Digital Dialogues 18 January 2011 Organised by D-MARC Digital and Material Arts Research Group University of Derby Faculty of Arts, Design & Technology

Technology, artistry, creativity and education Chris Wilson BMus (Hons) MPhil, PG Cert, FHEA

Teaching Fellow, Director ADT-IMA School of Technology Faculty of Arts, Design & Technology University of Derby e: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Li: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/chriswilson101 Tw: http://twitter.com/ChrisWilson101

“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.”

Edward de Bono

 

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of technology on the conception, process and evaluation of art and personal creativity, and the implications for pedagogy in the arts in higher education. Proposing a more fundamental focus on the significance of creativity as a more transparently measurable, developable, teachable and assessable pedagogic domain, contextual examples are introduced to highlight the potential for and value of greater clarity in the classification and determination of creativity in educational contexts. Recognising technology as one of the most significant drivers in educational change, most notably in the arts and sciences, the understanding of personal creativity within a technological realm is critical to the development of best-practice learning and teaching strategies, understanding of the professional environment, and effective responses to challenges in periods of institutional change. This paper presents an overview of the field of creativity research, and focuses analysis on the technological dimension of higher education arts education.

 

Key Words: Creativity/creative, curriculum, professional development, PDP, employability, graduateness, psychology, technology enhanced learning, industry, policy, strategy.

 

I am very grateful to a number of colleagues and departments for their support and encouragement as I continue to go somewhat ‘off piste’ in my teaching fellowship research and development fund projects. I am grateful to the APRG (Academic Practice Research Group) and the School of Technology for their support in getting me to Oklahoma, and for the University of Derby as an institution for giving me the opportunity and capacity to explore these ideas. I am grateful particularly to D:MARC for the opportunity to distil this work for presentation. Thanks Angela, Chris, Huw, Barbara, Barry, Tim, Richard, Michael, John and Karen. It is a great pleasure to work with such creative people from whom I continue to learn a great deal.

 

Preface

I have developed a significant interest in the subject of creativity in higher education. This interest has been fostered over many years through my experience as a student of music composition, as an academic in arts-based disciplines in UK universities, and as a Teaching Fellow of the University of Derby. I realised some time ago that my understanding of personal creativity--deeply routed in my own experience--differed greatly from the experience of others, colleagues, and particularly the diversity of students I have the pleasure of working with. This became apparent to me specifically through work with undergraduate students studying music composition, performance, production and scholarship over a 14 year period; notions of creativity at best diverse and at worst somewhat vague and undefined. This has led me to explore my own understanding of creativity and to the realisation that I may have taken many things for granted. Creativity is not just my experience of a particular operation, it is many other processes, deeply personal to those conducting them.

I had the great pleasure to attend the Creativity World Forum in Oklahoma in November 20101. This experience has provided fresh impetus to my interest in these matters. There is some amazing work being done internationally on the subject of creativity and in this arena technology looms large. Being central to my own working practice, technology is also central to wider revolutions in society, industry, and education. It is not simply that technology is becoming more sophisticated, it is driving a profoundly dynamic and unpredictable future. Fundamentally, fresh perspectives are needed at every level of education. Previous certainties are now historic ones. We are educating people for jobs that do not yet exist and for industries and roles as yet undefined. Technology is not only inaugurating new forms of artistic creativity, it is paving the way for a landscape requiring profoundly different ideas about education.

 

I suspect that there may be scope for creativity to be cultivated more effectively and for this to have positive benefits with respect to many institutional priorities. I have always known that creativity was important for me and most people I know. There is now a growing body of research highlighting an increasing importance of creativity at social, industrial, and political levels. Current challenges are considerable. Creativity is important for everybody. I am interested in exploring ways of improving our understanding of creativity, how to develop it, teach it, assess it, and how to use technology to enhance it.

 

This paper is simply a reflection on a point in a research process. Every day I feel simultaneously more naive and more confident in my understanding of creativity and ways that this can be enhanced personally, educationally and institutionally. However, I do think we can be more creative as an organisation and that there may be things we can do to become more creative. I also think this is not merely a worthwhile endeavour, but quite simply an essential one.

 

Introduction

We are currently in the midst of a unique period of human development in which cultural production and information distribution are moving rapidly into a technological realm. This has dramatic implications for humanity in general, and education and the arts more specifically. Established art forms, creative practices, and pedagogies, are continually confronted by new modes of operation, and new art forms are emerging that demand consideration and understanding. A new generation is increasingly operating and developing their creativity using digital technologies concurrently with physical craft activities at formative stages of development and cultural communication is rapidly becoming virtual, portable and ubiquitous. The boundaries between artistic disciplines, conceptions of value and legitimacy, and the context of reception and interaction are being fundamentally redefined by technology. The conception and discourse of the arts, is, more than ever before, fluid and dynamic. This mirrors in more general terms the nature of the whole professional, industrial, and educational environment.

