Innovative Practices in Creativity

This module aims to enable students to conceptualise creativity and critically evaluate the role of the Arts within an emergent curriculum. The role of the educator in facilitating Creative expression, including experiences from areas of music, theatre, dance or creative movement and the visual, media and literary arts will be studied. The coming together of the Arts in Education Charter, Aistear (National Early Childhood Curriculum Framework, 2009) and the Free Preschool Year creates the unprecedented opportunity to position early childhood arts as a right and a core experience of childhood. Students will focus on rediscovering and developing their own creativity in order to creatively engage babies, toddlers and young children in purposeful and meaningful arts experiences. International practice will be examined in relation to analysis of practice with particular reference to the work of Malaguzzi and Gardner.

1. Critically evaluate the role of the Arts within an emergent curriculum

2. Critically examine case studies of exemplar practice and programmes internationally

3. Explore the creative self in workshops and examine the role of the educator in emphasising achievement in personal expression and reflection on one's own patterns of thinking and creativity

4. Evaluate ability to facilitate children's own ideas and skills, often enhancing the creative learning already taking place in the setting.