This Psychology Study Mission, also a SMU-XO course, is offered in collaboration with the Institute of Creative Industries Design at the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan. We design the course in order to benefit students through four learning goals:
- Provide an advanced understanding of the theoretical and empirical work on the psychological science of creativity/innovation and relevant areas at both the individual and collective levels (e.g., creative cognition, the roles of bicultural identity and multicultural experience in creativity, multicultural teams).
- Receive hands-on experience in utilizing design thinking to generate ideas and design prototypes.
- Apply both theoretical knowledge and design thinking skill in a project that involves a business client in Taiwan’s cultural and creative industry.
- Engage SMU students in cross-cultural collaboration experience with Taiwanese students through working together on client-based projects.
This elective will feature a visit to Tainan, Taiwan. The field trip will provide students first-hand experiences about how the topics they learn in class can be exemplified and applied in the real world. The course also introduces design thinking as a process of creative problem solving. Design thinking has been identified as a powerful tool for problem identification, idea generation, prototyping, and testing, which is an extremely important skillset to acquire for study and work. This course bridges critical discussion of academic articles with practice of design thinking and in-the-field experience to provide students a well-grounded understanding on the cultural dynamics in creative industries.
This course comprises three components: three seminar sessions and a one-day workshop on design thinking at SMU, and a one-week study mission to Tainan, Taiwan.
Since globalization and innovation are two key forces that shape individual and business success in the 21st century, this course aims to enhance students’ understanding on how people can utilize their cultural knowledge to generate creative and innovative ideas, by means of integrating different perspectives, theories, strategies, and technologies. In this multicultural environment, people must collaborate effectively across cultural borders, broadly defined, to solve pressing problems and develop new products and solutions that will appeal to the global market. Cultural and creative industries are one of such sector that emphasizes culture as the foundation for developing and supporting industries through creativity (e.g., cultural tourism, community cultural development, performing art, product design). Via collaborating with the students and faculty members in the Institute of Creative Industries Design at the National Cheng Kung University, SMU students will have hands-on cross-cultural collaboration experiences with their Taiwanese counterparts. Through participating in class discussions and learning different case studies of Taiwan’s cultural and creative industries during the field trip, students will receive ample opportunities to sharpen their cultural knowledge and skills and to apply these new insights to benefit creative productions in the real world. Students will also gain cultural immersive experiences through conducting in-depth analysis of the business client in their SMU-NCKU work team. At the end of the course, students will be able to integrate theories of culture, psychology, and design thinking to broaden their knowledge about the development and sustainability of cultural and creative industries. They might also identify from the insights gained from the Taiwan cases to benefit the cultural and creative industries in Singapore.
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
Subscribe to our free monthly newsletter for the latest news, case studies and competitions