IA50004 Creative Thinking & Innovation

Academic Year 2023/2024

The aim of this module is to help participants to access their innate ability for creative thinking and innovation in its broadest sense, and to consider how to develop an opportunistic mindset in exploring ideas in a multidisciplinary team environment. This module is delivered through activity-based exercises and interactive challenges at both individual and group level. The module encompasses three primary areas of skill development and learning, as follows:

• Developing confidence in creative thinking. The objective is to introduce students to the inherent risk of failure in creative thinking and how to learn through prototyping and iteration. Participants are encouraged to use various sources of inspiration in recognizing opportunities and considering where ideas come from
• Evolution of innovative ideas in multidisciplinary teams introduces team working in a creative context. Here, openness to new ideas and passion for ideas presented come into creative conflict. Several approaches to teamwork are introduced and explored to give participants an understanding of their own skills in relation to teamwork
• How to translate ideas into value. We draw upon the Design Thinking framework in learning how to work through a process of understanding your user/customer, generating ideas, prototyping, and testing. Consideration is also given to the importance of being able to clearly define value and pitch an idea.

Students must pass each individual assessable component individually in order to be able to pass the module as a whole.

UCD Innovation Academy

**Enrolment on an Innovation Academy module means a commitment to active participation and engagement, which necessitates full attendance at all scheduled classes**

At the UCD Innovation Academy, we are a group of Educator Practitioners with extensive real-world experience as academics, business and social entrepreneurs, tech thinkers, creative professionals and design thinking practitioners.

We take an action-oriented approach to learning, with a combination of individual, group and class tasks and activities, including discussions, presentations and reflection. All of our teaching is grounded in academic rigour. Our focus is on ‘learning by doing’ in a real-world context. Classes include a combination of individual and team tasks and activities, along with discussions, presentations and reflection.

Note on Class Size: Due to the interactive nature of our programmes - we aim for a class size of no more than 36 students to ensure a quality experience for all. We also require a minimum of 16 participants to ensure enough people for teamwork and a dynamic classroom environment. On very rare occasions, if we have less than 16 registered students we will aim to offer students the opportunity to join another class.

Note on COVID-19: All our courses will be run in accordance with good practice, University and Government guidelines around COVID-19. This module is intended to be taught in-person but we may switch to an online format in light of updated guidelines or circumstances, in which case we will update registered students as early as possible. If this should happen, please don't be concerned - our online experiences are equally engaging.

www.innovationacademy.ie