SJ7009 - Research for Creative Practice (2023/24)
| Module specification | Module approved to run in 2023/24 | |||||||||||||||
| Module title | Research for Creative Practice | |||||||||||||||
| Module level | Masters (07) | |||||||||||||||
| Credit rating for module | 20 | |||||||||||||||
| School | School of Art, Architecture and Design | |||||||||||||||
| Total study hours | 200 | |||||||||||||||
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| Assessment components |
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| Running in 2023/24(Please note that module timeslots are subject to change) |
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Module summary
This module explores how creative practitioners research, develop and reflect upon their own creative practices and those of others. You will study, through diaries, interviews, archives and other documentary sources, how writers and other creative practitioners, such as fine artists, choreographers, film-makers, screenwriters and performers, develop and sustain their professional practice and how this is shaped by economic, social, cultural and institutional factors, as well as creative and aesthetic ones. You will reflect upon how creativity is influenced by inequality, social class, race, gender, sexual preference and identity, among others, and the role played by funding decisions, networking, digital technologies and changing patterns of cultural consumption and the creative industries.
You will also learn about historical and contemporary theoretical ideas about the nature and value of creativity and originality and how to contextualise and theorise your own creative practice in the light of these. You will learn about the ethical challenges facing creative practitioners and other cultural constraints they may encounter and ways of resolving them. You will be encouraged to reflect upon your own positionality.
The module will act as a pathway to the MA final project, enabling you to situate your creative decisions effectively, and to reflect upon practice-based research, research-led practice and traditional academic research.
Aims
• You will learn how to research, develop and reflect upon your own creative practice
• You will study the practices of other creative practitioners and how they develop and sustain their careers
• You will study changing ideas about creativity and how they are shaped by economic, social, technological and institutional factors
• You will learn to identify contemporary ethical challenges in creative practice and how to resolve them
Prior learning requirements
None
Available for Study Abroad? YES
Syllabus
The syllabus will develop students’ ability to conduct research for and about their own creative practice and reflect analytically, sensitively and responsibly on it (LO1, LO2, LO4, LO5).
It will introduce them to the ethical challenges faced by creative practitioners and the different strategies and techniques that they adopt to resolve them (LO3, LO4, LO5).
Balance of independent study and scheduled teaching activity
Scheduled teaching provides the guidance and foundation to ensure that independent study is effective in addressing the module’s learning outcomes and assessment tasks. The module is taught by a programme of weekly sessions over the semester. The sessions combine lectures, seminar discussion and research tasks. Students are required to reflect critically on their learning and on their personal creative practice, through peer and tutor feedback and tutorials. The module may include guest speakers. Independent learning will include guided reading, weekly research tasks, and preparation for seminars.
In-class activity makes use of varied student-centred approaches. Information is provided through a range of means and sources to minimise and remove barriers to successful progress. The course team seeks to embed the University’s Education for Social Justice Framework. A blended learning strategy will be employed to enhance the learning experience, facilitate communication between students and tutors and develop collaboration among students. Activities will foster peer-to-peer community-building, support for learning, and reflective learning.
The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-based learning within the curriculum supports students’ personal and career development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress through their programme, to understand the professional environment of their discipline, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this module students will be able to:
Subject specific skills
LO1 conduct research for their own creative practice and reflect analytically on the factors shaping it
Knowledge and understanding
LO2 develop critical understanding of the creative processes and research techniques involved in other people’s creative practices
Cognitive and intellectual abilities
LO3 identify the main ethical challenges faced by creative practitioners today and reflect analytically on strategies and techniques to resolve them
Transferable skills
LO4 learn independently for the purposes of continuing professional development
Behaviour and values
LO5 demonstrate creativity, inclusivity and social responsibility in researching your own and other practitioners’ creative practices
Assessment strategy
Students will produce coursework addressing the module’s learning outcomes through the tasks and criteria as set out in the assessment brief. These will be detailed at the start of the module.
Typically students will produce two items of written coursework totalling 5000 words.
• The first assessment will report on the creative processes of an output by a creative practitioner in one art form, such as writing, film-making or performance, reflecting upon what shaped it and the ways in which it addresses and resolves ethical, aesthetic and commercial challenges.
• The second assessment will be a portfolio reflecting on students’ own creative practice. For example this might comprise an autobiographical narrative, a speculative proposal for future creative work, or book proposal.