Convergence and translation: attitudes to inter-professional learning and teaching of creative problem-solving among medical and engineering students and staff

Background: Healthcare worldwide needs translation of basic ideas from engineering into the clinic. Consequently, there is increasing demand for graduates equipped with the knowledge and skills to apply interdisciplinary medicine/engineering approaches to the development of novel solutions for healthcare. The literature provides little guidance regarding barriers to, and facilitators of, effective interdisciplinary learning for engineering and medical students in a team-based project context. Methods: A quantitative survey was distributed to engineering and medical students and staff in two universities, one in Ireland and one in Belgium, to chart knowledge and practice in interdisciplinary learning and teaching, and of the teaching of innovation. Results: We report important differences for staff and students between the disciplines regarding attitudes towards, and perceptions of, the relevance of interdisciplinary learning opportunities, and the role of creativity and innovation. There was agreement across groups concerning preferred learning, instructional styles, and module content. Medical students showed greater resistance to the use of structured creativity tools and interdisciplinary teams. Conclusions: The results of this international survey will help to define the optimal learning conditions under which undergraduate engineering and medicine students can learn to consider the diverse factors which determine the success or failure of a healthcare engineering solution.

Unsettling Histories: Representation and Indigenous Creative Art Praxis in Official Indian Residential School Redress

This dissertation offers an investigation of the role of visual strategies, art, and representation in reconciling Indian Residential School history in Canada. This research builds upon theories of biopolitics, settler colonialism, and race to examine the project of redress and reconciliation as nation and identity building strategies engaged in the ongoing structural invasion of settler colonialism. It considers the key policy moments and expressions of the federal government—from RCAP to the IRSSA and subsequent apology—as well as the visual discourse of reconciliation as it works through archival photography, institutional branding, and commissioned works. These articulations are read alongside the creative and critical work of Indigenous artists and knowledge producers working within and outside of hegemonic structures on the topics of Indian Residential School history and redress. In particular the works of Jeff Thomas, Adrian Stimson, Krista Belle Stewart, Christi Belcourt, Luke Marston, Peter Morin, and Carey Newman are discussed in this dissertation. These works must be understood in relationship to the normative discourse of reconciliation as a legitimizing mechanism of settler colonial hegemony. Beyond the binary of cooptation and autonomous resistance, these works demonstrate the complexity of representing Indigeneity: as an ongoing site of settler colonial encounter and simultaneously the forum for the willful refusal of contingency or containment.

Interactive Learning in Library Inductions at University for the Creative Arts

Large group library inductions in a lecture theatre at the beginning of term are considered to be one of the more challenging scenarios for delivery. This article describes an activity in which students in groups of 30-90 are introduced to the library and its resources, using an activity to engage them and to connect their ideas with the content presented. The work of several educational theorists embodied in the activity is then described. The session was conceived as a collaboration between the Learning and Teaching Librarian and the Learning Development Tutor, who is responsible for supporting students with their reading, writing and critical skills. This work was done at University for the Creative Arts, where the author formerly held post as Learning and teaching Librarian.

Evaluation of creative problem solving abilities in undergraduate structural engineers through interdisciplinary problem based learning

For a structural engineer, effective communication and interaction with architects cannot be underestimated as a key skill to success throughout their professional career. Structural engineers and architects have to share a common language and understanding of each other in order to achieve the most desirable architectural and structural designs. This interaction and engagement develops during their professional career but needs to be nurtured during their undergraduate studies. The objective of this paper is to present the strategies employed to engage higher order thinking in structural engineering students in order to help them solve complex problem-based learning (PBL) design scenarios presented by architecture students. The strategies employed were applied in the experimental setting of an undergraduate module in structural engineering at Queen’s University Belfast in the UK. The strategies employed were active learning to engage with content knowledge, the use of physical conceptual structural models to reinforce key concepts and finally, reinforcing the need for hand sketching of ideas to promote higher order problem-solving. The strategies employed were evaluated through student survey, student feedback and module facilitator (this author) reflection. The strategies were qualitatively perceived by the tutor and quantitatively evaluated by students in a cross-sectional study to help interaction with the architecture students, aid interdisciplinary learning and help students creatively solve problems (through higher order thinking). The students clearly enjoyed this module and in particular interacting with structural engineering tutors and students from another discipline

Location decision-making of 'creative' industries: the media and computer games sectors in Dublin, Ireland

There has been significant research undertaken examining the “creative class” thesis within the context of the locational preferences of creative workers. However, relatively little attention has been given to the locational preferences of creative companies within the same context. This paper reports on research conducted to qualitatively analyse the location decision making of companies in two creative sectors: media and computer games. We address the role of the so-called “hard” and “soft” factors in company location decision making within the context of the creative class thesis, which suggests that company location is primarily determined by “soft” factors rather than “hard” factors. The study focuses upon “core” creative industries in the media and computer game sectors and utilises interview data with company managers and key elite actors in the sector to investigate the foregoing questions. The results show that “hard” factors are of primary importance for the location decision making in the sectors analysed, but that “soft” factors play quite an important role when “hard” factors are satisfactory in more than one competing city-region.