 

As a consequence of new digital economies, a focus on “second generation creativity” and “creative capital” ((McWilliam & Dawson, 2008) is present in a growing body of research. Identified by Donnelly (2004) as in its “relative youth”, authors such as Robinson (2001, 2010), Clegg (2008), Kleiman (2008), Hargreaves (2008), Cropley & Cropley (2000), and others, all focus attention on concurrent themes of technology-transformed industrial, educational, and cultural landscapes, and the fundamental and urgent need for more refined approaches to the nurturing and development of creativity at all levels. Whilst the rhetoric may vary, there is general concordance around themes of adaptability, flexibility, innovativeness, contrariness, connectivity and interdisciplinarity, as representative of the changing requirements of the professional, and highly technological, environment.

The wider professional and industrial environment has been described as experiencing a “crisis of human resources” (Robinson, 2010) as a consequence of an education system failing to fully develop creativity skills. Resulting in part from an outmoded industrial and standardising model of education in which there is a systemic process of “learners being benignly steered away from things they are good at” (Ibid.), this has recently started to be challenged within the primary and secondary education sectors in the UK with respect to national tests. It is also clear that non- standardisation, innovation, flexibility, originality, and distinctiveness, are all qualities in high demand in such volatile professional environment and that the institutional focus on PDP identified in the University of Derby Corporate Plan (2009 – 2014) and the University Teaching & Learning strategy (2009 – 2011), are conceived directly for the purposes of enhancing the competitive advantage of graduates. Identifying “skill deficiencies” and general “unsuitability” of graduates because of underdeveloped “creativity, problem-solving, and independent and critical thinking”, a 1999 Government of Australia survey (cited in Cropley & Cropley, 2000) illustrates that creativity is an institutional priority and an industrial necessity. Mirrored in the work by Sharp and Le Métais (2000), creativity is important, valuable in every sense of the word, and the arts have a strong role to play more generally in the education system.

 

The industrial environment requires graduates capable of working in ways “less focused on routine problem-solving and more focused on interactivity, navigation capacity, forging relationships, tackling novel challenges and synthesising ‘big picture’ scenarios for the purposes of adding a competitive commercial edge” (McWilliam & Dawson, 2008, p. 635). Creativity is valuable. Growing by 4% from 1997 to 2006 in the UK, and representing 6.4% of GVA during the same period, the creative industries sector generates £16 billion in exports and employs approximately 1.98 million people in the UK or 6.78% of the working population (Technology Strategy Board, 2009). Now “mapped to precision” as a clearly defined global industrial sector (McWilliam, Hearn & Haseman, 2008), and industrial and social dynamic, the creative industries continue to grow in significance industrially, culturally and educationally. One estimate predicts that the global value of the creative industries could exceed $6.1 trillion by 2020 (McWilliam & Dawson, 2008, p. 634). Creativity clearly has a significant role to play in economic recovery, dynamism and sustainability.

 

At a time of economic austerity, severe cuts to funding in many areas of education, and contraction of once thriving industrial sectors, the challenge to the arts in higher education is, despite the economic data, significant. With the consequent politicisation and ensuing stratification of subject value, the traditionally industrial disciplines of mathematics, science and engineering have, in precedent cut-backs, relatively prospered. The Arts more generally has tended to fair less favourably. Given the stark reality of perhaps the most significant financial challenge to the university sector for generations, artistic disciplines in particular need to brace for the inevitable debates surrounding funding support.

There is a clear case not only for the maintenance of arts funding simply from a basic economic analysis, but also from the perspective of the promotion and cultivation of creativity. Whilst creativity exists in every educational discipline, and is required at every level of operation, it is in arts subject areas that this commodity is most readily referred to, cultivated, assessed, and discussed. Now a “major concern in current educational policy” (Walker & Gleaves, 2008), the determination, pedagogy, description and categorisations, and promotion, of creativity is fundamentally important. It is clear that creativity makes individuals and institutions more productive, effective, and fun. The aim here is to map approaches to refinement of creativity at all levels. Not wishing to over- simplify the issue of creativity (Kleiman, 2008), but to illuminate, disseminate and integrate best-practice examples and ideas. We need to be creative, to produce more creative graduates, and to communicate the value of the arts in fostering and cultivating creativity at an institutional, industrial and social scale. As adopted by the World Conference on Arts Education (2010)2, their slogan is simply, ‘Arts for Society, Education for Creativity’.

