Releasing creativity in teaching and learning: the potential role of organisational legitimacy and increased dialogue

Abstract

This paper reflects on the challenges of facilitating creativity in teaching and learning. The authors contend that if enabled, creativity has the potential to deliver substantive change to higher education but that its potential often remains unexploited. Our study suggests that creative practice is alive and well amongst teachers in higher education but that it is greatly restricted by a perceived lack of organisational legitimacy, as result, ideas are being lost. Frequently, creative ideas remain unarticulated by the individual academics to whom they occur. We conclude that higher educational institutions need to make a concerted effort to make creative practice legitimate and foster novel approaches to supporting creativity by establishing an organisational culture that enables dialogue and collaboration between creative individuals, within and beyond the traditional academic boundaries.

Keywords:

• creativity
• organisational culture
• higher education
• teaching and learning
• organisational legitimacy
• dialogue

Notes

1. The Shannon Consortium is a partnership between four academic institutions on the West Coast of Ireland. It was set up in 2007 and its members are The University of Limerick, The Mary Immaculate College, Limerick Institute of Technology and The Institute of Technology Tralee.