Encouraging and facilitating students' creativity in problem solving in civil engineering at the University of Limerick

This article describes one of the educational experiences in the University of Limerick’s (Ireland) undergraduate civil engineer-ing programme. The module discussed is “Design Studio” which runs in the first semester of year 2 and focuses on creating the opportunity to enrich the formation of the next generation of civil engineers. At its core is the cultivation of listening skills so the young engineer is better equipped to respond to a client’s brief in a creative and innovative way. The module sits within a programme that adopts a Problem Based Learning (PBL) pedagogy in which the problem solving ‘process’ has parity of esteem with the required ‘technical’ content. In adopting a conversational structure throughout the paper, the facilitators are ac-knowledging the individualistic and personal drivers of creativity. These include an openness to diverse and different views as essential and necessary components of a creative process. The article starts by presenting the context and culture for the module through the reflective lenses of the engineers that facilitate the module’s implementation. Student reflections are interspersed throughout the dialogue as evidence of the challenges or dissonance they face when invited in to what for them are unchartered educational experiences.