It is stated in the HEFCE Recession to Recovery report that;

 

“UK graduates are far more likely to be creative, to challenge received wisdom and to be imaginative and innovative in ways that are not constrained by rigid disciplinary or cultural frames of reference. It is recognised by both employers and by students who come from other countries to study here” (Crossick, G, 2010).

 

It is vital that this apparent competitive advantage is maintained. Furthermore, it is vital that UK graduates are aware of their capabilities. The higher education environment is responding to changing circumstances in many ways.

 

What is creativity?

It is often observed that creativity cannot be defined. This is simply not true and specifically cannot be the case in a faculty context where the very substance of creativity is taught, assessed and used as a marketing brand. Whilst psychology may still be working towards an effective Creativity Quotient (CQ) to mirror standard IQ measurement (Furnham et. al, 2008), there is a range of definitions rather than none at all.

 

It has been demonstrated that whilst many undergraduate learners often have “vague and somewhat random ideas” about creativity (Walker & Gleaves, 2008, p. 46), particularly from subject disciplines not traditionally associated with creativity, there exists a broad range of academic expertise with refined and professionally knowledgeable experiences and theoretical perspectives of creativity. Identified through constraint, process, product, transformation, and fulfilment focused experiences (Kleiman, 2008, p. 211); creativity has been succinctly defined in a number of ways:

 

“Creativity is any act, idea, or product • that changes an existing domain into [a] new one. And the definition of a creative process is: someone whose thoughts or actions change a domain, or establish a new one” (Csilszentmihalyi, 1997 in Clegg, 2008, p. 220).

 

“Creativity is social construct—its • products need public acceptance” (Tornkvist, 1998, p. 10). Creativity is “having unusual ideas,

 

"tolerating the unconventional...seeing unexpected implications... inventiveness, unusual associations, fantasy, and flexibility” (Cropley & Cropley, 2000)

 

Creativity “is the process of developing original ideas that have value...applied imagination” (Robinson, 2010).

 

Broad categories of creativity have been identified by numerous studies including McWilliam and Dawson (2008) who focus on: thinking, doing, thinking and doing, the arts, self-expression, creativity as a continuum, context (p. 636). Creativity is most certainly not an exclusively artistic concern. Indeed, the impact of the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik in 1957 was to result the wider call for the fostering of creativity in engineering subjects in the USA (Cropley & Cropley, 2000, p. 208). Creativity is both a principle unit of, and overarching term, to describe fundamental aspects of flexibility, enthusiasm, experimentation, originality, playfulness, and innovation. These are fundamental requirements for the challenges of the modern age in most areas of the professional and industrial environment.

 

Whilst “chance favours only the prepared mind” (Louis Pasteur), as the history of scientific and artistic discovery demonstrates, almost serendipitous moments do account for innumerable major changes in thinking and understanding--Luigi Galvani’s chance observation and interpretation of twitching frog legs in 1791 most probably directly responsible for the current field of neurophysiology for example. Openness to chance, and the conceptual awareness to identify germinal events and to exploit them intellectually, is critical to all forms of creativity.

 

Risk taking, whilst not necessarily a fundamental prerequisite for creativity is nevertheless, significant. More importantly, the willingness to explore avenues of enquiry or possibility with probability of redundancy is a feature of many significant moments of subsequent innovation. Mistakes are inevitable and all successful organisations are filled with a history of failure amongst sporadic, but often profound, successes.

 

Different forms of creativity have been identified relating both to different personality types and different subject disciplines within a higher education context--The “free” domains

of many arts and the more “constrained” disciplines of architecture, design and, arguably, music, each involving different conceptions and processes of creativity (Gluck et. al, 2002). Creative ability has tended to be modelled in terms of flexibility, fluency, elaboration and originality, and the psychology of creativity focused on product, process, person and environment. Personality is significant and themes of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism, all feature prominently in associated psychological analysis, with some correlations across subject disciplines and some clear distinctions.

 

For individuals with a high rating in psychological tests for openness to experience, creativity is potentially best fostered through open-ended tasks and goals. Those rating more highly in conscientiousness tend to respond more creatively when closely monitored in particular tasks, and those with low emotional stability can tend to have creativity stifled by overt evaluation and monitoring of work. In all cases there is a significant focus on motivators as a basis for developing a better psychological understanding of individual creativity.

It is worth noting that there may be a challenging correlation between ‘happiness’ and creativity. Noting the quite common connection between hypomania and bipolar disorder and artistic and literary creativity, Furnham et. al (2008) conclude that satisfied contentment could have an inhibiting effect. Recognising the quite frequent connection between forms of depressive illness and prolific artistic creativity--from Beethoven to Van Gogh, Plath to Milligan--seriousness of purpose with peaks and toughs of creative activity is a regularly occurring pattern. Furthermore, particularly in the commercial music sector, great pop music often emerges from a working class landscape of industrial decline and austerity arguably with greater frequency than from more prosperous sectors of society. Creativity can emerge from often hostile, difficult, and essentially unexpected places.

