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Flexible educational design retains creativity
Establishing an educational design structure that caters for the individuality of Creative Writing academics certainly requires a novel approach.
And that’s exactly what University of the Sunshine Coast’s Academic Development Officer Cynthia Tait is taking in her bid to build a teaching and learning structure for Creative Writing that draws on the principles of architecture.
Ms Tait believes that, in the same way that good architects design spaces for a variety of uses, her teaching pattern approach will be adaptable to a range of circumstances and individual academics.
Her quest recently received a boost from the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite) which has arranged for a national expert in educational design, Dr Dale Holt of Deakin University, to be Ms Tait’s mentor.
The menteeship is one of only four offered by the society this year, and the only one awarded to a staff member of an Australian university.
“I’d like to use this opportunity to investigate patterns of learning and teaching in an area that is already very popular at USC,” Ms Tait said.
Ms Tait has already consulted Creative Writing academics from USC and other universities, including renowned author and USC Associate Professor Gary Crew, to determine how Creative Writing teaching is “designable”.
“The way they view their pedagogy – as Creative Writing academics, teachers and researchers – is quite unique,” she said.
Ms Tait said having a specific Creative Writing pedagogy would recognise the unique nature of Creative Writing as a teaching and learning situation.
“Because of the focus on creativity there is a different way of engaging with students to support them to create their best work. This is a key part of the pedagogy,” she said.
“Gary Crew, for instance, has a particular lecturing and pedagogically-engaging method of interacting with his students.
“The purpose of the design pattern language approach is to find a way to transfer what is working from his method into the learning and teaching contexts of other Creative Writing academics.
“This pattern design approach is not about replication, but about generalisation and transferability."
— Terry Walsh