Abstract
This study investigates the impact from two courses focusing on the development of intuition. Intuition is an integral part of human thinking, and its role is essential in all creative processes. Yet the potential of intuition is completely ignored in school education. The data consists of 20 University level teachers who joined a course in intuition development. The teachers represent domains varying from design to architecture, engineering and economics, and the major research goals shared in these domains are production of creative ideas, innovation and complex problem solving skills. The focus of the study is to research how the course affects teachers’ opinions on intuitive thinking, their use of intuition, as well as the utility of the methods used to develop intuition. Teachers’ opinions and experiences of intuition were asked before and after the course. The follow-up part of the research aims at measuring the actual impact of the course: the change in frequency of utilizing intuitive thinking in their personal life and in teaching, as well as if the teachers were supporting students’ intuitive faculties. The outcomes suggest that even a single course encourages participants to pay more attention to intuition and increases the awareness and use of intuitive faculties. Most of the participants felt that they had learned new methods of observing and utilizing their intuition during the course, and most of them had deepened their understanding of their personal intuitive process. An interesting outcome is that after the course the amount of time used for thinking about intuition-related issues had increased remarkably. Furthermore, most of the teachers had found brand new methods of developing their intuition further.
Keywords
intuition; design; higher education; tacit knowledge; learning
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2013.124
Citation
Raami, A.(2013) Experiences on Developing Intuitive Thinking among University-Level Teachers, in Nimkulrat, N., Niedderer, K., Evans, M. (eds.), EKSIG 2013: Knowing Inside Out – Experiential Knowledge, Expertise and Connoisseurship, 4–5 July 2013, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2013.124
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Experiences on Developing Intuitive Thinking among University-Level Teachers
This study investigates the impact from two courses focusing on the development of intuition. Intuition is an integral part of human thinking, and its role is essential in all creative processes. Yet the potential of intuition is completely ignored in school education. The data consists of 20 University level teachers who joined a course in intuition development. The teachers represent domains varying from design to architecture, engineering and economics, and the major research goals shared in these domains are production of creative ideas, innovation and complex problem solving skills. The focus of the study is to research how the course affects teachers’ opinions on intuitive thinking, their use of intuition, as well as the utility of the methods used to develop intuition. Teachers’ opinions and experiences of intuition were asked before and after the course. The follow-up part of the research aims at measuring the actual impact of the course: the change in frequency of utilizing intuitive thinking in their personal life and in teaching, as well as if the teachers were supporting students’ intuitive faculties. The outcomes suggest that even a single course encourages participants to pay more attention to intuition and increases the awareness and use of intuitive faculties. Most of the participants felt that they had learned new methods of observing and utilizing their intuition during the course, and most of them had deepened their understanding of their personal intuitive process. An interesting outcome is that after the course the amount of time used for thinking about intuition-related issues had increased remarkably. Furthermore, most of the teachers had found brand new methods of developing their intuition further.