do specific things - so it ’ s about being creative within boundaries and enabling that to happen …[ for example ] go on a holiday " ( S2-1 ).
Additional categories such as designing research experiments / processes ( L3-5 ), generating hypotheses ( L2-1 and L3-3 ), creating a sculpture ( S1-1 ), producing an essay or MSc project ( L1-1 ), doing Pecha Kucha presentations ( L4-1 ) and undertaking public engagement activities ( L2-3 ), for example , were all considered to have obvious potential for developing creativity , with one participant remarking :
" You think of creating a beautiful work of art […], whereas actually producing an essay or a project is actually a creative process " ( L1-1 ).
However , one participant was quite explicit that ‘ We don ’ t want them to be creative and innovative . They have to learn about British Law ’ ( S1-1 ), which suggests that creativity might be constrained by curriculum content in some contexts but enabled in others . However , the same participant did go on to consider the possibility that putting together an argument for defence or prosecution might be considered creative .
Another participant suggested that these different perspectives were due to disciplinarycultural discrepancies but also argued that it is not necessarily the case that law is an uncreative discipline while art and design students are naturally creative ( S3-1 ). A different participant commented upon the use of interdisciplinary work ‘ to unlock creativity and to drive innovation […], by exposure to other disciplines and to students in other disciplines with very different perspectives ’ ( S1-4 ). Another went on to suggest that ‘ innovation or creativity happens when there ’ s a dialectic or a cognitive dissonance ’ between different disciplines which might initially be confusing but resolving such uncertainties can lead to creativity ( S1-2 ), which resonates with our own experience of working together on this project . Talking from a critical pedagogical perspective , one participant proposed the idea of being ‘ constantly in the pursuit of a better version of what we have today ’ ( S3-3 ), which pointed to the ongoing nature of being creative and innovative .
Discussion
The aims of this study were to facilitate discussion relating to the concepts of creativity and innovation , and to gain insights into how they are understood and used by others working in UK HE settings , along with suggesting recommendations for LSHTM that may have broader relevance beyond the UK . In relation to these aims , the conference discussions enabled participants to critically engage with these concepts , which has revealed that both SEDA and LSHTM staff struggled to provide a unified definition of either concept . This aligns well with some of the literature . For example , Smith ( 2011 ) found that innovative learning and teaching practices were linked to notions of change , difference , improvement and ‘ newness ’, and that mentions of being ‘ creative ’ and ‘ engaging ’ revealed an interconnectivity between the concepts of innovation and creativity . Additionally , our findings illustrate the importance of context and disciplinarity , in terms of different understandings of ( and expectations surrounding ) creativity and innovation , with transdisciplinary work igniting these , which others have previously commented upon ( Charyton and Snelbecker , 2007 , Mishra and Henriksen , 2018 ).
However , participants in the SEDA workshop described a complex relationship between creativity and innovation that does not seem to connect as easily with the broader literature . The majority of the international literature we reviewed suggested a more linear connection , with creativity preceding innovation ( Amabile , 1988 , Charyton , 2015 , Tang , 1998 , West , 2002 ), although others propose it is more complex ( Demir , 2014 , Demir , 2015 ). We noted that SEDA members , who are mostly educational developers , were more equipped to unpack concepts and implement tasks relating to creativity and innovation than some of the academics working in different disciplinary settings at LSHTM . However , participants across both workshops and in the literature ( Craft , 2004 ) describe the creative process as a perpetual one , constantly needing to change and adapt to new demands .
The importance of teachers ’ own creative learning has been raised elsewhere , such as in an Australian case study exploring understandings of creativity and creative learning in the Arts ( Selkrig and Keamy , 2017 ). Yet , our finding that staff lacked confidence in applying labels , like ‘ creative ’ or ‘ innovative ’, to define
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