This week's session notes - Week 8 (18 and 20 September 2018)

Hi everyone

Today I started by talking about Assignment 2. I have had a large number of requests to provide extensions, and a few students asking for guidance, so I will extend the submission date for this assignment to Thursday 27 September. Please make sure that you do not ask for any further extensions and please make sure that you submit this one on time.

This Thursday, I am proposing to make the regular class into an assignment session. This means that I will be around (in either E102 or E216) to talk with students about Assignment 2. You will also be able to use the desktop PCs in E102 to work on your assignment.

Following this discussion, we then moved on to our weekly revision test from the previous week’s work.

After the test, I returned to last Tuesday’s session on the differences and similarities between critical and creative thinking. You may recall that critical thinking is typified by a logical, sequential, analytical and reasoned approach. We are looking for proof and for specific, quality answers to our questions. Reasoning follows 'if ... then' logic (‘if this happens then that will probably follow’).

Creative thinking, in contrast, is lateral, expansive, imaginative, innovative and disruptive. We are less interested in the probable answer and more interested in generating interesting possibilities (often the more the better).

Last week, I left you with a practical problem to ponder: I asked you to use your thinking skills to find both critical and creative solutions to the business problem, ‘My profits are falling … what should I do?’

A critical thinking approach might suggest that we examine the data, sell more product, increase prices, cut costs or find more customers. These things are all very logical and rational responses to the problem. They can also be measured and compared to see whether they are actually making a difference. In other words, we can produce evidence which we can assess and apply.

On the other hand, a creative thinking approach might result in questions such as ‘what else can we do?’, ‘can we sell different things?’, ‘what about non-consumers?’ and ‘what do people buy / need?’

Most thinking is a combination of the two types (critical and creative) and the challenge can sometimes be to decide when (and why) we should use each type.

We then tried one more exercise, involving different ways to find a job. Most people tend to use rather straight-forward logic and they look for a job by using a job agency, looking at job vacancies or asking around. A more creative real-life approach can be found in the PowerPoint slideshow, where the job hunter hired a local person to scout out opportunities and use local knowledge to find employment for the job hunter.

Remember that Assignment 2 is now due on Thursday 27 September 2018!

Cheers

Phil