 

Recognising the serial processes of the conscious mind and the parallel processes of the unconscious, numerous studies have been undertaken and a wide range of techniques and strategies formulated (McWilliam & Dawson, 2008; Hargreaves, 2008; Kowaltowski et. al, 2009; Donnelly, 2010; Lemmy et. al, 2010; Clegg, 2010; Cropley & Cropley, 2000; Kleiman, 2008; Dillon, 2000). Creativity as an outcome of applied motivation, opportunity, capability, and imagination, is at the heart of staff development and wider educational objectives. The psychology of these processes and the impact on individual staff and students provides a basis for further study and potential for systemic improvements.

 

Daniel Pink explored the issue of motivation in the context of institutional creativity in his presentation at the 2010 Creativity World Conference3. Perhaps the most significant points related to the issue of personal motivation and creativity outcomes. Flexibility of modes of operation and freedom of expression both outweighing ‘carrot or stick’ methods as motivating factors, it is also the case that ‘non commissioned’ work is most commonly the most valuable and creative. As an institution and as an educational provider, we undertake or support almost no non commissioned work. Organisations that flourish in this respect often have very different approaches to the nurturing and exploitation of creativity.

 

Technology, artistry and creativity

There are innumerable indicators of the significance and importance of the growing creativity meme. Technology is a predominant concern in this discourse. Clearly established in sound and image media, more traditional crafts are also rapidly embracing the technological realm4. With the imminent arrival of widespread 3-D visual media, increasingly sophisticated and customisable interface technologies, the physicality and gestural control of digital media is rapidly reaching

levels of subtlety and complexity that require serious artistic attention. Effectively there is distinct hybridity to the basis of operation in the whole spectrum of the arts. As observed by Bill Thompson in a journalistic review of the Media Festival Arts conference5, “we soon reach a stage where it makes as little sense to talk about ‘digital art’ as it does about ‘new

media’” (BBC News, 20th October 2010).

 

Pranav Mistry6 is developing new approaches to the issue of the intersection of the digital and the physical domain.The advent of cloud computing, face recognition, app devices and 3D printing is soon to give way to ‘6th sense technologies’ where the boundary between technology and the physical environment become entirely fluid and dynamic. Old conceptions of ‘technology’ and ‘the real world’ are being dissolved.

 

Questions surrounding the intersection of art and technology are historic. From initial aversion towards photography as an artistic medium, opposition to the pencil as a deleterious to traditional quill pen standards, the immediate response to innovation in the arts is quite routinely oppositional. This is changing rapidly. From David Hockney’s advocation of iPad art potential7--clad at a bespoke suit with pockets to fit his own iPad at his Paris exhibition in November 2010--to the emergence of new aesthetics in data visualisation through heritage conservation8, biological imaging, and data mapping, the challenge is not to consider the relative worth of new practices, but to establish the most efficient strategy for leaping in to the arena wholeheartedly. Technology is the not the future of the arts, it is very much the present.

 

Whilst considerable progress has been made at UDO with respect to the integrated use of technology in learning and teaching, there remains a level of inconsistency in overall approaches and ongoing transformation of mechanisms for initiating this. Recommendation 46 of the Dearing report states, “by 2000/01 higher education institutions should ensure that all students have open access to a Networked Desktop Computer, and expect that by 2005/06 all students will be required to have access to their own portable computer“ (NCIHE, 1997). Whilst more UG students than ever before at UOD invest in their own portable computers, and indeed own and use increasingly sophisticated mobile communications technology that is blurring the once clear definition of ‘the computer’, there is a clear argument that at least in the later recommendation (owning their own portable computer), the HE sector has yet to achieve this. Indeed, Warwick University experienced a significant backlash in 2001 for plans to make laptop ownership compulsory by 2003 (BBC News, 6th February 2001) and nearly ten years later publish the following guidance: “Don’t worry if you won’t be bringing your own computer or laptop, there are plenty of computers around campus for you to use” (Warwick University guidance for new students, 2010).

 

It is clearly apparent that a growing percentage of UG students arrive within the HE environment as Generation Z, ‘digital natives’ or “multimedia literates” (Dillon, 2000)—born after the advent of digital technologies and with significant previous experience with internet and mobile communications and information systems, for many spanning their entire educational experience. Recognising that a much smaller percentage of academic staff in HE are of the same generation, this difference in ‘networked information experience’ may have profound implications for the strategies necessary for effective use of technology.

