Becoming a Creative Genius

Abstract

The increasing complexity of society's sustainability issues requires new educational approaches that facilitate transversal skills and competencies suitable for the 21st century. Students must be equipped with discipline-specific expertise or technical skill; but also competencies to collaborate across disciplines in creating innovative solutions to complex problems. This paper explores whether a problem-based learning environment focusing on creativity facilitates transdisciplinary engagement and creative competencies and to what extent this manifests into transdisciplinary career paths and creative mindsets in a life-long learning perspective. An analysis of interviews with graduates from a transdisciplinary program, Creative Genius, at Aalborg University indicates that a pedagogical approach focusing on the embodiment of creative competencies helps prepare students to transition from student to professional and equip them to engage in transdisciplinary and complex problem-solving in industry and society. Based on the results, the paper proposes a model for creative transdisciplinary thinking and suggests a focus on creative self-efficacy as an essential learning outcome in transdisciplinary PBL environments.