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Toolset, Skillset, Mindset

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Over the last few years I have developed three different lenses through which to see any creative inquiry process. When we are facilitating or planning with clients, schools and teachers we explicitly talk about our Toolset, Skillset and our Mindset.

The design thinking process has distinct phases and although we may well be seeking to developing an overarching capacity it has always been helpful to be a little more specific about what this actually means. Sometimes it can seem a little fluffy around the edges. When we link Toolset, Skillset and Mindset to a particular phase of design thinking inquiry it becomes much clearer what is expected. This intentionality is wired into each of the different lenses helping to clarify to those involved what tools are involved, what skills are likely to be required and what mindset is needed.

Below is a good set of definitions which helped me better understand their relevance to my work with design thinking and creative inquiry:

Toolset (How you Get, Have, Use) – Means a set of widely accepted methods, techniques, models, approaches and frameworks that can create value in the chosen field.

Skillset (How you Do, Act, Behave) – Means a number of things like a person’s capabilities and abilities, knowledge and understanding, and motivation and ability to use these capabilities and knowledge. The level of expertise in a particular task determines the efficiency and effectiveness to perform that task.

Mindset (How you See, Perceive, View) – Means a set of beliefs, a way of thinking, a habitual mental attitude that determines somebody’s behaviour and outlook and how s/he will interpret and respond to situations. Without a change in mindset, the world cannot be viewed differently.

[In addition to these you may well consider a Knowledge set, something to activate and use or to continue to add to.]

For example during the Synthesis phase you might see the following explicitly shared with participants or students and dialogue to make the expectations clear:

Toolset: Patterns and grouping of physical artefacts, Hexagonal Thinking, P.O.I.N.T (Problems, Obstacles, Insights, Needs and Themes)

Skillset: Pattern recognition, categorisation, organisation, problem finding, prioritisation

Mindset: Convergent, combinatorial, relational

What we have found is that most people want to have a conversation about the Toolset. It is the most enduring memory of a workshop: the physical, tactile experience of the tools we used. All too often creative processes focus too heavily on simply the tools, moving from one thinking activity to another, from one framework or post-it note task to the next. Ideally we escalate the dialogue to the Skills we need to operate those creative thinking tools. The last step is to engage colleagues in a dialogue about what Mindset is needed or expected in order to be most successful.

You might consider having a conversation about these three elements before a lesson or period of learning with students: what are the tools we are going to use, the skills we will develop or need and the mindset we should take. This offers a much clearer way to talk about learning intentions or success criteria.

The Mindset at each stage of the design thinking process is much more constant and more persistent, whereas the Skillset and the Toolset can always change. We should be drawing from a range of tools to suit the part of the inquiry process – but regardless of the tools we use the Mindset remains relatively constant.

It would also be true to say that out of the three different lenses the Mindset is harder to observe, whereas the tactile Toolset is much more explicit. From Change to Constant, from Extrinsic to Intrinsic, from Toolset to Mindset.

Whereas it is easy to switch out and change a tool during a phase of the process, it is much harder to change a Mindset if it does not currently exist. An example we see most often is a convergent mindset – “I know what the problem is and I know what we should do” – when we are immersing ourselves in the area of development. This Immersion phase requires an open and divergent Mindset. You can change the activity to explore the topic but it is much harder to change the disposition.

Stick around for future posts exploring some of the design thinking inquiry Toolset and the activities we all enjoy. In addition we will explore the Skillset and the Mindset needed to make the most of them.

What Makes People Creative?

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When you start to explore the literature around the definition of creativity, or what it means to be creative, the lists and references go on and on. In this post I wanted to share a few key characteristics of what we might deam a creative approach or disposition. In my last post I shared the idea of developing a creative council in the classroom to learn about key role models and why they were/are so influential in their fields. With a better sense of the characteristics of creative people we can form better perspectives on our own work and speak more confidently about what makes up ‘being creative”.

What makes people creative?

