What is divergent thinking

How many uses of a barrel, paper clip, umbrella or  shoe can you think of? Ask a child. According to Len Brzozowski, an adult can generate 10-12 responses wheres a child can produce up to a 100. ¹https://www.creativehuddle.co.uk/divergent-thinking-in-children. The goal of divergent thinking is to generate many different ideas about a topic in a short period of time. It involves breaking a topic down into its various component parts in order to gain insight about the various aspects of the topic. Read about the ways to stimulate divergent thinking.²http://faculty.washington.edu/ezent/imdt.htm

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Don’t be scard of making mistakes or failing. According to Sarah Briggs, “fast, frequent failures” are the ways to stimulate divergent thinking. “Making as many mistakes as possible as quickly as possible means you’re heading swiftly towards the right solution to a problem.”³http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/divergent-thinking/

8 elements of divergent thinking:

• Complexity – The capacity to conceptualize difficult, multifaceted, many layered or intricate products or ideas;
• Curiosity – The personality characteristic of displaying probing behaviors, searching, asking questions, learning to get more knowledge/information about something, and of being able to go deeper into ideas;
• Elaboration – The skill of adding to, building off of or embellishing a product or an idea;
• Flexibility – The capability of creating varied perceptions or categories wherefrom come a range of different ideas pertaining to the same thing or problem;
• Fluency – The skill of engendering many ideas so as to have an increase in the number of potential solutions or associated products;
• Imagination – The capability of dreaming up, inventing, or to think, to see, to conceptualize novel products or ideas, to be original;
• Originality – The skill of coming up with fresh, unusual, unique, extremely different or completely new products or ideas;
• Risk–taking – The readiness to be courageous, daring, adventuresome – take risks or experiment with new things so as to stand apart.

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Are you convergent or divergent thinker? What’s the difference?

The terms convergent thinking and divergent thinking were introduced by a psychologist J.P. Guilford, in 1967. Both convergent and divergent thinking play important roles in finding the best solution to a problem. Convergent thinking is often used in accordance with divergent thinking.
Read more at Buzzle: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/convergent-thinking-vs-divergent-thinking.html

Thinking outside the box and sky is the limit thinking are concepts laying the foundation for entrepreneurship education.