Active Learning of Creativity through Clay-Modelling

Creativity is a key part of the teaching curriculum for product design students. A special one and a half day creativity workshop was organized for a group of postgraduate students in product design who were more used to conventional computer-aided design techniques. This pilot project was developed with the sculptor-in-residence who had conducted such exercises for other groups of students. The purpose of this project was to study the value and effectiveness of active learning of a creativity process through clay model making. The first exercise required the building of a part without direct visual contact, i.e. blind modelling. The second one was building the same part in a normal way with full eye contact. The remaining three exercises were group work for building the tallest structure with given clay material, representation of an engineering discipline and a car for the future. Discussions were held with students at the end of each exercise and feedbacks were received from each individual student through a standardized questionnaire. Results of this active learning project are discussed in details with supporting quantitative and qualitative data.