Description

In any university context, you are required to establish practical, creative habits that allow you to innovate, solve problems and collaborate positively. Throw into that mix the fact that any PhD project is an exercise in problem solving and that every funding bid or publication requires novelty, and its clear that you benefit from the ability to devise new, and workable, ideas. This hands-on workshop is designed to equip you with practical tools and approaches to relieve the pressure of problematic situations, generate new and insightful ideas and develop them into suitable ways forward. By the end of the course, you will have addressed the following objectives:

By the end of these workshops, you will have:

1. Explored the links between creativity, motivation, flexibility and research

2. Understood your reasons and context for participation – applied the learning and tools to real situations

3. Learned an overall process for understanding and approaching situations constructively

4. Devised tools to cultivate and attend to natural creative process and attitude

5. Working knowledge of tools to create ideas and new lines of though

6. Understood different practical methods to explore, develop and turn those ideas into plans

7. Explored how to offer and receive critique on those plans in a genuinely constructive manner

8. Understood the of use solution-focused questioning to cultivate creativity

9. Learned how to generate a motivating vision for solutions vs dwelling in problems

10. Found the factors that support, or suppress, personal creativity and resourcefulness

11. Understood the impact of assumption and ego vs open, exploratory states

12. A method for easing the pressure of important situations and enabling creativity