part0006

There is a strong consensus that innovation is a necessary requirement of today’s workforce. Innovation is a “new idea, object, or practice that is created, developed or reinvented for the first time in an organization” (Walker, 2014). Without innovation, organizations become disadvantaged, not only in their industry, but also globally.

Research conducted by The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) identified what current employers are looking for in new college graduates in terms of innovative thinking, and what they perceive they are receiving. The research indicated that 95% of employers surveyed prefer college graduates to contribute to the workplace with innovative thinking. Furthermore, nine in ten employers agreed that innovation is essential for future organizational success and growth. Additionally, employers surveyed (93%) are less concerned with a graduate’s major, and were more interested in the graduate’s ability to communicate effectively and to solve complex problems.

Daniel Pink , an expert in motivation, has compared motivational techniques of the industrial era with today. According to Pink’s research, today’s employers are looking for individuals who can contribute across department lines, as opposed to the industrial era of specific task assignment. Pink’s rejection of the notion that all employees can be given a problem, and equally apply motivation to solve the problem, supports the AACU’s, research findings. Furthermore, Pink describes that most organization's innovative and money-making ideas have come from an employee’s ability to apply his/her own intrinsic value to an autonomous project of the employee's choice.

Some organizational leaders have recognized this process, and have implemented autonomous worktime, similar to the “15%-time” of 3M back in the 1940s. The 15%-time concept was designed to allow individuals 15% of their work week to create and innovate on projects that had intrinsic value to them. This 15%-time produced the universally known innovation of Post-It Notes by 3M. Today, well-known organizations are adopting this old-yet-new concept to increase the production of money-making innovations.

Additionally, research strongly suggests rewards systems are changing in today’s workplace. The industrial era supported if/then rewards in the workplace. If/then rewards are…if the prescribed tasked is completed to expectations, then a reward will be given. If/then employee rewards to nurture innovative thinking pale in comparison to the autonomous and intrinsic work reward system.

The if/then reward system, from the Industrial Era, can be observed in traditional task-based school projects. As an example, if a good project is presented, then a good grade will be rewarded. However, the process provides little in actual innovation learning, intrinsic motivation, or divergent thinking because the goal is a reward – a good grade- for completing a task.

Today’s organizations are beginning to embrace the old-yet-new methodology of intrinsic motivation rewards to foster innovation. Several prominent organizations are eager to offer creative workspace for the development of intrinsically-motivated innovation. However, employers have expressed concern for the lack of cross-disciplinary innovative-thinking college graduates bring to the workforce. Therefore, the time is right for this type of pedagogy in higher education.

Even with innovation becoming a field in and of itself in some higher education institutions, one main struggle exists. The struggle exists between developing robust innovation college curriculum with students from the American K-12 Common Core era. Common Core Standards and standardized testing teaching practices in the United States are based on convergent thinking, and innovation is based on divergent thinking. Convergent thinking , a term developed by Joy Paul Guilford , means the ability to determine the correct answer to a multiple-choice question, leaving little to no room for creativity. There is no correct answer in innovation, just implementation.

Divergent thinking , on the other hand, “refers to that strategy of solving problems characterized by the proposal of a multiplicity of possible solutions in an attempt to determine the one that works” (Idea generation: Divergent vs. convergent thinking, 2015, para. 2). This method of teaching has been diminished in today’s K-12 education system. There is no “correct” answer in divergent thinking, just answers that work.

As colleges and universities embrace innovation, the dismantling of the programmed mindset of the entering college freshmen is daunting. The learning process from convergent thinking to divergent thinking has posed more challenges than expected.

Currently, there are three college-level innovation teaching approaches most commonly found in the literature. The first approach is when the student is in his/her discipline, using that discipline’s curriculum to solve a discipline-related problem. Within this structure, deliverables can be graded and assessed to measure the student’s learning process.

However, to accomplish this type of assessment, the deliverable must be related to the field. This process is actually problem-solving since the outcome is usually the student’s grade. Once the problem is solved, the process is abandoned. This assignment-centered approach almost completely eliminates the intrinsic motivation processes. The whole point of intrinsically motivated innovations is that it cannot be dictated by any external demand – it must be unique to the individual student.

