Creative Practice in Higher Education: Decentering Academic Experiences

Abstract

This article reports on the preliminary results of a pedagogical experiment instituted by a community of practice (CoP) called the Creativity Collaborative, which is composed of scholars from varying disciplines, backgrounds, and scholarship interests: library and information science, technical education, academic librarianship, media literacy, and rhetoric and composition. In a desire to broaden approaches to teaching and research, the CoP came together around the shared interests of visual methodology and arts-based expression and embarked on a journey to infuse creativity in their professional practice. Through the methodology of self-study, including the CoP acting as a critical friends group, the Creativity Collaborative engaged in individual research activities and then brought data from those projects to the group for discussion and reflection. The results thus far indicate that providing students with opportunities for creativity and arts-based expression lead to a welcome and positive disruption of traditional teaching and learning, increased student engagement, meaning making and real-word connections, and collaborative risk taking that decenters traditional pedagogical systems. Together with students, the Creativity Collaborative discovered the freedom to depart from the normative traditions of higher education pedagogical practices.