A NEW CROSS-DISCIPLINARY MODEL OF EDUCATION THAT INTERLINKS CREATIVITY AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

This paper focuses on bringing together different disciplines associated with creative and scientific advances in ways that are mutually beneficial. Technology convergence, the synergy of information and communication, has lead to new areas of research and innovation that continually adapt to the enduring demands of technologies. This multi-level convergent world uses innovative computational environments and can support creativity through cross-disciplinary teaching and learning as well as skills development worthy of new curriculum objectives. The goal of this paper is to foster a more engaging teaching and learning experience by systematically linking creativity and the scientific method.

For example, the disciplines of Art, Mass Communications, and Computer Science bring different perspectives to the study of emerging digital media. Students from each of these disciplines can be taught to create, interpret, and evaluate digital media within a cross-disciplinary framework. This collaborative work will apply the scientific method to the development, expression, and perception of media convergence. This methodical integration of creativity and scientific discovery can result in new knowledge for all.

Today, we are surrounded by a multi-level convergent media world with many modes of communication and information. This paper encourages new ways of thinking about one discipline in terms of another, so that cross-disciplinary study is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Just as the scientific method requires a hypothesis, prediction, and analysis; creativity is often the result of a design process in which the exploration of possible design changes our perspective on what the design can or should achieve. A creative designer develops new artifacts in the context of a perceived need or problem specification, a hypothesis. These reflections on problem finding becomes as important as problem solving, the predictions. And usually, the designer has qualitative evaluation criteria, the analysis. This integration of creativity and the scientific method has the potential to define new areas, to encourage students to engage in creative activities, and may lead to increased successful innovation.