Summer 2020 Online Courses in Critical and Creative Thinking

CRCRTH 611 Seminar in Critical Thinking (Theme: Design for Living Complexities)

WISER Class #2314

Instructor: Bobby Ricketts

May 26 - July 9, 2020

Meeting times: Mondays and Wednesdays, 5:00-8:00pm ET

Course description:

The designer mindset is said to be solution-focused rather than problem-focused, and action-oriented towards creating a preferred future. Design Thinking, a process utilized by designers to solve complex problems and find desirable solutions for their clients, draws upon logic, imagination, intuition, and systemic reasoning to explore possibilities - and to produce desired outcomes that benefit the end-user, customer, or client. Human-centered design is an approach that involves the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process. As changemakers, systems thinking can help us understand more about the interventions we design. For example, the systems principle of "leverage" shows how small, well-focused actions can sometimes produce significant, enduring improvements if these actions occur in the right place within the system. Systems thinking involves a shift from observing events or data to identifying patterns of behavior over time, to discovering the underlying structures that drive such events and patterns. Critical thinking involves understanding ideas and practices better when we examine them in relation to alternatives. In a sense, critical thinking is in design from the start, because design cannot proceed without the thought that there are alternatives to the current way of doing things (Taylor, 2002). Exploring critical thinking at the intersection of design and systems thinking may perhaps bring about new ways of perceiving problem challenges, expanding the choices available for creating more satisfying, long-term solutions.

With the COVID-19 pandemic providing a critical context for disruptive change, the Summer 2020 Critical Thinking Seminar will make space for students to think more deeply about the nature of emerging design challenges relevant to their current practices and ongoing life issues. The course supports students evolving as reflective practitioners by critically evaluating intervention design in a manner that attends to personal and professional development, as well as external responses to public infrastructure fragility, climate change, co-creating "the new normal," and more.

The course revolves around written design sketches and presentations, as well as participation items. These items include active participation during online sessions via Zoom, based on preparation between classes, peer commentary on drafts, and more.

Recognizing that a number of prospective enrollees may find themselves experiencing a disruption in the customary routines of their work and lives, the Summer 2020 Critical Thinking seminar will accommodate students with a need to participate asynchronously.

CRCRTH 612 Seminar in Creativity (Theme: Overcoming Creative Blocks)

WISER Class #2315

Instructor: Suzanne Clark

May 26 - July 9, 2020

Course description:

The creative process is a journey through your inner world, where sights along the way are channeled into a product and eventually are shared with the outer world. Because it is a process that relies on self-perceptions, self-truths, beliefs and values, it implies that a system be in place in order to acquire, express and ultimately share this self-knowledge. The personal nature of this process can give rise to creative works, yet at the same time, it can become the weight that causes a fracture in the process. The Seminar in Creativity will examine tensions that may arise in artistic creation and the blocks may manifest.