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Module Catalogue

IL105-15 Applied Imagination: Theory and Practice

Department
Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning
Level
Undergraduate Level 3
Module leader
Jonathan Heron
Credit value
15
Module duration
10 weeks
Assessment
100% coursework
Study location
University of Warwick main campus, Coventry

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Introductory description

What is 'imagination'? Can we measure it? When and how do you use your imagination? Do different disciplines engage and treat imagination differently? Is imagination important in academic studies, the working world, or wider life? What would it be like to not have an imagination? How could you get others to manifest their imaginative and creative thinking? This interdisciplinary module is grounded in critical pedagogy and designed to enable you to make connections between the 'imaginative' thinking and practice deployed within your own and other disciplines and to autonomously explore and develop your own theory of applied imagination by exploring the relationship between theories of creativity and creative practice. Our sessions will be interactive and co-created as we seek to better understand the role of imagination in our own lives, in knowledge and its creation, in wider society and in making change.

Module web page

Module aims

The intention of this module is to encourage the following by engaging with theories and practices of imagination within academia and the wider world, to encourage you to:

  • Develop an understanding of key current theories and applications surrounding imagination and creativity
  • Engage with ideas of how imagination can be applied to develop a unique approach to learning and knowledge
  • Explore ways disseminate and communicate your work relating to applied imagination in both form and content
Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

  1. Unit 1: Your Imagination and Theories of Creativity (Introduce module resources)
  2. Unit 1: Your Imagination and Creative Practice (Introduce learning journals)
  3. Unit 2: Developing Imagination: Voices from Philosophy and Psychology (Guest speaker 1 & 2)
  4. Unit 2: Developing Imagination: Sociological perspectives (Guest speaker 3)
  5. Unit 2: Developing Imagination: Time and space to think and re-imagine (Learning journals)
  6. Unit 2: Developing Imagination: Voices from Education and the Arts (Guest speaker 5 & 6)
  7. Unit 3: Imaginative Stimulus: Devising in groups with a guest artist (TBC)
  8. Unit 3: Imaginative Stimulus: Sharing feedback from devising (Introduce SDAs)
  9. Unit 3: Student-devised assessments & Revision from module (SDA preparation)
  10. Unit 3: Student-devised assessments & Revision from module (SDA preparation)
Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

  • Interpret and critically engage with theories and practices of the imagination through its manifestations as creative expression
  • Critically reflect on their own disciplines and interdisciplinary ideas to develop the study and application of the imagination
  • Undertake a sustained reflective, practice-based and theoretical engagement with their chosen imaginative focus
  • Evaluate theories of creativity and creative practices relating to the imagination in the production of their own project
  • Critique multiple disciplinary perspectives to develop and respond to questions and problems of creativity and the imagination
Indicative reading list

PRIMARY READING:
Bateson and Martin (2013) Play, Playfulness, Creativity and Innovation https://go.exlibris.link/Rf6kjrvk
Csikszentmihalyi. M (2014) The Systems Model of Creativity https://go.exlibris.link/KLHTjKf1
Hughes, T (1997) Tales from Ovid https://go.exlibris.link/4l5v8Qg7
Kind, A. (2020) ‘Philosophical Perspectives on Imagination in the Western Tradition’, in A. Abraham (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination. Cambridge University Press, pp. 64–79.0.
Klein, J. T. (1996) Crossing Boundaries: Knowledge, Disciplinarities and Interdisciplinarities. University Press of Virginia.
Lehrer, J (2012) Imagine: How Creativity Works https://go.exlibris.link/9H4q1vpB

SECONDARY READING:
Abraham, A. (2018) ‘The Forest versus the Trees: Creativity, Cognition and Imagination’, in R.E. Jung and O. Vartanian (eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of the Neuroscience of Creativity. Cambridge University Press, pp. 195–210.
Buckner, R. L. (2010). 'The role of the hippocampus in prediction and imagination'. Annual review of psychology, 61, 27-48.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014) Flow and the Foundations of Postive Psychology https://go.exlibris.link/nR1wN3T5
Coult and Kershaw (1983) Engineers of the Imagination https://go.exlibris.link/Sm1hnvdB
Damasio, A. (2018) The Strange Order of Things https://go.exlibris.link/WqYqb5fd
Fisher, Philip. 2003. Wonder, the Rainbow and the Aesthetics of Rare Experience, Harvard University Press.
Lakoff and Johnson (1981) Metaphors We Live By https://go.exlibris.link/R6xCNB4G
Hepburn, R.W. (1980) 'Wonder', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 54, pp.1-23S
Parsons, H. L. (1969) 'A Philosophy of Wonder', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp.84-101
Sissa and Martelli (2023) Ovid's Metamorphosis and the Environmental Imagination https://go.exlibris.link/4l5v8Qg7

ONLINE RESOURCES:
Horizon, BBC (2013) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1gn21d
Ken Robinson, TED (2006) https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity
Landy, BBC (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EqVPZwiT5Q

Research element

Research is defined by BERA as the development of new knowledge. In this module you will have the opportunity to develop new knowledge in the classroom through your Reflective Learning Journal (formative assessment) and your Student Devised Assessment (summative assessment) which will be developed independently as an imaginative work.

