Creative Education

• Define your values as a creative educator in relation to competing critical, conceptual and policy perspectives
• Critically evaluate your pedagogical strategies using the principles and methods of educational research
• Critically reflect on the public impact of your practice as a creative educator, and on their responsibilities as a practitioner
• Demonstrate how to translate your pedagogical principles into the design and delivery of effective creative education
• Develop strategies for working with others across a range of diverse national and international learning environments.

The programme will operate three principal modes of delivery:

• Burst-mode learning, where you attend campus for intensive weeks of study, followed by synchronous/asynchronous online learning. For example, a 15-credit unit will involve one week of on-campus study.
• Blended learning, where you attend a regular pattern of scheduled teaching throughout the unit that is delivered both online and on-campus
• Online learning, where you attend a regular pattern of scheduled teaching throughout the unit that is delivered wholly online.

Term 1

In term one you'll take the unit Foundations of Learning, which explores the concepts and controversies of contemporary creative education. You will reflect on their experiences, knowledge and values, and locate your practice within a broader theoretical context.

You'll also take Making Pedagogies, which explores the pedagogical implications and possibilities of an education based on making, including a consideration of the materials we use, the processes that we employ and the spaces that we inhabit.

You'll begin the first part of Action Research: Proposal, which enables you to review and renew their own creative education practice through Action Research. In this first part, you'll develop a project plan and associated ethics application that provides a rationale for your chosen project, and outline how you intend to gather, analyse and present research data

You'll also choose a Cross-College elective from a selection offered across the RCA's MEd, MFA and MDes programmes.

Term 2

In term two you'll take Designs for Learning, a unit which gives you insight into and experience of designing inclusive creative education. It explores how to apply ideas in practice across a range of educational methods and modes, including discussion of campus-based, blended and remote learning.

You'll also take Education for Change, which supports you to design and deliver creative education that is focused on transformation. This will involve an exploration on how education can support people to navigate a complex, changing and an unpredictable world.

You'll complete Action Research: Project, where you'll conduct, analyse and present the project devised in the previous term's Action Research: Proposal, and reflect on how it informs your practice as a creative educator.

Finally, you'll choose another Cross-College elective from a selection offered across the RCA's MEd, MFA and MDes programmes.

Term 3

In the final term, you'll undertake an Independent Research Project. This unit enables you to bring together learning throughout the programme on an ambitious research project that concludes your degree. You will develop a research proposal and associated ethics application that provides a rationale for your chosen project, and which outlines how you intend to gather, analyse and present research data. You'll then conduct, analyse and present your research project.

Part time students take the same units over a two-year period.

All students will select elective units to determine their own journey through the programme, choosing from a range of electives that are available across all Schools and campuses, and online. The available electives may include:

Term 1

• Interventions (School of Communication, on campus)
• Digital Storytelling (School of Communication, online)
• Education for Change (Academic Development Office, online & blended options with mix of online and on-campus sessions)
• Collaboration and Inter-disciplinarity as Method (Academic Development Office, online & blended options with mix of online and on-campus sessions)
• Housing and Social Reproduction (School of Architecture, mix of online and on campus sessions)
• Mobility and Debility (School of Architecture, mix of online and on campus sessions)
• Design Innovation: Models and Life Cycle (School of Design, mix of online and on-campus sessions)
• Design Ethics: Design for Good Practice (School of Design, online)
• Performing Practice (School of Arts and Humanities, on campus)
• Health and Care: Futures of Care (School of Arts and Humanities, online)
• Material Engagements: Embodied Practice (School of Arts and Humanities, on campus)

Terms 1 and 2

AcrossRCA (30 credits) (Academic Development Office, majority online, but some on-campus sessions)

Term 2

• Industry Embedded Project (School of Communication, online)
• Sound (School of Communication, on campus)
• Public Engagement as Method (Academic Development Office (MRes), mix of online and on-campus sessions)
• Developing Research Proposals (Academic Development Office (MRes), mix of online
• Making Pedagogies (Academic Development Office (MEd), mix of online and on-campus sessions)
• Capital’s Shadow (School of Architecture, mix of online and on-campus sessions)
• Milieu Milieu Me (The Economy) (School of Architecture, mix of online and on campus sessions)
• Design Resilience: Sustainability (School of Design, mix of online and on campus sessions)
• Design Innovation: Venture Creation (School of Design, mix of online and on campus sessions)
• Sites and Situations: Spatial Feelings (School of Arts and Humanities, on campus)
• Synthetic Encounters: Shapeshifting the Digital (School of Arts and Humanities, online)

Depending on demand and availability, not all electives will be available. Students will be asked for ranked preference and allocated to electives based on those preferences.