This document discusses a multidisciplinary course aimed at developing creativity in engineering students. The course was previously offered from 2011-2013 and involved students traveling to Florida for workshops on creativity, leadership, and teamwork led by an external training organization. Assessments found significant improvements in students' self-reported creativity skills. The course is being redesigned to have a broader scope and be multidisciplinary. The redesign aims to include more in-depth discussions, a greater focus on problem-solving, and additional meetings throughout the semester to reinforce concepts and have a longer impact.

1. A Multidisciplinary Course for Developing, Nurturing,
and Strengthening Student Creativity
Chelsey BRADFORD, Zachary BALGEMAN, Matthew KING, Sami KHORBOTLY, Mark M. BUDNK
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Valparaiso University
Valparaiso, IN, 46383, USA
ABSTRACT
Creativity is an integral part in the careers of every professional,
including artists, actors, as well as businessmen and engineers.
Engineers, the focus of this effort, are traditionally considered
to be systematic thinkers and implementers of constrained
procedures and algorithms. In order to challenge this
perception, ECE490DI is a class designed to show engineering
students that their majors and future careers will not only use
creativity but be fully immersed in it. Once the students realize
this fact, the next step is to help them discover their own
creativity skills and show them that creativity, like other talents,
can be nurtured and strengthened through repetitive use.
To accomplish these goals, students in ECE490DI take a class
trip to renowned theme parks in Orlando, FL, where they attend
multiple short classes in the areas of leadership, teamwork, and
creativity. Those classes allow students to exercise their
leadership, teamwork, and creativity and show them several
tools to expand and further improve their abilities in those
areas. Students are also given the chance to meet and interact
with theme parks’ engineers, also known as “Imagineers” to see
the practical applications of creativity in a hands-on creative
work environment.
While the objectives of this class were successfully met in the
previous class offerings, the class is currently being re-designed
to have a broader scope and a multidisciplinary nature. This
multidisciplinary version of the class builds on the assessment
results of the previous offerings as well as feedback from
participating students, faculty members, and theme parks staff
members. The new version of the class includes more meetings
throughout the semester to reinforce the covered ideas and
concepts, which is expected to make the class have a longer
lasting impact.
Keywords: Creativity, Soft Skills, Engineering Education,
Multidisciplinary Class.
1. INTRODUCTION
The National Academy of Engineering established a steering
committee to envision the state of engineering in 2020 and
develop a framework for the future of undergraduate
engineering education in the United States. The Engineer of
2020 – Visions of Engineering in the New Century [1] was
published to present the Academy's aspirations describing the
attributes required for engineering in 2020.
As expected, strong analytical skills and the ability to work
under increasing economic, legal, and political constraints were
highlighted. However, the text is overwhelmingly dedicated to
identifying a number of “soft skills” as essential attributes of the
2020 engineer: practical ingenuity, creativity, communication,
business management, and leadership [1]. Of these soft skills,
engineering students are often most challenged to develop and
hone their creativity.
Teaching engineering students a disciplined approach to the
creative process has eluded academia [2]. While students and
professors alike have increased interest in creativity,
engineering curricula are still overwhelmingly focused on
mathematics, sciences, and engineering fundamentals [3].
Therefore, a need exists for instructing engineering students in
the creative process that complements existing engineering,
math, and science classes.
In the fall semesters of years 2011, 2012, and 2013, engineering
undergraduates from the Valparaiso University College of
Engineering (Valparaiso, Indiana, USA) participated in a four-
day off-site course focused on creativity, innovation, teamwork,
and leading the creative process. The course was taught by
members of the engineering faculty and included sessions and
on-location tours (near Orlando, Florida) that were led by
instructors from an external training organization. Assessment
shows a significant improvement in the students' understanding
of the roles of creativity, innovation, and the roles of leadership,
communication, and teamwork in the creative process. A
detailed description of the class as well as the assessment results
can be found in [4].
This paper briefly describes the organization of the previous
offerings of the class in section 2. Section 3 discusses the
motivations to modify the class and broaden its scope in 2014
and thereafter. The proposed improvements to the class are
listed and discussed in section 4. Section 5 is a summary and
conclusions section.
2. PAST WORK
To address the development of its undergraduate engineering
students' soft skills, Valparaiso University's College of
Engineering began in 2001 to incorporate lessons encouraging
their development in its senior design class [5]. Specific
lessons on creativity were embedded into additional classes in
the following years [6].
