Category Archives: Online courses

Creativity for learning in higher education

It seems I don’t know my place.

Again I’m sneaking into an online course designed for educators in higher education. ButSandra Sinfield, Senior Lecturer in Education and Learning Development, LondonMet @danceswithcloud, one of the Open Course team, said it was okay, so I’m doing it.

The course is called Creativity for learning in higher education and I’m not sure exactly what to expect but I like the idea of creativity in education and I’m also interested in working with people online around the topic.

Within this course, enablers and barriers to creativity in higher education will be explored, together with related pedagogical theory and literature. Participants will experience learning through play, games, models and stories and will actively experiment with such approaches. This will help them further develop their understanding, knowledge, skills and practices in these areas. Students will be able to critically reflect on their practice and identify opportunities to design, implement and evaluate an imaginative and creative innovation that fosters curiosity, and maximises meaningful active engagement and discovery learning.

I particularly like this sentence:

“Participants will experience learning through play, games, models and stories and will actively experiment with such approaches.”

Sounds like fun.

Outcomes are good too:

On successful completion of this open course, students will be able to:

  1. Critically discuss creative teaching and teaching for student creativity, as a driver for student engagement and learning in their own professional context.

2. Develop and implement an innovation in their own practice and appreciate how their own creativity was involved in the development and implementation process

3. Critically evaluate their innovation.

4. Appreciate and recognise unanticipated outcomes that cannot be predicted in advance.

The open course will incorporate the following themes:

  • Conceptualising creativity in higher education
  • Enablers and barriers of creativity in higher education
  • Learning through play, games, models and stories
  • The role of curiosity and other intrinsic motivations for engagement
  • Developing creative methods and practices
  • Evaluating a pedagogical innovation

The course is part of P2PU.

The Peer 2 Peer University is a grassroots open education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls and gives learners recognition for their achievements. P2PU creates a model for lifelong learning alongside traditional formal higher education. Leveraging the internet and educational materials openly available online, P2PU enables high-quality low-cost education opportunities.

Let’s go! Trust me to join another online course in the last few days of my term break.