 

Whilst the impact of calculators has been demonstrated to have the potential to enhance mental arithmetic capabilities (Bitter & Hatfield in Bright et al, 1994, p. 49), there remains anecdotal evidence of this ability falling into decline as a direct consequence of technology making it less necessary. Related to this is the question of the wider impact on information cognition that internet access has had on ‘Generation Z’, where filtering and sorting is considered more a component of technology rather than of intellect. There is at least the strong implication that student and academic staff have very different experiences of enquiry and information processing.

 

Technology, and indeed the whole theme of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) has a significant role to play in terms of creativity in learning. Indeed, the need to ‘teach more creatively’ is a phrase frequently associated with drivers for a more developed use of e- learning. However, it is clear that for many in academia, technology presents a considerable ‘out-of-comfort-zone’ challenge leading to an ominous sense of having to abandon entrenched and well practiced teaching strategies. In addition, many struggle to engage successfully with appropriate development activities to improve their capabilities due to pressures from other areas of work. It is clear that we need to work more creatively--to work more creatively--with technology, and that further research is required to close the gap between information processing experience and understanding of the student body and the academic staff.

 

Creativity and academia

From an academic perspective, creativity has never been more necessary. With an increasingly diverse range of drivers, there is no precedent for the current turbulence of the higher education environment or the pace of procedural and technological change. Recent surveys indicate a level of stress in academia (Davenport et. Al, 2008; Tytherleigh, 2005; Kinman, 1998) that is growing, and significant evidence of the dynamism of political, professional and institutional circumstances dividing attention and challenging traditional practices and methodologies frequently to a profoundly disruptive level.

 

There is evidence of a range of barriers to creativity within the institutional context of modern higher education:

“There is much that mitigates the ‘emergence’ of creative capital from higher education learning environments as they currently exist. The resilience of the ‘lecture’, the ubiquitous culture of ‘transmission’, the credentialising process, the hard-wiring of disciplinary boundaries, and so on.” (McWilliam & Dawson, 2008, p. 641)

 

Identifying key levels in which creativity operates, Hennessey and Amabile (2010) echo the calls in Borghini (2005) for more integrated and focused research approaches as a consequence of increased significance and attention given to creativity in the workplace.

 

The potential for quality assurance mechanisms and general quantitative accountability to engender a ‘risk averse’ culture and “potentially limit the scope of creative learning and teaching strategies” (Hargreaves, 2008, p. 227) is widely acknowledged, and the shift in the funding situation for UK HE could potentially add a further layer of obstacles to the development of a more integrated, diverse, and ‘risk active’ educational culture. There is also evidence of changing funding structures leading to a more risk averse student body now demanding greater predictability and clarity of definition in all forms of summative assessment (Ibid, p. 233). This combined with a difficulty in aligning ‘creativity’ with standard QAA subject benchmarks has led to a situation where use can be avoided in explicit terms through learning outcomes and assessment criteria resulting in a marginalisation of creativity as a process and an outcome of learning and teaching.

 

However, studies demonstrate that creativity can be developed through formal training and that whilst creativity may be manifest in divergent ways, all styles of creativity are of significant value (Donnelly, 2004, p. 165). As such, clearer identification of barriers to creativity at a subject, faculty, and institutional level, and strategies for fostering creativity as a component of personal development planning, curriculum development, learning and teaching, and operational process, could add considerable value to the qualitative and quantitative output of the organisation.

 

Creativity in the curriculum and the student learning experience

Current drivers in UK HE related to the wider economic conditions have potential to limit choice and flexibility in undergraduate study and corresponding opportunities for the assessment of student capabilities. Now fundamentally linked with funding, changing regulatory frameworks and rationalisation of the curriculum (reduced optionality), there is a tendency for learners to become more concerned with meeting clearly defined criteria than exploring their own personal interests. Indeed, in a the Walker and Gleaves paper (2008), it was noted that many students felt inhibited in terms of exploring some new ideas for fear of compromising resulting assessment outcomes and degree classifications. Rather than being open to the exploration of ‘multiple- possibility-type-thinking’, current pressures may well inhibit the development of appropriate creative approaches and there is a clear need for further research to “elucidate the links between self theory, risk-taking and creative ability’ (Ibid, p. 52). In a student learning context, risk may be an inherent perception within a summative assessment context—notably examinations—but the most fundamental issue of opportunity for deviation and flexibility in programmes of study, whilst an underlying feature of the Joint Honours scheme, is increasingly limited in specialist degree programmes.

