If you need a bit of inspiration this week then you should check out the #creativeHE google+ community. A week of activities to stimulate discussion, sharing and production of creative learning and teaching ideas. I signed up for the last iteration of the event earlier this year, but didn’t quite manage to participate, however yesterday lunchtime I dropped into the google+ community and I’m glad I did.
I think creativity can be quite a scary word for many. It has so many connotations, and an awful lot of associations with visual outputs. As I was exploring some of the selected resources yesterday, and admiring some of the creative works already being shared, one word kept coming to mind – care. To be creative you have to care. You have to care about the process of creativity – not just the end product (sledgehammer analogy with learning and assessment, I know)
Anyway, today’s theme is around play and games. One of the suggested activities is to think of game you enjoyed as a child and think about how you could re-purpose it for a teaching context. I find this very difficult. I’ve never been much of a game person, still don’t know how to play chess, or WoW, or any other game really. I have to confess to a bit of candy crush habit that I’m managing in my own way – I don’t actually have to play it everyday, but it seems to help.
Maybe I have been a victim of too much enforced corporate fun. This episode of A Point of View from Will Self, “The fun of work – really?” captured many of my feelings in the insightful, laconic way that Self brings to everything. I was also fascinated by this report of research into creativity that showed that attempts to force creativity might actually have just the opposite effect.
There are of course many ways to introduce fun into all of our lives, one simple thing we can do is just change our location and go outside (weather permitting). It’s actually sunny in Glasgow today so that’s why that came to mind. Just wondering if I dare suggest going outside my meeting this afternoon . . .
