The Purpose of this Blog

Why I created this blog about creative problem solving?

I’m a graduate from Iowa State University’s Design College ('91).  My major was Community and Regional Planning.  I have fond memories of ISU, and many of the classes taken throughout my undergraduate career there.  After graduation, I actually served as a regional planner for 6 rural counties in southwest Iowa.  Even though I changed careers 18 years ago to enter the field of higher education administration, I have found that my undergraduate design and planning courses have greatly influenced my research, teaching, and practice in academia. 

The purpose of this blog is more selfish than inspirational.  I plan to use this blog as a journal and tool to gather my thoughts and ideas about creative problem solving.  My eventual plan is to develop a research and teaching portfolio that centers on creative problem solving, its existence (and non-existence) in academia, and methods to effectively teach creative problem solving in the higher education environment.  In essence, this is a blog that will follow my own creative problem solving process of coming up with research projects and courses to further my interest in the field.  That is why it is called:  Creative Praxis. 

The creative part of the blog’s name is quite clear.  Since I’m focusing on creative problem solving, I thought the word “creative” would be an important description and component of the name.  However, I also believe there are other words to use.  For instance, some have used the term “design thinking” as a process similar to creative problem solving.  In a future post (or maybe posts), I will explore the differences between “design thinking” and creative problem solving. 

Praxis, however, is a term you do not hear everyday.  In academia, it is defined as the process of implementing theory to practice.  Since this blog is a journal of my implementation of the creative problem solving process in my own research and teaching portfolio, I thought it aptly described the purpose of this blog.  Interestingly, I came to the word “praxis” through my own notes using several creative problem solving tools.  In another post, I will share those notes as well.

Stay tuned for more posts in my journey…