 

Recognising that “single disciplinary emphases form major impediments to students expanding their understanding of creativity across academic areas” (Walker & Gleaves, 2008, p. 42), and that “pressing syllabus requirements act as impediments to structured creativity and experimental outcomes” (Ibid), the potential for a modular framework to inhibit natural experimentation and enquiry in favour of a highly structured, channelled and assessment orientated learning experience is clear. There is clearly a need to address the issue of opportunities for cross-disciplinary work and collaborative approaches to offset the “difficulties in designing and assessing modules that in turn promote purposeful experimentation” (Ibid, p. 52).

 

Some foundation work has been completed in terms of the exploration and student involvement in negotiation of assessment criteria in modules that explicitly involve creativity in learning outcomes. Drawing from Bleakley’s work in the typology of creativities in higher education (2004) and a study by Walker and Gleaves (2008), the student perceptions and understandings of creativity in the context of their own disciplines has been reviewed through qualitative research. The ADT modules Song Writing, Principles of Arrangement, Contemporary Composition Techniques, and Creative Project in Popular Music (D) act as core components of the BA (Hons) Popular Music with Music Technology and the BA (Hons) Popular Music Production programmes. Each module is primarily focused on musical composition and incorporates direct reference to creativity in learning outcomes and assessment criteria.

 

Between 2008-2010, students in Level 4 and Level 6 modules have been involved directly in the direct discussion and of the assessment and moderation process as a key component of the early stages of learning and teaching activities. Notably significant in musical creativity, the benchmarking of relevant compositional standards—especially given the divergence evident in the “popular” music tradition, and the openness to personality in each of the modules—is open to the potential of vagueness and subjectivity. Equally however, the corresponding requirement for consistency of summative assessment processes has determined a concerted approach to the refinement of assessment criteria as published to learners at the commencement of study. In each case there remains scope to explore the semantics and interpretation of the discourse employed, which, whilst providing fuel for initial tutorial discussion, nevertheless illustrates a difficulty in clarifying, for students, the meaning of creativity as a descriptor of tangible and measurable achievements and outcomes of learning endeavour.

 

Research and scholarship are also relevant areas of study in consideration of student creativity. In modules including Music In Context (Level 4), Music In Popular Culture (Level 5), and Independent Studies (Level 6), development of research projects and direct engagement with areas of contention and uncertainty, are integral features of learning and teaching. Insights gained over 2008-2010 period under the current validation reveal parallels with the student learning experience of composition modules. Predisposed towards a need for rigid and clearly defined parameters in assignment work, scope for personalisation and interpretation often leads to uncertainty and cautiousness from learners in their approach. Most apparent at Level 6, there is a clear divide between three basic experiences of the development of research proposals:

 

1. Learners with a clear and passionate interest in a particular field who develop clear objectives through active engagement with scholarship and enquiry.

2. Learners who focus specifically on trying to identify a project that “will do well” and who engage in a limited way with scholarship and enquiry.

3. Learners who demonstrate inhibition and uncertainty about research proposal development and who develop ideas very much at ‘arms length’ from what they consider as their fundamental interests. Often requiring significant guidance and encouragement.

 

In the case of example 3, there is a sense that many learners fail to achieve ‘traction’ in their scholarly work through limited engagement. With an academic perspective of understanding growing through study, those inhibited to a position of sporadic rather than consolidated engagement often fail to develop meaningful understanding of the purpose and value of research and enquiry. The requirement to be creative often demonstrated to be underdeveloped even in the later stages of undergraduate study.

Key interim conclusions of work with music composers, creative practitioners, and researchers are that:

 

• Learners hold a wide range of conceptual notions relating to the determination of creativity in music composition and innovation in research;

• Negotiation through interpretation and clarification of assessment criteria, whilst productive and quality enhancing, nevertheless demonstrates a gap to be closed between student conceptions of creativity and required understanding;

• Inhibition related to summative assessment outcomes is clear determinate in early stage project development and learning perspectives (Wilson, 2007-2010);

• Formative assessment is important in promoting confidence in assignment development;

 

Successfully addressed through formative assessment processes, systemic pressures inhibit consistent integration of formative assessment opportunities;

Learners are often inhibited by the risk associated with summative assessment and frequently have limited capacity for meaningful extra- curricular learning activities.

categorisation of creative expectations may support greater confidence in learners to extend their work towards more creative outcomes. From “conceptual

replication” (Donnelly, 2004, p. 156) through minor variations on existing patterns or forms, to more open opportunities for student participation in the definition of learning objectives and working parameters, “learner construction” (Ibid) of knowledge and capability is a critical feature in promoting the development of creativity.

