Finding creative processes in learning design patterns

Bridging the gap between theory and practice in higher education continues to be problematic for educators. One potential means of addressing this problem and moving practice forward is to articulate and share learning designs created from the work of exemplary practitioners. This study offers a new representation of learning design which foregrounds creative processes. The learning design patterns are in text and visual format, and they reveal where creative processes reside in the learning process. The patterns are complemented by case study narratives, so there is an opportunity to bring significant insight to pedagogical practice. The designs were derived from an in-depth, qualitative study of exemplary practitioners who teach creatively and foster student creativity within either the creative industries or social sciences. Constructivist, informed grounded theory methods were used for the case study data collection and analysis that led to the construction of the patterns. The two case study examples chosen for discussion in this paper were distilled from blended learning units where online and face-to-face learning technologies were utilised. The learning designs discussed represent an original contribution to the field and have potential to be adapted to other disciplines, beyond those from which they originated.