Abstract
21st-century fluencies are not solely about technical prowess. Technology, particularly the Web, requires skills for reading and writing creatively in order to derive meaning from what is being communicated. This requires creative skills and a creative language, an appropriate vocabulary to help express one’s understandings. At the Queens University of Charlotte, we recently introduced a class in Creative Literacy to address these issues. Students are encouraged to take time to examine and reflect and to foster self-awareness through this process. To this end, I insist on primary research, including archival sources and interviews, group work, Ted Talks and maintaining sketchbooks. The aim is for students to find meaning in the midst of vast amounts of information, and to find the connections that transform information into useful and valuable knowledge. I challenge students to take risks in my classes, to look at things in ways they have never imagined, taking responsibility for the person they are and will become. I am inspired by the teaching approach fostered at the experimental liberal arts college, Black Mountain College of North Carolina (1933-1956), where students were encouraged to trust their own perceptions and build autonomy. Black Mountain College was not about isolated examples or instances of art within the confines of a classroom, but seeing all life as art. Education should reflect life, to learn to make intelligent, discriminating decisions and develop a capacity for initiative and independence in order to become active citizens in this innovative conceptual world.
Presenters
Siu Challons-LiptonExecutive Director and Professor of Art History, Department of Art, Design and Music, Queens Univeristy of Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Creativity, Literacy, Pedagogy, Innovation, Visual Learning, Higher Education
Digital Media
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