The power and potential of creativity in teaching and learning and how it helps us connect

Abstract:

This session will share and build on a creative practice workshop facilitated in Future Me week, which was coproduced with the Horsfall Gallery and Home Theatre. The workshop attracted a multi disciplinary group of students from arts, health and education courses. They engaged in a variety of creative activities as a basis for building skills and knowledge in working with others, community building, engagement, wellbeing and began to reflect on their future aspirations. This was a highly relational and connected experience for both staff and students. The workshop highlighted the potential for and power of creativity as a ‘hook’ when working with students across a range of topics and disciplines and it’s power in creating condition in which connections can be built. Within this session attendees will be able to ‘have a go’ with a range of resources that can inject some fun and creativity into teaching and learning and develop their own ideas about how they might utilise them in their work. The use of creative practices sits within our overarching goal of creating and sustaining a safe and transformative active learning community. Creativity can be empowering and revelatory for both staff and students. The power and potential lies in the concept and the delivery model of which debriefing is a key aspect. The workshop facilitator, Margaret Struthers, is an associate scholar (2024/25) and has been developing and exploring the impact of simulated and active approaches to learning. Based on her work she has developed an approach to debriefing/reflection which can be utilised to capture student learning and lend support, safety and structure to sessions with students – ABCDebrief. This will be used as a means of debriefing in this session.