  • Tenacity – grit, determination, resilience, call it what you like but some people don’t allow bumps in the road get in the way of the journey.
  • Courage – it is not just bumps in the road but sometimes the traffic is against you. Creative people are often risk takers and go against the common paradigm.
  • Inventiveness – to be able to explore new connections and combinations, to continually push what is possible.
  • Leadership – some people are moths others are flames.
  • Impact – some individuals either through their established position or their authority have had greater impact in their fields than others.
  • Vision – not just being able to project what is ahead in a field of study or development or art, but to bring that horizon closer much quicker than others.
  • Passion – an unquenchable fuel.

I am not saying that this is an exhaustive list in fact I would welcome your additions and amendments. The complexity of defining these characteristics means that many individuals would display some of these dispositions more strongly than others. Some were natural leaders whereas others showed greater courage as they worked alone. We each show these tendencies in different measure, making up the unique definitions of creative people and what creativity is.

Thomas Edison’s Creative Approach

I really enjoyed this piece by Wouter Boon who outlines the characteristics of Thomas Edison that contributed to his creative success:

Persistence / Conviction / Associations / Productivity / Trial and Error / Combinations / Imagination / Relaxation / Diligence / Collaboration / Knowledge and Skill / Value / Luck / Entrepreneurship / Curiosity

And this from the Centre of Excellence in teaching in Learning at Iowa University expands on some of these ideas when they suggest the following characteristics that researchers look at when measuring creative aptitude:

  • Fluency (number of ideas generated)
  • Originality and imagination (unusual, unique, novel ideas)
  • Elaboration (ability to explain ideas in detail)
  • Flexibility, curiosity, resistance to closure (ability to generate multiple solutions)
  • Complexity (detail and implications of ideas; recognition of patterns, similarities and differences)
  • Risk taking (willingness to be wrong and to admit it)

Creative Flow

One of my favourite concepts in the study of creativity and the creative process is that of Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In Creativity – Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention he suggests the following characteristics of the creative personality:

  • Creative individuals have a great deal of energy, but they are also often quiet and at rest.
  • Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naive at the same time.
  • Creative individuals have a combination of playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility.
  • Creative individuals alternate between imagination and fantasy ant one end, and rooted sense of reality at the other.
  • Creative people seem to harbor opposite tendencies on the continuum between extroversion and introversion.
  • Creative individuals are also remarkable humble and proud at the same time.
  • Creative individuals to a certain extent escape rigid gender role stereotyping and have a tendency toward androgyny.
  • Generally, creative people are thought to be rebellious and independent.
  • Most creative persons are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well.
  • The openness and sensitivity of creative individuals often exposes them to suffering pain yet also a great deal of enjoyment.

Take your pick from all of those. One thing that you quickly realise is that even defining characteristic of creative people becomes divergent. However simply beginning conversations around the common themes or elements would be a great discussion with your colleagues or class. Take another look at my creative shortlist at the top and let me know what you think.

 

5 Simple Questions To Encourage Student Voice

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5 Questions

This is a recent resource I have shared on Twitter that has proven really useful and very popular with educators. Thanks to Rebecca Alber and Edutopia for sharing/creating the original.

You should complement this with some of the following great resources on questioning in the classroom.

Practical Steps to Get Out of the Way of Children’s Thinking

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Eleanor Duckworth’s work on Critical Explorers asserts that the combination of: teachers as curriculum designers and the focus on children’s thinking and not simply our own, is a powerful learning duo.

Today we take a further look at some practical questioning strategies she has outlined in her work and a hexagonal thinking strategy you can use. The following is from the Critical Explorers site where you can delve more deeply into the ideas she offers.

Catch students’ interest

  • Try to convey that you think they’ll enjoy exploring this image (or text, or map, etc.), and that what they are doing and saying sheds new light for you on the object. It always does.
  • Try to keep them thinking about it, even when they may think they have done all they can.
  • Try to find out what they are thinking about the image, and to follow their thinking as it changes.

For example:

Ask for observations:

  • Start with a question that allows for a very small answer, where everyone has something to say — for example, “What do you notice?”
  • Ask them to point to the image and show everyone what they are talking about.
  • Ask what else they notice.
  • Ask them to say more about an observation they’ve made.

Ask for clarification:

  • Ask them to refer back to the image itself to back up whatever they have to say about it.
  • Ask them to clarify something, or to explain what makes them say what they do.
  • Make a hunch about what is behind what they say, and check the hunch with them.

