From education to employment

New book on creativity aims to help arts and humanities teachers ‘think outside the box’

A new book edited by a University of Winchester academic and featuring contributions by a number of his colleagues explores practical ways to help staff and students become more innovative and creative. 

Creative Learning, Teaching, and Assessment for Arts and Humanities Higher Education, published by Bloomsbury in November, was edited by Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean for Humanities and Social Sciences at Winchester. 

Higher education should be a place for students to innovate, create, and expand their horizons, and in order to create an environment which allows for all these things, tutors need to be able and willing to do the same. 

In the collection of essays, tutors working in Arts and Humanities describe how they think creatively about their teaching, module design, and extra-curricular activities without losing sight of academic rigour. 

The book explores experimental learning environments, collaborations between student and lecturer, development of employability and transferable skills, creative and imaginative assessment design, and embedding mental wellbeing techniques into curricula. 

Glenn said: “Although the book eventually moved on from its working title of ‘Thinking outside the box’, that core idea never changed, and the end product succeeds in demonstrating how HE practitioners can push boundaries to enhance the student and staff experience.”  

As well as the introduction Glenn has written one of the 11 chapters, looking at how graduate writing weekends can enhance the post-university experience. 

Two further chapters have also come from Winchester staff. 

‘Students as Collaborators’ is penned by Jo Trelfa the University’s former Head of Academic Professional Development, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science Claire Ancient, Digital Media Technician Chris O’Connor, and Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy Josephine Morris.  

‘Co-Teaching Literature through the Eyes of the Blind Teacher’ was written by Professor of 18th Century Literature Chris Mounsey and associate lecturer Stan Booth. 

Glenn has been able to call on a broad range of contributors from different roles and subjects and the book has an international feel with chapters by academics from as far afield as Stellenbosch University in South Africa, Sydney University and Southwestern Oklahoma State University.

The book, which is aimed at the academic market, has already received good reviews.  

Eliza Compton, Deputy Editor of Campus, Times Higher Education, described it as: “…an insightful, readable collection for teachers, course designers and others who care about arts and humanities education. The voices included from across disciplines show how teaching and learning is a creative, evolving, porous two-way process not only between educators and students, but also pre- and post-Covid, technology and human, university and society, classroom and the workplace.” 


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