This first approach to teaching innovation can be an effective problem-solving teaching method. With assignments like case studies, essays, proposals, and presentations, students are learning to think creatively related to their field of study, with appropriate assessments. This approach works well for content knowledge acquisition, analysis, and synthesis, but it lacks the cross-organizational, or cross-disciplinary innovative thinking skills desired by today’s workforce where employees solve real problems for their customers.

The second approach is when students are taken outside their discipline, and required to innovate a solution to a problem in a discipline they know little to nothing about. It is often the professor’s expertise that is informing this structure, and serves to provide a measure for implementation. Students of all majors can be assembled in one class together, but it is the appropriate major-specific deliverables that are determined and evaluated by the instructor.

This approach clearly misses the intrinsic motivation aspect of innovation. As an example, in a research study of non-graphic design students placed in a course with a graphics design instructor, they were instructed to innovate a graphic design project. Since the students were not graphic designers, the outcomes were not intrinsic, but they were creative and solved a problem. Whether the problem was to receive a grade, or to finish a project, the problem was solved, yet innovation did not happen.

Both teaching scenarios are currently considered limited in replicating real-world innovation job skills. Yes, organizations need skill-specific tasks brought to completion with discipline-related education, but it is the cross-organizational innovations today’s organizations are searching for. Bringing a directive to completion is task completion and practices several skills, but is not innovation.

The third approach is connected to invention and STEM majors (science, technology, engineering or mathematics) . STEM courses promote a variance of intrinsic motivated innovation inventions . For example, build a structure out of the supplied popsicle sticks that can support a ten-pound weight. However, invention in the context of cross-organizational contributions tends to stay within the STEM departments.

Furthermore, research cites the growing concern of global issues such as climate change, human rights, and healthcare are less likely to be solved with invention, and will be better served by intrinsically-motivated social innovation.

Therefore, a college curriculum struggles to identify and produce cross-disciplinary innovative results. It is difficult and expensive, especially for smaller universities, to assemble a class of mixed majors, cross-discipline students to innovate based purely on intrinsic-valued projects.

In review, the four contributing factors which have been identified as barriers to efficiently teaching innovative thinking skills, regardless of a student’s major, when all other identified teaching methods are negated, are:

A fully functional cross-disciplinary innovation course must remove the barrier of major, yet provide assessment of progression in innovation. This combination will be found in this course.

This textbook is designed to jump start you, your class or your entire institution in the intrinsic learning of innovation! There are several exercises that were designed to pry you away from traditional learning and get you innovating.

The premise of this book and the development of this curriculum is that students are required to choose a problem that is unique to them and without regard for major. This approach aligns with the theory of intrinsic motivation and autonomous learning as the student will be engaged and motivated to produce an innovation.

The approach in this textbook, and the skills it will develop will help your professional prospects. There is an increasing employment barrier for recent college graduates in regards to the rapidly changing demands of today’s modern organizations. Organizations look to colleges to graduate students who can assimilate into the new work culture of required innovative thinking and implemented outcomes.

It is the requirement of most organizations to maintain a technological edge, as well as address needs of the global market. Gone are the times when skilled employees were assigned a task and judged based on execution of that task. The shift to promote autonomy of employees to innovate projects, problems, and ideas of their own has proved profitable for organizations. This textbook is directly addressing concerns students have about the relevance of their education. For the purpose of this textbook, the skills you learn are more important than the specific content you learn.

In conclusion, there is a disconnect between what employers are looking for cross-disciplinary, innovative thinkers and how colleges are teaching innovation. In the United States, standardized testing is predominant in the K-12 sector of education, causing concern for real-world application and adaptability. The two kinds of problem-solving that support education are (a) convergent thinking; and (b) divergent thinking. Convergent thinking is prevalent in K-12 in that the educational process strives for one correct answer to a problem. Divergent thinking requires multiple outcomes. With convergent thinking, innovative thinking is stifled, only allowing for specific outcomes. Divergent thinking supports the assertion that autonomous thinking supports innovation. While using this curriculum, keep in mind that there is no correct answer, just implemented innovations!