All too often in education we talk about creativity in a way that is not contextualized or situated in time, or a place, a circumstance, a culture, a problem or an opportunity that someone – a particular person, cares enough about to want to put effort and imagination into doing something that brings something into existence. But for creativity to have value beyond an individual: it must be relevant to others and a particular context or purpose.
Creative Academic is concerned with understanding the nature of creativity in different contexts and the ways in which teachers encourage learners to use and develop their creativity. Over the last three years we have been developing the idea that creativity, like learning and achievement, are ecological phenomena. Drawing on Carl Rogers’ ecological concept of creativity namely, ‘the emergence in action of a novel relational product growing out of the uniqueness of the individual on the one hand, and the materials, events, or circumstances of their life’ we have tried to visualize how creativity emerges from the ecologies we create to learn and achieve something.
In the next stage of our work we want to focus our attention on how creativity emerges in and through practice. By ‘practice’ we mean ‘action rather than thought or ideas’(1), ‘the application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to theories relating to it for example, the practice of teaching.’(2) By gathering stories of people’s practices in different settings and contexts eg work, interests and hobbies, we want to see if the idea of an ‘ecology of practice’ makes sense as a means to describe and theorize the way people interact with their environment and the people and things in it, to fulfill a particular purpose, achieve a significant goal, solve a problem or make the most of an opportunity. Through these personal illustrations, we want to explore how creativity featured, or might feature, in a particular ecology of practice
Creative Academic is concerned with understanding the nature of creativity in different contexts and the ways in which teachers encourage learners to use and develop their creativity. Over the last three years we have been developing the idea that creativity, like learning and achievement, are ecological phenomena. Drawing on Carl Rogers’ ecological concept of creativity namely, ‘the emergence in action of a novel relational product growing out of the uniqueness of the individual on the one hand, and the materials, events, or circumstances of their life’ we have tried to visualize how creativity emerges from the ecologies we create to learn and achieve something.
In the next stage of our work we want to focus our attention on how creativity emerges in and through practice. By ‘practice’ we mean ‘action rather than thought or ideas’(1), ‘the application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to theories relating to it for example, the practice of teaching.’(2) By gathering stories of people’s practices in different settings and contexts eg work, interests and hobbies, we want to see if the idea of an ‘ecology of practice’ makes sense as a means to describe and theorize the way people interact with their environment and the people and things in it, to fulfill a particular purpose, achieve a significant goal, solve a problem or make the most of an opportunity. Through these personal illustrations, we want to explore how creativity featured, or might feature, in a particular ecology of practice
Aims and methodology
1) to use the framework (right) we are developing to explain learning and practice as an ecological phenomenon to characterise a particular problem solving process in a practice setting and reveal the ecological relationships and interactions. Through this approach we are trying to understand what an ecology of practice might mean in lots of different contexts.
2) to explore what creativity means in different practice settings and consider how it emerges and is manifested within an ecology of practice.
3) to consider how practitioners develop the necessary understandings and capabilities to inhabit their professional environment in a productive and creative way. In other words, how they come to know how to develop their own practice ecologies. In this way we might connect the development of practitioners in a field to the signature pedagogies and signature learning experiences developed in different domains of higher education.
OPEN INVITATION
In an attempt to gain new perspectives into the meanings of creativity in different practice settings, we are looking for people who would like to collaborate by sharing a written or oral narrative of the way they or practitioners in general tackle a typical problem or challenge in their field of practice using the learning ecology framework we are developing and then identifying the meanings of creativity in these particular contexts. Contributions will be published and curated in Creative Academic Magazine (CAM9) which will be published 4 times while the project runs between December 2017- December 2018
PROJECT INTRODUCTION & INVITATION
1) to use the framework (right) we are developing to explain learning and practice as an ecological phenomenon to characterise a particular problem solving process in a practice setting and reveal the ecological relationships and interactions. Through this approach we are trying to understand what an ecology of practice might mean in lots of different contexts.
2) to explore what creativity means in different practice settings and consider how it emerges and is manifested within an ecology of practice.
3) to consider how practitioners develop the necessary understandings and capabilities to inhabit their professional environment in a productive and creative way. In other words, how they come to know how to develop their own practice ecologies. In this way we might connect the development of practitioners in a field to the signature pedagogies and signature learning experiences developed in different domains of higher education.
OPEN INVITATION
In an attempt to gain new perspectives into the meanings of creativity in different practice settings, we are looking for people who would like to collaborate by sharing a written or oral narrative of the way they or practitioners in general tackle a typical problem or challenge in their field of practice using the learning ecology framework we are developing and then identifying the meanings of creativity in these particular contexts. Contributions will be published and curated in Creative Academic Magazine (CAM9) which will be published 4 times while the project runs between December 2017- December 2018
PROJECT INTRODUCTION & INVITATION
| introduction.pdf |
EXAMPLE NARRATIVE
| ecology_of_practice_a_geologist.pdf |
Background
In 2016 we began to develop the idea of creative ecologies and our intention is to explore and develop the idea further by linking it to creative pedagogies - the imaginative ecologies that teachers create within which students learn and are able to use and develop their creativities. Our aspiration was to encourage and facilitate the exchange of ideas and practices through social interaction (both face to face and on-line discursive events), magazines and a range of open educational and learning resources.
The results of this project are documented in Creative Academic Magazine CAM7A-D. and in this synthesis article
| cam7synthesis.pdf |
