowledge Design Theory; Creative Design Teaching; Project-Based Learning; Convergent thinkings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-02
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published in AI EDAM, 2011, 25 (1), pp.77-92. ⟨10.1017/S089006041000048X⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00660245

DOI: 10.1017/S089006041000048X

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