Creative Writing Workshop with Kenn Bivins

Writers and literary enthusiasts are invited to be a part of a free creative writing adventure with guest author.

Creative Reflection in Action

This (Students as Academic Partners) project aimed to explore the potential of a creative approach to reflection. Developing approaches to reflective practice is directly relevant for teachers and those who are training to become teachers. Individual reflections were produced by project participants based on several very short video clips of children in a nursery school. These individual reflections were extended into a collaborative reflection highlighting common themes. This broader focus seeks to contribute to an encompassing discourse related to early years practice. The poster aims to show how critical reflection and speculation can develop an understanding of the child, their development and potential barriers to this development. Through observing stills from the video footage, viewers of the poster are challenged to speculate about the child’s body language, what they might be doing or whether the learning environment is suitable to develop and progress their knowledge and understanding further?

Reducing Social Isolation in a Rural Community Through Participation in Creative Arts Projects

This article reports the initial findings from the evaluation of four creative arts projects involving groups of older people living in a rural community. The purpose of the projects was to reduce social isolation among participants through providing direct access to arts and social activities. The view was that these activities would improve life skills and independence, increase levels of activity and improve the health, wellbeing and quality of life of participants. Evaluation of these projects demonstrated increased levels of self-worth and self-esteem among participants, and many of the older people involved agreed that they had made new friends while having the opportunity to try out a new activity.

Designing Creative Destruction

This research aims to make a contribution in the context of design thinking at a global cultural scale and specifically how design methods are a feature of the homogenising and heterogenising forces of globalisation via creative destruction. Since Schumpeter’s description of economic innovation destroying the old and creating the new, a number of other interpretations of creative destruction have developed including those driving cultural evolution. However a design model showing the impact of different types of design method on cultural evolution can develop an understanding on a more systemic level from the medium to longer term impact of new designs that homogenise or increase the differences between various cultures. This research explores the theoretical terrain between creative destruction, design thinking and cybernetics in the context of exchanging cultural influences for collaborative creativity and concludes with an experiment that proposes a feedback loop between ubiquitising and differentiating design methods mediating cultural variety in creative ecosystems.

Designing Creative Destruction

This research aims to make a contribution in the context of design thinking at a global cultural scale and specifically how design methods are a feature of the homogenising and heterogenising forces of globalisation via creative destruction. Since Schumpeter’s description of economic innovation destroying the old and creating the new, a number of other interpretations of creative destruction have developed including those driving cultural evolution. However a design model showing the impact of different types of design method on cultural evolution can develop an understanding on a more systemic level from the medium to longer term impact of new designs that homogenise or increase the differences between various cultures. This research explores the theoretical terrain between creative destruction, design thinking and cybernetics in the context of exchanging cultural influences for collaborative creativity and concludes with an experiment that proposes a feedback loop between ubiquitising and differentiating design methods mediating cultural variety in creative ecosystems.

Integrated science and art education for creative climate change communication

An interdisciplinary field trip to a remote marine lab joined graduate students from fine arts and natural resource science departments to think creatively about the topic of climate change and science communication. We followed a learning cycle framework to allow the students to explore marine ecosystems and participate in scientific lectures, group discussions, and an artist-led project making abstract collages representing climate change processes. Students subsequently worked in small groups to develop environmental communication material for public visitors. We assessed the learning activity and the communication product using pre- and post-field trip participant surveys, focus group discussions, and critiques by art and communication experts of the products. Significant changes in knowledge about climate change occurred in program participants. Incorporating artists and the arts into this activity helped engage multiple senses and emphasized social interaction, as well as providing support to participants to think creatively. The production of art helped to encourage peer learning and normalize the different views among participants in communicating about climate change impacts. Students created effective communication products based on external reviews. Disciplinary differences in cultures, language, and standards challenged participating faculty, yet unanticipated outcomes such as potentially transformative learning and improved teacher evaluations resulted.