 

There are innumerable potential variations in the semantics of description and context of analysis of creativity in higher education. Being creative with sound media, whilst having clear parallels, is, nevertheless, distinctly different from being creative with textiles, hair styles or civil engineering projects. The parameters may share cultural resonance but they are distinct in fundamental ways. There is therefore a clear need to think ‘subjectively’ about the categorisation of creative outcomes in assessment as well as work towards clarity of outline descriptors and basic contextual benchmarks.

 

The development of accurate, and, where possible consistent descriptors, parameters and assessment criteria for creativity is clearly a complex challenge. From a deterministic perspective, creativity requires originality; at least on the part of the individual student, preferably on the level of the associated cohort, and possibly at the level of the institution or subject discipline (Robinson, 2010). Furthermore, this originality needs to be functional, germinal, and sustainable. The fundamental challenge in the assessment of education is to quantify, communicate, make space for, and encourage this form of originality, and to develop transparent, efficient and descriptive means of managing assessment processes.

Perhaps most significant in this context is confidence and consistency. Where creativity is significant, where it is perhaps currently a more implicit assessment component, it could become more explicit in terms of clarity of description and associated benchmarking. This has arguable benefits for efficiency of assessment, accuracy of outcomes, and motivation of student learning.

 

Key working ideas are;

Not that it really requires substantiation, but it has been observed through research that it is “fun to be creative” (Tornkvist, 1998, p. 7). Exploring the far too frequent imbalance between the “fun” of extra–curricular activities and the “slog” of study, Tornkvist identifies the potential conflict between the higher education system of specified criteria, deadlines, and rigid frameworks of operation associated with accountability through assessment, and the educational and professional requirement for innovation and creativity (Ibid, p. 9). Given the increasing significance associated with the NSS survey in terms of university recruitment, viability and sustainability, student satisfaction matters fundamentally. Learners are more satisfied having fun than being bored, constrained, or as often perceived, limited in terms of their personal creativity.

 

The assessment of creativity

Clearly there are significant questions that arise regarding pedagogy, interpretation, value, process, and, significantly, creativity, when technology is a significant factor. How does the virtual compare with the physical? What values to we attach to the exploration of technological possibility processing as opposed to processes of manual effort and endeavour? Where is discovery in technology? How to we describe these outcomes? Where is there consistency, and where is there scope for subject -specific classification?

The need for further research to support a better understanding of creativity in assessment is widely recognised. Work developed by Walker and Gleaves (2008) raise some interesting questions about the student perception of creativity assessment and associated methods for managing this and promoting student involvement in the definitions process. 

 

There is capacity for more explicit and confident reference to creativity in learning outcomes and assessment criteria; diverse drivers and pressures in academia, and to engage successfully with the research agenda, systematic approaches to the nurturing of creativity are vital. A number of approaches are being adopted within US universities and corporate organisations for the fostering and exploitation of creativity. Oklahoma State University have, under the stewardship of Dr. Michael H. Norris, inaugurated the Institute for Creativity and Innovation. This links into every area of the university to support subject-specific entrepreneurship and creativity. US school systems have also developed competitions and funding support for creativity skills development. Many corporate organisations operate “20% Time” in which employees are encouraged to explore their own personal interests however far removed from their work roles. Finally, amongst a range of innovative approaches to the management of working environments, companies such as Google provide tactile, playful, colourful, and unconventional working spaces designed to encourage interaction and creative activities. Each of these initiatives has proven to be worthwhile in raising profits, productivity and staff and student morale. A focus on creativity is valuable in almost every respect.

 

Creativity can be taught and developed as a professional attribute and used to inform more efficient and productive approaches to working practice. Creativity is also a raw material of high value in almost every form and expression. Creativity as a theme is potentially underrepresented in institutional rhetoric and policy documents and there is clear scope for enrichment. There is a significant argument for creativity to play a more integrated role in institutional policy objectives. There is also clear scope for creativity to be more fully harnessed as a means of underpinning the process of institutional response to changing industrial, regulatory, and political circumstances.

• There is clear value in involving learners directly in the designation of assessment criteria involving overtly creative outcomes;

• Creativity is important and ADT has a significant potential contribution to make to wider quality enhancement in learning, teaching and assessment.

 

Interim conclusions

It has been claimed that, “You cannot teach creativity, but you can kill it” (Evans, F. T, in Tornkvist, 1998, p. 5). Indeed, in a survey by Snyder (1967) cited by Cropley & Cropley (2000), it was observed that students who preferred more experimental solutions were three times more likely to drop out of engineering courses than those predisposed towards conventionality.

