Academic Adventures
An Intriguing Classroom Adventure: A New Approach to Creativity Education View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michelle Rothwell
For nearly one hundred years, Design Thinking has led the way with theoretical and practical explorations of creativity and innovation. Proficiency in creativity is now considered the third-most important skill that workers need to possess in the twenty-first century (World Economic Forum). According to Sir Ken Robinson, Professor Emeritus of Education, “Creativity now is as important in Education as [language] literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.” Recently, thanks to advances in neuroscience and psychology, a new interpretation of creativity is emerging, one that is holistic. To meet this opportunity, a holistic creativity course was developed that joins together design thinking and practices, cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, and ancient practices for self-awareness to form a comprehensive foundation. This educational approach merges the trusted creative practices that students learn in their major fields of study with a system of twelve universal principles. This course was pilot-tested with juniors and seniors in the Fall of 2017 with students from industrial design, game art, film, animation, and fine arts programs. The results were both intriguing and promising. Based on feedback from students, focus groups, and clients, a textbook has been developed that functions as a self-guided holistic curriculum so that anyone can understand and utilize this approach. This paper reviews the research that inspired the development of this system, shares the results of teaching the pilot class, and discusses the approach that creativity education needs to follow going forward.
Pre-service Education of the Secondary School Design Teacher: Perceptions and Practices of Teacher Educators View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Emma Kate Rickards
Each year in the Australian state of Victoria, approximately 12,000 senior secondary school students enrol in the subject of Visual Communication Design, its curriculum unique to Victorian schools and liberating design from its popular pairings with Visual Arts or Technology Studies. However, as a learning area offered under the umbrella of The Arts, Visual Communication Design is predominantly delivered by Visual Arts specialists, who may or may not have been exposed to understandings of design in their previous studies or teacher training. In fact, only one Victorian tertiary institution specifically prepares teachers of Visual Communication Design, with all others embedding design pedagogical training in Visual Arts pre-service teacher education programs. Of interest then, is the nature and extent of Victorian design teacher training when merged with art teacher education, and most significantly, the role of the teacher educator in shaping conceptions of best practice design pedagogy. In a recent small but vital study, qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with three Visual Arts & Design teacher educators, each who shared an appreciation of design as a distinct formal language, but rejected the notion of explicitly teaching design pedagogical content knowledge as a component of their teacher education programs. This paper summarises the research and its findings, illuminating important local issues and deficits that are of relevance to the wider world of design teacher education.
Design Thinking in K-12 Classrooms: Engaging in New Forms of Learning View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Keith Owens
This paper introduces a university led research study that is currently investigating whether aspects of Design Thinking can be successfully integrated into middle school art classes, and if exposure to these ideas and processes improve student learning performance. Design Thinking is being framed as a loosely linked group of concepts and practices that foster and harness curiosity, critical-thinking, and collaboration—a practical yet boundless toolkit for fueling active learning. Moreover, its core attributes integrate comfortably with project-based and constructive learning pedagogies and provide an antidote to curriculum narrowing, test centric, ‘skill-and-drill’ approaches. The study is being conducted in two middle schools located in a large suburban school district. Investigators are working collaboratively with school arts faculty to develop Design Thinking centric learning units and co-teaching these units with them. This shared dynamic ensures a high level of engagement by participating faculty and as importantly allows investigators to directly observe content delivery, student behavior, and learning outcomes. For the purposes of this study, the learning units are a controlled variable, the faculty are independent variables (remain the same at each school and for each class), and the students and their outcomes the dependent variable. Generally, units are structured to determine whether: 1.) the units are efficacious in fostering student engagement, and 2.) students produce artifacts and/or exhibit behavior that indicate whether a particular targeted Design Thinking attribute manifests, e.g., more versus fewer ideation sketches when discussing iterative thinking. This is a three-year research study in its first year.
