I'm about to lead and facilitate a new conversation on #creativeHE platform. Its the first event in our year long project to explore the idea of creative pedagogies and learning ecologies. It's my custom to try and curate and reflect on my thinking and actions as I engage in the process in order to learn from my experience and generate evidence (for myself) of my own creativity.
It's over a month since chrissi and I agreed we would offer this event and I have thought about it off and on for a few weeks without getting anywhere. Three weeks before the event I travelled to Australia to spend time with my mum. Where she lives on the south New South Wales coast is beautiful. I take daily walks on this dazzlingly local beach which is quite uplifting and great for thinking - especially imagining and reflecting.
It's over a month since chrissi and I agreed we would offer this event and I have thought about it off and on for a few weeks without getting anywhere. Three weeks before the event I travelled to Australia to spend time with my mum. Where she lives on the south New South Wales coast is beautiful. I take daily walks on this dazzlingly local beach which is quite uplifting and great for thinking - especially imagining and reflecting.
A few days ago I tried to begin the process of planning /designing the activities for the #creativeHE conversation by pulling together what I know from existing writings.. but I wasn't getting anywhere.. I sort of new in a fuzzy way the general territory I wanted to explore but I lacked any sort of clarity.. I used my daily walks on the beach to mull over my challenge and began by identifying questions that I could use to foster inquiry.. I scribbled these down on bits of paper and kept mulling them over.. when I got back from my third walk this week I jotted down about 10 questions and this was a sort of trigger…as I began to see some of the dimensions of the challenge which I was now able to frame in a question.. I sketched out a rough plan of the sorts of activities and resources that might be used over the 6 days the conversation will run.
On the fourth day of mulling I was jet lagged and woke up at 3.30am.. By now I’m getting a little anxious that inspite of lots of time spent thinking I have not found a way that satisfies me of tackling this problem.. There are definite feelings of dissatisfaction and frustration but also anxiety that I was not making progress and my sudden realisation that the conversation would begin in two weeks.. I hate being unprepared it makes me feel incompetent.. Perhaps this mindset as I woke up at 3.30am produced a different frame of mind because at 4am I began to see things a bit differently.. more connected more integrated and I jumped out of bed to try and sort things out..
I made a connection to the creative thinking activities I have facilitated in the past and the recent offer of a workshop by SH using the Neonce online tool her company has developed. I began to imagine my problem in terms of a creative thinking exercise.. As I thought about the questions again I began to reframe the problem as ecological and I saw the affordance in the model I had developed to test a basic assumption that was forming in my mind..namely, ‘If a pedagogy for creativity is an ecology for the purpose of encouraging learners to use their creativity – can I use the model of a learning ecology I had developed to explore the dimensions of what such a pedagogy would look like by asking the question ‘What questions might be associated with each element of the framework?’
On the fourth day of mulling I was jet lagged and woke up at 3.30am.. By now I’m getting a little anxious that inspite of lots of time spent thinking I have not found a way that satisfies me of tackling this problem.. There are definite feelings of dissatisfaction and frustration but also anxiety that I was not making progress and my sudden realisation that the conversation would begin in two weeks.. I hate being unprepared it makes me feel incompetent.. Perhaps this mindset as I woke up at 3.30am produced a different frame of mind because at 4am I began to see things a bit differently.. more connected more integrated and I jumped out of bed to try and sort things out..
I made a connection to the creative thinking activities I have facilitated in the past and the recent offer of a workshop by SH using the Neonce online tool her company has developed. I began to imagine my problem in terms of a creative thinking exercise.. As I thought about the questions again I began to reframe the problem as ecological and I saw the affordance in the model I had developed to test a basic assumption that was forming in my mind..namely, ‘If a pedagogy for creativity is an ecology for the purpose of encouraging learners to use their creativity – can I use the model of a learning ecology I had developed to explore the dimensions of what such a pedagogy would look like by asking the question ‘What questions might be associated with each element of the framework?’
I had never thought this thought before and it was an entirely new use of my model. I recognised this as a creative insight (original, useful, valuable to me) and probably, given the tool was my invention and this context is my invention, probably an original thought in the history of mankind (if I can be so dramatic without sounding pompous and arrogant). Which is the way creativity works- new ideas/ inventions build on older ones that we have invented.
I was really energised by the idea and over the next hour, and with growing excitement, tested this proposition and proved to myself that it worked. I could now see how I might utilise this approach in the context of a design thinking exercise using Neonce as a way of preparing ourselves (the facilitation team) and depending on how well it worked the possibility of using the same approach as part of our #creativeHE conversation.
Suitably enthused I created a simple poster advertising the event and emailed the people I hoped would want to be part of the facilitation team.. I also emailed Sarah who had offered to facilitate the workshop using Neonce to see if she was still interested.
MY CREATIVITY? emerged in the process described above. It took the form of making a connection with past experiences and this triggering a fresh was of seeing the problem. I recognized affordance in my model that I hadn't seen before and the next step was to use more deliberate analytical thinking to act on and realise the affordance. The end results was a new conceptual tool to aid thinking about the problem I was working with.
I was really energised by the idea and over the next hour, and with growing excitement, tested this proposition and proved to myself that it worked. I could now see how I might utilise this approach in the context of a design thinking exercise using Neonce as a way of preparing ourselves (the facilitation team) and depending on how well it worked the possibility of using the same approach as part of our #creativeHE conversation.
Suitably enthused I created a simple poster advertising the event and emailed the people I hoped would want to be part of the facilitation team.. I also emailed Sarah who had offered to facilitate the workshop using Neonce to see if she was still interested.
MY CREATIVITY? emerged in the process described above. It took the form of making a connection with past experiences and this triggering a fresh was of seeing the problem. I recognized affordance in my model that I hadn't seen before and the next step was to use more deliberate analytical thinking to act on and realise the affordance. The end results was a new conceptual tool to aid thinking about the problem I was working with.
| conceptual_tool_.pdf |
I thought I’d cracked it and turned to the background paper which is so important to introduce the core concepts we will be working with in the inquiry. But I struggled to develop a coherent and compelling narrative. My earlier optimism was displaced by despondency and after several hours I gave up. The next day, my jet lagged brain decided to wake me at 4am again so I got up determined to make progress. I had woken up with the idea that we had to start where we left off with the previous conversation. I found the background paper for the previous conversation and discovered that significant parts of it were relevant to this one and after 4 hours work to customize it I was satisfied with it. Not only that I had a methodology for inquiry that was better than the one I had before.
Of course I was deluding myself I spent many more hours of effort working on that paper..
MY CREATIVITY : Like so much of my writing the process is one of incremental development – the gradual assembly, contextualization and connection of ideas to create a coherent narrative. In this way creativity inches rather than throws us forward. I can see the process involves the integration of logical, analytical, critical thinking with the imaginative playing with ideas involving connecting, combining and synthesis. It feels slow and methodical and it engenders feelings of satisfaction rather than elation.
Of course I was deluding myself I spent many more hours of effort working on that paper..
MY CREATIVITY : Like so much of my writing the process is one of incremental development – the gradual assembly, contextualization and connection of ideas to create a coherent narrative. In this way creativity inches rather than throws us forward. I can see the process involves the integration of logical, analytical, critical thinking with the imaginative playing with ideas involving connecting, combining and synthesis. It feels slow and methodical and it engenders feelings of satisfaction rather than elation.
| creativehe_discussion_paper.pdf |
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