Group Admins
Description
Session Description
The various external influences on tertiary education associated with measuring the quality of research and teaching, and the increasing diversity of our student body, require increasingly creative approaches to learning and teaching. Drawing on the work of other scholars, creativity has been identified as “one of the crucial skills in the toolkit of the 21st century learner and indeed key to effective learning in higher education and beyond” (Egan et al, 2017, p.1). We would argue this applies equally to teachers, and recontextualise Jeffrey and Woods’ (2009) concept of creative learning and teaching within tertiary education. Its four key elements include relevance, ownership, control and innovation. Together, these represent a student-centred pedagogy.
The Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) at the University of Glasgow seeks to prepare our teachers for the ongoing challenges in learning, teaching and assessment. Our 10-credit course ‘2b: Active pedagogies’, encourages a critical view of space, place and active learning, and encourages participants to think about the extent to which learning technologies are disruptive (Hedberg, 2011; Flavin, 2016). Using pedagogies such as object-based learning (Chatterjee, 2011), learning landscapes (Löw, 2008) and digital storytelling (Robin, 2008; Chavez, 2018), the course encourages learners to move out of their comfort zone, and to use the virtual and physical tools at their disposal in creative ways to encourage active, student-centred learning and innovate their learning and teaching practice in their own disciplines.
We can relate this to Schulman’s (1993) contribution to the definition of the scholarship of learning and teaching – an underpinning concept being communication versus teaching in isolation, achieved through creation of an artefact or product, and its peer review. In the course, this was achieved through peer review of each other’s formative artefacts and accompanying narratives, and a showcase event that situated learning within a community of practitioners.
In this interactive session, we will relate our experiences conceptually in relation to relevant literature, as well as showcasing digital artefacts produced by our learners as co-authors, colleagues and learners, as a means for exploring creativity in learning and teaching as a tangible basis for the scholarship of learning and teaching. Our overall aim is to engage participants in discussion about what it means to be creative in tertiary education, as learners and teachers.
The intended learning outcomes of this session are that participants will be able to:
– Relate creative pedagogies to the scholarship of learning and teaching through the production and sharing of digital artefacts
– Discuss the concept of creative pedagogies as ‘community property’ within their own professional context
– Identify learning technology uses to promote creative learning and teaching, using examples from our course
Session content
N/A
References
Chatterjee, H. J. (2011). Object-based learning in higher education: The pedagogical power of museums. Retrieved from https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/bitstream/handle/18452/9349/chatterjee.pdf
Chavez, M. (2018). Digital Storytelling for Student (and Teacher!) Engagement. ALT Annual Conference. Retrieved from https://altc.alt.ac.uk/2018/sessions/digital-storytelling-for-student-and-teacher-engagement-18-40/
Egan, A., Maguire, R., Christophers, L., & Rooney, B. (2017). Developing creativity in higher education for 21st century learners: A protocol for a scoping review. International Journal of Educational Research, 82, 21-27. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2016.12.004
Flavin, M. (2016). Technology-enhanced learning and higher education. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 32(4), 632-645. doi:10.1093/oxrep/grw028
Hedberg, J. G. (2011). Towards a disruptive pedagogy: changing classroom practice with technologies and digital content. Educational Media International, 48(1), 1-16. doi:10.1080/09523987.2011.549673
Jeffrey, B., & Woods, P. (2009). Creative learning in the primary school: Routledge.
Löw, M. (2008). The constitution of space: The structuration of spaces through the simultaneity of effect and perception. European Journal of Social Theory, 11(1), 25-49. doi:10.1177/1368431007085286
Robin, B. R. (2008). Digital Storytelling: A powerful technology tool for the 21st century classroom. Theory Into Practice, 47(3), 220-228. doi:10.1080/00405840802153916
Schulman, L. S. (1993). Teaching as community property: Putting an end to pedagogical solitude. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 25, 6-7.
