We had some really special speakers sharing their practice and creative ideas in the April and May events.
In our April #creativeHE meetup, Kiu Sum, a Lecturer in Nutrition at Solent University, introduced us to her work with students co-creating the ‘Body in Focus’ podcast in order to support their learning and engagement. Kiu provided some background and some useful practical tips before inviting participants to contribute some thoughts on what the ‘C’ in creativity meant to them and how they use creativity to engage students. You can view the responses (and contribute to) the Padlet. Kiu then discussed these in her own Education Burrito podcast! You can listen to the episode here and watch the recording from Kiu’s session.
Our next speaker was scholar-activist Melanie Welaratne, who shared her experiences using drawing and writing to generate ideas. Mel invited the group to engage with this process in a simple yet freeing activity to help us become more engaged with our writing and ideas. She also discussed how her passion for race equity, intersectionality, and decoloniality within Higher Education has informed her work as an Education Developer and researcher. This session was not recorded however Mel has kindly offered to write us a blog post with further details. Watch this space.
In our May meetup, Cathy Malone and John Hammersley from the University of Leeds shared their recent work using storyboarding in the course design process and their innovative use of Gen AI to support this. Participants were invited to use Gen AI tools such as Copilot to create their own images representing a new project or module. The results on the Padlet show the effectiveness of what can be created in a short space of time, however the group also discussed some of the challenges in using these tools. John and Cathy have shared their slides (with references) below:
Our next speaker was Kat Branch, Head of Centre for Music as UWE Bristol, who introduced us to some of the simple ways in which music can be used to support student wellbeing. Kat explained the powerful ways in which music can improve our physical and mental health, and inviting the group to share the songs they love and how they make them feel ignited an excited discussion in the chat and some fantastic recommendations! We’re delighted that Kat will be joining us for our #creativeHE Jam to share more insights and activities. Kat has shared her slides and references below, and you can view the recording from the May session here.
Our next (and final) #creativeHE event for 2024 will be our Jam on July 3rd, 12:00 – 14:15 (BST). More details and registration link to follow shortly.
Warm wishes,
Charlotte, Simon and Mavis, the #creativeHE events team
#creativeHE 