Engaging imagination: innovation and risk in creative pedagogies

When thinking about the arts, design and media it is easy to make generalisations about what they are and how we teach them. One is that creativity, innovation and risk are natural constituents, both of the disciplines and the ways we enquire into them. Another, resulting from this disciplinary ‘gene pool’, might be that the nature, context or purpose of the subject means that the ways we teach it will be creative and innovative too. A third might be that as we encourage creativity, innovation and risk in our students’ learning behaviours we are equally open to demonstrating them in our teaching.

While we can all come up with examples of how and where these generalisations are borne out, this talk will consider explore where variance might exist between creativity, innovation and risk as embodied in exploration of the subject per se, and as factors which shape our teaching practices, pedagogies and philosophies. A notable illustration of this variance can be seen how we assess student reflection and metacognition, through avenues such as PPD. In the HE sector, including the arts and design, traditional, text-based modes of engagement and assessment dominate the ways students record critical evaluations of their learning and development. In this talk Alison will explore how, where and why creative pedagogies and alternative approaches to reflection may enhance student engagement with their own learning and align more integratively with the disciplines.