Think Like a Genius

This approach builds upon strategies that promote productive thinking to arrive at solutions to problems. These strategies are common to the thinking styles employed by all creative geniuses.

Implementation

Here are the nine approaches to creative problem solving.

1. Rethink! Look at problems from different perspectives that no one else has taken.

· Example: Finding a job or internship:

• Ask friends or colleagues for potential leads.
• Over-sell yourself.
• Send samples of your work or portfolio to anyone that might respond.
• Check local resources like Craigslist or your school's job search
• Broaden your target audience.
• In what other fields could you specialize?

2. Visualize! Utilize diagrams and imagery to analyze your dilemma.

· Visit guides on concept or mind maps, picturing vocabulary, flashcards, etc.

· Write out one example of how you can use imagery, then print and post it in your study area.

3. Produce! Perhaps originality is not the key, but rather constant application of thought and tools to arrive at solutions.

• Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do. W. H. Auden (1907–1973)
• Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience. George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707–1788)

4. Combine! Combine and recombine ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.

5. Form! Make connections between dissimilar subjects.

• Get to know people in your field that can help you excel to the best of your ability.
• Write down one person that you could get in contact with, why you think this person can help, and print/post it for reference!

6. Opposite! Get outside of your comfort zone and avoid the obvious solutions.

• Opposites bring two approaches to a situation, but they share a basic similarity. Example: “right” and “left” are both directions, but which is the right choice?
• The Sesame Street Muppet Elmo teaches small children the concept of opposites!

7. Metaphor/simile!

• Metaphors are connections that are unusual or not an ordinary way of thinking: A sea of troubles; the heart of a lion; raining cats and dogs.
• Similes use "like" or "as" to illustrate: The boy was as agile as a monkey. The miner's face was like coal. The task was as easy as ABC. Dry like a raisin in the sun.

8. Failure! As strange as it seems, the human brain is failure machine that generates models of reality, acts on them, and adjusts or creates new, successful models based on failures.

• From Daniel Coyle’s the Talent Code on Adam Bryant’s weekly interview: “every single CEO shares the same nugget of wisdom: the crucial importance of mistakes, failures, and setbacks.
• Mistakes create unique conditions of high-velocity learning that cannot be matched by more stable, “successful” situations.

9. Patience! Don't confuse inspiration with ideas.

Classroom Management

1. Describe the nine approaches to creative problem solving.
2. Provide a reading selection or object and model the creative problem solving process.
3. Divide the class into small groups and provide each with a reading selection.
4. Have the groups apply the nine approaches to creative problem solving as they work through their reading.
5. Finally, provide the groups with a new reading selection and ask them to develop a presentation to present to the class.