The Patterns- breaker

Why?

The brain’s tendency to organize information into recognized patterns in the mind often inhibits the students’ abilities to act creatively in the divergent phase. The Patterns-breaker provokes the students to think outside these existing thinking-patterns, which enables them to create more creative and innovative ideas.

How?

Inspired by psychologist De Bono’s (1970) ideas on lateral thinking, the teacher makes deliberately wrong or unreasonable statements that the students must relate to during idea generation: for example; ‘Gravity does not exist’ or ‘Users can’t read’. Starting from such provocations, the students are challenged to generate new ideas.

Tips

The teacher can also work with other constraints. For example, work with time as a limitation or make the students work with specific materials during the process.

Literature

De Bono, Edward. (1970) Lateral Thinking: a Textbook of Creativity. London: Ward Lock Education