Ask about conflicting or contrasting ideas:

  • Draw attention to some seeming inconsistency in what they have said.
  • Ask what about the image puzzles them.
  • Ask how what they have said fits with another part of the image, or with something they said earlier, or with something someone else has said.
  • Ask them to think about other students’ ideas, and to refer to the image to explain why they agree or disagree.

To provide further support for children we have found that a hexagonal thinking activity gives them a clear way to structure their thinking, seeing the combinations of ideas they have and manipulating their thinking in a tangible way.

You can explore a range of resources and further reading about hexagonal thinking/learning such as one of David Didau’s original posts. This post is useful from Frances Brown that extends some of the ideas and of course HOOKed on Learning’s resource page which offers many a link journey to explore.

This summary presentation from my good friend Chris Harte, a Leading Teacher at the John Monash Science School, is a great place to start.

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

How we are Hardwired for Curiosity and Discovery

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“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” – Andre Gide

When we moved to Australia from England at the beginning of 2013 the whole period was memorable and distinct for many reasons. But there is one emotion or memory that still strikes me, that of the feeling of being in limbo, between places and our lives being in transition, in flux. It was primarily on the plane journeys and the whole idea of having only bought one way tickets. The relief of getting to that point, after months or organisation, soon subsided and I wondered about the future.

It is a powerful memory because we rarely take such extreme decisions and as it immersed us, as a family, in the unknown. There were so many questions we all had. I recall meeting a few other families who had made the trip across from Europe at the same time and were also settling into life in Australia, it seemed we shared that experience and perhaps shared something in our characters to make the decision in the first place.

In learning more about the curiosity we recognise in our young children and how this continues to change throughout our lives, I have been particularly interested in the innateness of a curious mindset, an explorers disposition and how this grows and diminishes.

In a fascinating article, “Restless Genes” David Dobbs outlines that this innate disposition to explore, discover and curiousity for the world around has been mapped to a specific part of the human genome.

“If an urge to explore rises in us innately, perhaps its foundation lies within our genome. In fact there is a mutation that pops up frequently in such discussions: a variant of a gene called DRD4, which helps control dopamine, a chemical brain messenger important in learning and reward. Researchers have repeatedly tied the variant, known as DRD4-7R and carried by roughly 20 percent of all humans, to curiosity and restlessness. Dozens of human studies have found that 7R makes people more likely to take risks; explore new places, ideas, foods, relationships, drugs, or sexual opportunities; and generally embrace movement, change, and adventure.”

A combination of DRD4, high dexterity from our hands (as tools), big brains for imagination and the greater levels of mobility we have from our limbs than most other mammals, compose a set of traits uniquely suited for creating explorers.

Dobbs refers to Alison Gopnik’s work, a child-development psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who says that humans have a longer childhood, a slower path to puberty in which “we can exercise our urge to explore while we’re still dependent on our parents” and have “an unmatched period of protected “play” in which to learn exploration’s rewards.”

Gopnik outlines that:

“Yet while other animals play mainly by practicing basic skills such as fighting and hunting, human children play by creating hypothetical scenarios with artificial rules that test hypotheses. Can I build a tower of blocks as tall as I am? What’ll happen if we make the bike ramp go even higher? How will this schoolhouse game change if I’m the teacher and my big brother is the student? Such play effectively makes children explorers of landscapes filled with competing possibilities.”

Typically we see the play based disposition change as we get older and young adulthood often swamps our willingness to explore, often replaced by a desire for habit and familiarity.

In the classroom or at home there are many simple things that you can do to continue to encourage and protect this love of exploring and curiosity:

  • Embrace a supportive approach to asking and sharing questions.
  • Change things – the classroom furniture, the displays, pictures on the fridge.
  • Try new things together – modelling a willingness to explore and discover together is a powerful motivator.
  • Give children time to think – space, time and the encouragement to think, ponder and mull over questions or new ideas is important.
  • Offer provocations – these could be images, quotes, films or artefacts that make us wonder and challenge our thinking.
  • Say it is OK not to know – let your children hear this from you, that sometimes wondering is more important than having all the answers

There are so many ways we can design the conditions for ongoing discovery and support children’s disposition towards exploring and their natural curiosity. What successful strategies have you tried at home or in the classroom?

Image: almost may by paul bica