Creative making, large lectures, and social media: Breaking with tradition in art and design education

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to challenge the notion of small studio format delivery expectations in art and design education. Our research reports on an introductory Digital Photography course design that produced equivalent learning outcomes in a large enrollment lecture format. The objective of the project was to introduce (1) a case-based approach to teaching and learning and (2) a multitiered feedback model. The positive learning outcomes produced by this course design call into question the prevailing regimes of teaching creative production within the limits of small studio pedagogy. In addition, the multitiered feedback model we propose can be extended much beyond a classroom setting to include ‘crowdsourcing’ as a feedback model in Massive Open Online Courses, also known as MOOCs. Our approach is also highly suggestive of further investigation into applying Kant’s notion of the sensus communis – the shared subjective but universal sense of the aesthetic – to common issues surrounding creativity, scale and evaluation.