 

The objective, building on the case presented by Sir Ken Robinson (2001) is to rethink educational approaches entirely. Arguing the need to “disenthrall ourselves” (TED Conference, 2010) of many preconceived notions of the fundamental fabric of the education system, Sir Ken Robinson uses the analogy of manufacture and agriculture to highlight the challenge in hand; the former being synonymous with the current model, the later being an exemplar of more preferable methodologies. Indeed, it is clear that there is need to ensure that “the conditions for learning are as good as possible” (Tornkvist, 1998, p. 11) and that constraints of accountability, efficiency and an increasingly rigid and standardised approach to curriculum management, may well be inhibiting factors for the fostering of creativity in HE.

 

The challenge for teaching is clear. We need to be more creative in our approach to the development of creativity in our learning and teaching practice in order to promote sustainability in every aspect of our work. In order to equip graduates with the necessary capabilities to succeed in the professional environment, to mitigate the impact of reduced funding levels in the delivery of high quality education, to balance challenges with solutions.

 

The application of creativity

• Do we exploit the creativity of our research?

• Do we fully enable our students to apply their creativity commercially?

• Do we fully exploit our ideas?

• Why do our learners predominantly start new companies after they leave?

• Review our approach to DPP and PDP. Provide more proactive support for commercial activity for all students and staff.

• Develop more active commercial opportunities for research groups involving students and staff.

 

The assessment and reward of creativity

• Do we have the capacity to innovate?

• How open to risk and failure do you think your students are?

• Do we refer to and determine creativity in our assessment processes?

• Review learning outcomes and assessment criteria and make references to creativity more explicit and more transparent.

• Review perceptions of role of technology in the arts.

 

The pedagogy of creativity

• Does our curriculum provide suitable focus on and opportunity for personal creativity?

• Are we creative in our approach to learning and teaching?

• Do we share best practice with respect to the teaching of creativity?

• Review approaches to the subject specific teaching and fostering of creativity.

• Complete an audit of TEL in your module/programme/subject area/ school/faculty. Get involved!

 

The culture of creativity

• Is our approach to personal development conducive to personal creativity?

• Are we open to new or divergent ideas?

• Do we embrace the apparently contradictory or challenging?

• Do we celebrate failure?

• Give your students more opportunities to innovate and experiment.

• Think how you can help students better define ʻtheirʼ learning space and express themselves more freely.

• Focus more on curation and less on delivery.

 

The conditions for creativity

• Does our working, learning and teaching environment foster creativity?

• Do we curate student and staff creativity well?

• Where and when can we play? • Do we connect and interact well? • Do we enable students to connect and interact?

• Make connections, sustain connections, develop connections.

• Allocate time in your schedule for experimentation and play.

• Think how you recharge your batteries.

• Get involved in improving the creative environment and opportunities for everybody.

 

The role of creativity

• Do we recognise the significance, value and necessity of creativity?

• Do we understand where it operates in our organisation?

• Do we (incorrectly) ascribe the role of creativity to a minority?

• Can we be clearer and more consistent in our focus on creativity?

• Study the literature and focus on the available conference presentations about creativity.

• Think about your profession/subject/ discipline and review your understanding of creativity.

• Ask yourself, where, why, and how are you creative?

 

References

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Presentation images, videos and contextual examples

CompSci.ca (Computer Science Canada). Poem visualised by data translation and circular plotting. Available online at: http://compsci.ca/blog/data-visualization-programming-an-art-piece/

Fischer, E. GPS tagged digital photographs visualisation of Flickr uploads. Available online at:

www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4671589629/in/set-72157624209158632/

Fisch, K, McLeod, S & Bronman, J (2008) Did You Know? (Video) Updated for a Sony BMG executive meeting June 2008. Available at: http://www.flixxy.com/technology-and- education-2008.htm

http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_feb2009/ GoogleHeadquarters.htm

Mistry, P (2009) 6th Sense Technologies. Presentation given at the 2009 TED Conference, Mysore, India. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzKmGTVmqJs

NASA (2004) Hubble photograph of the Tarantula Nebula.

Pop Up Schools video (2010) Thomas Tallis, Stormont House and Gallions Schools. Collaboration between London and Oklahoman schools presented at 2010 Creativity World Forum. Available at: http://vimeo.com/15783507

Pritchard, D & Mitchell, D. Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation. Lazer scanning Rosslyn Chapel. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfl_VHTpNSk

Ruzin, S & Bethke, P (2008) Germinating Arabidopsis seed stained with the fluorescent dye. Biological imaging Institute, University of California. Available online at: http:// www.nikonsmallworld.com/detail/year/2008/96

Wordle diagrams created at: www.wordle.com Working environments images. Available at: http://firingsynapses.com/tag/google/

Yale University G-Econ Group. Graphical globe visualising world population figures. Available from:

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Zurich School of Applied Sciences. Data visualisation of world flight data over a 24 hour period. Available from: http://radar.zhaw.ch/