However, engineering students have been found to be better
prepared for problem solving by introducing concepts like
creativity outside of traditional classrooms [7]. Therefore, after
reviewing the National Academy of Engineering's The Engineer
of 2020, a separate Creative Engineering course was conceived
in April, 2011. The course would introduce engineering
students to the creative process and challenge students to define
and explore the topic of creativity in engineering. The
objectives for the class are shown in Table 1.

2. TABLE 1: Objectives for Creative Engineering Class
1. Students will be able to give examples of creativity in
engineering.
2. Students will be able to use tools and processes that help
them to be more creative.
3. Students will be able to explain how individuals can be
more creative.
4. Students will be able to explain the role of a leader in the
creative process.
Valparaiso University decided to partner with an external
training organization to develop the Creative Engineering class
for three reasons. First, it would allow professors to serve as
facilitators and guides for the class. Second, working with an
external training organization would help reduce the faculty
load required for developing and implementing the course.
Finally, partnering with an internationally recognized creative
organization would make the course a hands-on, real-life
experience and bring a certain amount of prestige to it [8, 9].
In the Creative Engineering course, a team-teaching approach
was used. The course was facilitated by Valparaiso University
College of Engineering faculty, while specific on-location
classes, tours, and workshops were be led by instructors from
the external training organization. In addition, faculty served
administrative roles in course development and implementation,
handling all the logistics related to traveling to and from the
external training organization's location in Lake Buena Vista,
Florida, near Orlando.
There are many ways to evaluate creativity including
interviews, observations, and self-assessments. However, there
is evidence that self-efficacy is a reliable predictor for topics
like creativity where confidence levels impact a student's
performance [10]. Therefore, after the Creative Engineering
course, students again were asked to self-assess if they were
creative and their ability to meet the four objectives in Table 1,
using the same Likert scale. The results are shown in Figure 1.
Also included is the improvement seen in the student self-
assessment averages following the course. (Note that the data
for the Control Group and the 2011 course were calculated to
two significant digits. This was changed to three significant
digits in 2012 and 2013).
FIGURE 1. Averages of student self-assessments performed before and after the 2011, 2012, and 2013 Creative Engineering course using
a Likert scale (1 being "No, Not At All" and 5 being "Yes, Definitely"). Data is also provided for a control group of students that did not
participate in the class.
4.36
4.00
4.55
4.72
4.36
3.00
3.30
3.54
3.69
3.77
4.42
3.79
4.35
4.88
4.10
3.05
2.72
3.13
4.02
3.50
4.3
4.3
4.8
4.9
4.3
2.7
2.5
3.1
4.0
3.7
3.4
2.7
3.4
4.1
3.4
1 2 3 4 5
Can you explain the role of a leader in the
creative process?
Can you explain how to be more creative?
Can you use tools to be more creative?
Can you give examples of creativity in
engineering?
Are you creative?
Control Group 2011 Pre-Course Self Assessment 2011 Post-Course Self Assessment
2012 Pre-Course Self Assessment 2012 Post-Course Self Assessment 2013 Pre-Course Self Assessment
2013 Post-Course Self Assessment
No, Not at All Yes, Definitely

3. 3. MOTIVATION FOR CHANGE
The 2011 - 2013 offerings of the class achieved remarkable
success that is documented in [4]. However, it was still obvious
that a higher ceiling can be reached and that there are ways
improve the students’ learning experience. This room for
growth resulted in the modification of the upcoming offering of
the class, motivated by the following factors:
a. More in-depth discussions
During the first three years of the ECE490DI course, various
participants in the class have identified the need for more in-
depth discussions, especially on the subjects of teamwork,
creativity, and leadership. The motivation for this was the
feeling that students were getting a broad overview of these
topics but were not having enough time to fully delve into and
deeply comprehend them.
The short classes, already in place, provide the students with a
way to improve their leadership, creativity, and teamwork
skills. However, due to the time limitations of these classes,
students needed other opportunities to absorb and reuse these
skills in a practical way.
b. Greater problem-solving focus
Being that the majority of students are engineers, both the
professors and students have shown a desire to have a greater
focus on problem-solving. This focus would allow students to
observe how problem solving is approached in the real world
with real life examples. These examples would highlight
problem solving, both inside and outside of a student field of
study. This diversity of disciples enables the students to see
different ways of approaching problems, which in turn helps
them to come up with more creative, outside the box solutions
to problems. The diversity also shows students different
constraints and restrictions that others have to deal with on a
regular basis, which might not have been an original concern
for the student themselves.
c. Broader scope
It is strongly believed that broadening the scope of students’
majors in the class would further the development of their
creativity. The diversity in the discussions and conversations
will push engineering students to the next level and help them
prepare for the workplace. For example, students that are
studying in the fields of business or design would be able to
discuss the marketing or sales aspects of a creative design. The
other disciplines have always pressed engineering fields farther
and faster towards new horizons. The more diverse student
population in the discussion may cause some of the lessons to
be repetitive, in order to bring the less technical students up to
speed, but that is a small price to be paid compared with the
benefit of allowing engineering students to interact with
disciplines they would not normally interact with.
4. PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS
Considering the above mentioned motivations for an improved
class offering, the following improvements are proposed:
a. Additional class meetings
One way to help students to fully develop and implement the
skills of teamwork, creativity, and leadership would be to
increase the number of meetings before and after the trip. The
“pre-trip” meetings will be used to make the students more
comfortable around each other, while improving their
communication skills. The “post-trip” class meetings will
briefly touch upon the skills that were taught during the trip but
spend the majority of the time further discussing examples and
scenarios where these skills are applied. This will allow for the
students to fully understand, not only the importance of these
skills, but also how to fully utilize them.
b. More problem-solving
One of the ways to improve the problem-solving focus is to
include more problem-solving activities while teaching the
other topics of this class. This includes activities taking place
both during the trip and on-campus class meetings. During the
trip, there would be several sessions where students are asked to
come up with their solutions to some of the challenges that
designers overcame when creating a certain attraction. The
students would then be able to discuss and critique each other’s
ideas, and improve their problem-solving skills. During the
class meetings, the activities would have students divided into
teams and given a task to complete within an allotted amount of
time. To further improve the problem-solving ability, extra
challenges and constraints will be added throughout the
designing process.
c. Broader scope of discussions/problems
Rather than having exclusively engineering students in the
classroom, involving other majors will broaden the students’
scopes and widen their horizons. These discussions will allow
for the activities to better simulate real world scenarios. This
will give the students from different majors a chance to work
together in order to achieve a resolution. The engineering
students will learn about the budgetary aspects from the
business students and aesthetic aspects from the fine arts
students. A chemistry student may propose the use of a new
material, while a political science student may point out some
socio-political issues with a particular solution.
All these discussions give an insight as to how the non-
engineering side of a business approaches problems and
projects. This will build upon the engineering students’
communication skills along with broadening their problem
solving methods. Having more meetings and discussions both
before and after the trip will certainly enhance these
professional skills.
5. CONCLUSIONS
A creativity in engineering course has been offered in the
College of Engineering at Valparaiso University for the last 3
years. While the class has been a great success, a 3-year review
has been performed to further improve the class. This paper
discussed the efforts invested in the revision and the creation of
an improved multidisciplinary version of the course. The class
review is based on feedback obtained from both students and
faculty members who participated in previous offerings of the
class. The main recommendations focused on adding the
numbers of class meetings to allow for more in depth
discussions. Other recommendations included a greater focus on
problem solving and a broader scope of the discussion topics.

4. 6. REFERENCES
[1] National Academy of Engineering, The Engineer of 2020:
Visions of Engineering in the New Century, National
Academies Press, Washington, D.C, 2004.
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by design,” Mechanical Engineering, vol. 130, no. 9,
2008.
[3] L. A. Zampetakis, L. Tsironis, and V. Moustakis,
“Creativity development in engineering education: The
case of mind mapping,” Journal of Management
Develop., vol. 26, no. 4, 2007.
[4] S. Khorbotly and M. Budnik, “Creative Engineering for
2020,” submitted to the Journal of Systemics,
Cybernetics, and Informatics 2014.
[5] D. Tougaw and J. Will, “An Innovative Multidisciplinary
Capstone Design Course Sequence,” ASEE Annual
Conference, Nashville, TN, 2003.
[6] D. Tougaw, E. Johnson, and M. Budnik,
"Entrepreneurship Throughout an Electrical and
Computer Engineering Curriculum," ASEE Annual
Conference, Austin, TX, June, 2009.
[7] P. Mustar, "Technology management education:
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leading French engineering school," Academy of
Management Learning and Education, vol. 8, no. 3, pp.
418–425, 2009.
[8] M. M. Budnik and E. W. Johnson, "Inspiring Creativity
for the Engineer of 2020," IEEE Interdisciplinary
Engineering Design Education Conference, Santa Clara,
CA, March, 2012.
[9] M. M. Budnik, "CreativEngineering for 2020," Education
and Information Systems, Technologies and Applications,
Orlando, FL, July, 2013.
[10] A. Bandura, (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of
control, Worth Publishers, New York, 1997.