Introduction

Research in creativity focuses the significance of learning creativity in beginning design education on the development of the creator. There are many challenges to beginning design students' readiness for creativity that impact their development as designers. When students first enter design programs they are for the most part ill-prepared to engage in the creative activities necessary to design thinking. The chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book introduces formative aspects of creative thinking in a manner that causes the questioning of assumptions and preconceptions in a manner that calls forth personal development. It provides a mindful characterization of contemporary beginning design pedagogy with respect to situational challenges to its pedagogical development and its historical transformations. The book explores decision making as a way of deriving directives for beginning design pedagogy that enable students to embrace uncertainty as necessary to design.