InQbate: The Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Creativity
InQbate, The CETL in Creativity, was a joint initiative between the University of Sussex and the University of Brighton building on their excellent track record of collaborating in the areas of design, innovation and creativity. InQbate explored how a technology-rich environment could support the creative process, in both science and arts subjects. These pages will be used for the ongoing dissemination of learning outcomes from the Sussex side of this CETL project.
The core remit of the CETL initiative was the support of Teaching and Learning, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE). There was a two round, competitive, bidding process, at the end of which 74 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning were created, 19 of which were collaborative.
Theoretical underpinnings of the project
The CETL in Creativity has been solidly grounded in a Social Constructivist approach to teaching and learning. The project investigated how space, technology and teaching approach can be used, individually or in combination, to support learning that is more immersive, problem-based, student-centred, and collaborative, broadly in line with the following models:
- Experiential learning [Kolb, 1984]
- Discovery learning [Bruner, 1967]
- PBL [Savery & Duffy, 1995]
- Constructionism [Harel & Papert, 1991]
- Collaborative & cooperative learning [Slavin, 1990]
At the heart of the InQbate pedagogical model lies the ‘operating theatre’ metaphor that was associated with an explosion in surgical knowledge two hundred years ago. This metaphor’s focus on peer observation – essentially ‘learning by watching, followed by learning by doing’ – aligns with our wider constructivist approach – ‘learning by discussion/sharing’ – and mirrors traditional studio-based educational practice in the creative arts [Raleigh, 1968].
The creative arts have always had a different approach to learning – both in terms of teaching practice and in how they use space. They are inherently immersive and experiential, involving students in repeated cycles of production and performance, and encouraging feedback and reflection by the learner’s peers. They have largely retained the master-apprentice (researcher-learner) model that naturally supports constructivist learning and the ‘scaffolding’ of knowledge [Wood et al, 1976]. Collaboration around creative and constructive activities is situated in spaces that support exploration, experimentation and eventual expression.
Adopting this approach, combined with a practical understanding of the design process, has enabled us to work with tutors from a range of disciplines across both sciences and the Arts in order to develop novel approaches to learning events and activities that engage learners and encourage them to explore the subject area together in order to co-construct their eventual understanding.
Where appropriate, specific creative methodologies, such as de Bono’s ‘Six Hats’ [De Bono, 1985] have been incorporated to individual activities to encourage more divergent thinking during idea generation. However, their use has been more limited than originally intended – even among the design disciplines. Although the exact reason for this is not clear, it is felt that this may reflect our finding that the creativity of learners was less a function of not being able to come up with new ideas, but more due to lack of engagement with the task in traditional settings: new learning activities, combining a mix of rich visual imagery and interaction with artefacts, within flexible, open learning spaces appear to have sufficiently stimulated the learners’ imaginations in many instances.
More attention was given to creative approaches to wider learning activities and how this could increase their alignment with intended learning outcomes. Biggs [Biggs, 2002] articulated how creativity is aligned to his SOLO taxonomy and illustrated that all the learning processes that creativity encompasses (hypothesising, reflecting, generating ideas, working on open-ended problems) are those that encourage a deep approach to learning [Knight, 2002].
During the initial consideration and planning of each of these activities, facilitative support was given to tutors to encourage them to reflect on how these might be made more immersive, collaborative, or reflective.
We feel that this clear alignment to a social constructivist approach to teaching and learning has been very powerful, enabling us to map all activities back to student engagement, ownership and collaboration and ensure a consistent focus of activity. It is very easy to be distracted by new technologies, new techniques: the commitment to a social constructivist position, ensured that our activities were not only just earning-led, but always learner-led. This is something that we will continue to explore in further publications.
- Biggs, J.B. (2002) Aligning Teaching and Assessment to Curriculum Objectives. LTSN Imaginative Curriculum Guide www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre,
- Bruner, J.S. (1967) Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press.
- De Bono, Edward (1985). Six Thinking Hats: An Essential Approach to Business Management. London, Little, Brown, & Company
- Harel, I. & Papert, S. (Eds) (1991) Constructionism. Norwood, NJ, Ablex.
- Knight, P. (2002) The idea of a creative curriculum. Imaginative Curriculum Network paper (at http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/generic centre projects and curriculum)
- Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as a Source of Learning and Development. New Jersey, Prentice-Hall.
- Raleigh, H. P. (1968) Johannes Itten and the Background of Modern Art Education, Art Journal, 27 (3), 284-287.
- Savery, J.R. and Duffy, T.M. (1995) Problem Based Learning: An instructional model and its constructivist framework. Educational Technology, 35 (5), 31-38.
- Slavin, R.E. (1990) Cooperative learning, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall.
- Wood, D, Bruner, J. S. and Ross, G. (1976) The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Psychology and Psychiatry 17, 89-100.
