Abstract:

Research Question: Which learning, assessment and technology activities could be adjusted to inform, support and guide transformation of units, designed to inspire creativity, imagination and engagement in pre-service teachers?

Traditionally University Teacher Education degree programs have been taught face-to-face to enable pre-service teachers to demonstrate how they will transform their learning into real world experience to inform their teaching practice. The Covid-19 global pandemic has challenged this model as it has forced many universities to reimagine how content, knowledge and technology skills are taught when flipped from face-to-face to an online milieu.

The aim of this study is to critically reflect upon and explore new methods of teaching and learning with students undertaking a Semester 1 academic unit of study in an undergraduate Bachelor of education course. The unit specifically focuses on the broad areas of Imagination and Creativity in Education.

This paper will reflect on adjustments that need to be made prior to teaching this unit to enable students to construct their own creative approaches to integrating creativity and imagination into their lessons, which will be a natural progression after the unit lecturers have scaffolded tasks to build confidence, knowledge and technology competence into the learning activities and assessment.

The paper includes a short literature review that encapsulates aspects of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle and Mezirow’s Transformative Learning. The paper will be positioned within a Socio-Psychological Framework to ensure the proposed adjustments made by the lecturers are informed, supported and guided by theory.

It is expected that this paper will be the first in a series of scholarship that will inform, guide and support Higher Education academic teachers to critically reflect on how to flip their learning from face-to-face to engaging, simple and effective learning for undergraduate students.

Keywords:

Transformation, Teaching Methods, Socio-Psychological, Digital Imagination, Digital Innovation.