Interdisciplinary

The module is an interdisciplinary module designed to enable students to make connections between their own discipline/s and the imaginative thinking and creative practice deployed within other disciplines. The module will help students develop an understanding of the current uses of imaginative thinking and creatives practices across a range of disciplines and the relationship of imagination to the abstract and complex concerns of those disciplines (multidisciplinary); to synthesize these into an imaginative approach to managing their own imaginative learning and research (interdisciplinary); your work may fall beyond the scope of a single discipline in practice (transdisciplinary).

International

The module addresses intercultural practices of the imagination and uses international examples of creative practice.

Subject specific skills
  • Develop an understanding of key current theories and applications surrounding imagination and creativity
  • Engage with ideas of how imagination can be applied to develop a unique approach to learning and knowledge
  • Explore ways disseminate and communicate your work relating to applied imagination in both form and content
Transferable skills
  • Independent learning
  • Oral and written communication
  • Interdisciplinary learning
  • Collaborative team working skills
  • Creative research skills
  • Time management
  • Critical thinking
  • Enterprise and innovation skills
  • Reflective learning journalling

Study time

Type Required
Seminars 10 sessions of 2 hours (13%)
Private study 30 hours (20%)
Assessment 100 hours (67%)
Total 150 hours
Private study description

Research, development and preparation for Learning journal (formative assessment) and SDA (summative assessment)

Costs

No further costs have been identified for this module.

You must pass all assessment components to pass the module.

Assessment group A2
Weighting Study time
Student Devised Assessment 100% 100 hours

An imaginative form of assessment devised by the student with the support of the tutor might include creative writing, filmmaking, graphic illustration, musical composition or it might include an entrepreneurial project in cultural engagement or creative technologies. This project allows you to critically engage with applying theories and practices of imagination in the creation of your piece. You will need to communicate how and why you have arrived at the definition of imagination with which you are engaging, in reference to theories of creativity and/or creative practice. You will include a critical and reflective element of the process of learning throughout the module and in relation to the creation of the Student Devised Assessment.
Feedback on assessment

Detailed written and/or oral feedback will be provided by the tutor(s) to you for each element of the assessed work, with an emphasis on development and learning. Formative oral feedback will also be given at relevant points within seminars throughout the module and as you devise your own forms of assessment. The reflective learning journal is an additional vechicle for formative assessment and feeedback. You will also be encouraged to share your developing work with other students, and to offer supportive and critically engaged feedback on their work, towards the end of the module.

Courses

This module is Core optional for:

  • Year 3 of ULFA-C1A6 Undergraduate Biochemistry with Industrial Placement (MBio)

This module is Option list B for:

  • UBSA-C700 Undergraduate Biochemistry
    • Year 3 of C700 Biochemistry
    • Year 3 of C700 Biochemistry
  • ULFA-C1A2 Undergraduate Biochemistry (MBio)
    • Year 3 of C1A2 Biochemistry
    • Year 3 of C700 Biochemistry
  • Year 4 of ULFA-C702 Undergraduate Biochemistry (with Placement Year)
  • UBSA-3 Undergraduate Biological Sciences
    • Year 3 of C100 Biological Sciences
    • Year 3 of C100 Biological Sciences
  • Year 3 of ULFA-C1A1 Undergraduate Biological Sciences (MBio)
  • Year 4 of ULFA-C113 Undergraduate Biological Sciences (with Placement Year)
  • Year 3 of ULFA-C1A5 Undergraduate Biological Sciences with Industrial Placement (MBio)
  • UBSA-C1B9 Undergraduate Biomedical Science
    • Year 3 of C1B9 Biomedical Science
    • Year 3 of C1B9 Biomedical Science
    • Year 3 of C1B9 Biomedical Science
  • ULFA-C1A3 Undergraduate Biomedical Science (MBio)
    • Year 3 of C1A3 Biomedical Science
    • Year 3 of C1B9 Biomedical Science
  • Year 3 of ULFA-C1A7 Undergraduate Biomedical Science with Industrial Placement (MBio)
  • ULFA-CB18 Undergraduate Biomedical Science with Placement Year
    • Year 4 of CB18 Biomedical Science with Placement Year
    • Year 4 of CB18 Biomedical Science with Placement Year
    • Year 4 of CB18 Biomedical Science with Placement Year
    • Year 4 of CB18 Biomedical Science with Placement Year
    • Year 4 of CB18 Biomedical Science with Placement Year
    • Year 4 of CB18 Biomedical Science with Placement Year
  • Year 3 of ULFA-B140 Undergraduate Neuroscience (BSc)
  • Year 3 of ULFA-B142 Undergraduate Neuroscience (MBio)
  • Year 3 of ULFA-B143 Undergraduate Neuroscience (with Industrial Placement) (MBio)