[ecrea] HEA Workshop - Assessing and evaluating creativity for undergraduates in Media Studies and Art & Design

Assessing and evaluating creativity for undergraduates in Media Studies and Art&  Design

•	Date: 28 Feb 2013
•	Start Time: 11:00 am
•	Location/venue: De Montfort University, School of Media and Communication, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH

The Higher Education Academy Discipline Workshop and Seminar Series, 2012-13

On many media studies and art&  design programmes there are a range of practices that explicitly promise to develop students’ creativity. However, it is often difficult to document what ‘creativity’ might mean and how it can be correspondingly assessed and evaluated. This workshop considers creativity, how it is defined and how we might assess it.

On many media studies and art and design programmes there is an increasing insistence that students should be able to undertake assessments that explicitly promise to develop their creativity. These assessments (‘products’) might include certain forms of written work such as: essays, stories, poems (e.g. ‘creative writing’) diaries and reflective logs. They might include a range of practices under the heading of media production such as: photographs and photo-essays, video films, sound recordings, radio broadcasts, scripts and story treatments, illustrations, sketches, computer graphics, websites, animations, product designs and schematics, mixed-media project work, and group presentations.

However, despite the sheer range of productive practice it is often difficult to document what ‘creativity’ means and how it can be correspondingly assessed and evaluated. This highlights a number of issues which this workshop aims to address:

•	The extent to which such evaluation and assessment can indeed be undertaken using explicit criteria and how one negotiates these. Here the criteria need to take account of any distinctions between the final product (the individual piece of work) and the process involved in its production.
•	How we enable students to reflect on their own creative work in relation to assessment criteria and their adopted approach and form. Here we are concerned with their knowledge, understanding and ability to contextualise their work.
•	The extent to which personal judgements on the ‘worth’ of a piece of work by staff can be wholly subjective and how this can be mitigated. Here we want to consider the role of academic staff defined as ‘media practitioners’ and those not so defined.
•	The extent to which assessment and evaluation actuality inhibit creativity.

Provisional Programme

> From 11.00 Registration, tea/coffee

11.30 Introduction – Stuart Hanson (De Montfort University)

11.45 – 1.00 Panel 1: Teaching creativity in Media Production and Practice
•	Mark Readman (CEMP – Bournemouth University)
•	Elena Moschini (London Metropolitan University)

1.00 – 2.00 Lunch

2.00 – 3.00 Panel 2: Assessing Creativity in Media Production and Practice
•	Susan Orr (Sheffield Hallam University)
•	Jenny Moon (CEMP – Bournemouth University)

3.00 – 3.45 Discussion groups
•	What are some of the issues and difficulties in assessing creativity at undergraduate level?
•	How might we overcome them?

3.45 – 4.15 Tea/Coffee

4.15 – 5.00 Plenary: experiences, commonalities and future developments

This event is FREE

To book a place on this event please go to the HEA link below and follow the instructions to book:

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2013/Seminars/Disciplines_AH/GEN311_De_Montfort

Contact email

Stuart Hanson
Senior Lecturer in media and Communication
De Montfort University
(shanson /at/ dmu.ac.uk)


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