Week 1: Experiential Learning

Begin your journey into creative education through hands-on learning. Instead of talking about creativity, you’ll create something yourself in response to a prompt—whether that’s a drawing, piece of writing, photograph, or sound. This exercise encourages experimentation and reflection on your own learning process.

Week 2: Critical Reflection

Discover the power of reflection as the foundation of meaningful learning. Explore how reflective observation helps us make sense of creative experiences. You’ll take part in a creative sprint activity, share peer feedback on Padlet, and use the Alexander Framework to consider what good teaching and learning mean to you.

Week 3: Drawing Out Ideas

Move into the abstract conceptualisation stage of Kolb’s cycle by examining learning through academic research. Read a case study from The Journal of Useful Investigations in Creative Education (JUICE) and analyse a learning experience that didn’t go as planned. Apply theory to redesign the experience for better outcomes.

Week 4: Active Experimentation

Put theory into practice with active experimentation. Using what you’ve learned so far, you’ll create an improved lesson plan, defining learning outcomes and designing a sequence of engaging activities. This exercise develops your confidence in structuring creative and effective teaching sessions.

Week 5: Creative Experience

Shift your focus from your own learning to the experiences of your students. Investigate the Hidden Curriculum—the unspoken lessons that shape learning beyond formal content. Identify a learning-related challenge within your context and analyse the underlying norms or behaviours influencing it.

Week 6: Reflective Observation

Revisit reflection by exploring your identified problem from a new perspective: that of a learner persona. Create a fictional but realistic learner profile to help you reflect critically and design more inclusive and empathetic learning experiences. You’ll also explore the use of AI tools in lesson planning—considering both opportunities and ethical implications.

Week 7: Critical Conceptualisation

Deepen your understanding of pedagogy by exploring six influential learning theories—from Montessori’s child-centred approach to Vygotsky’s social constructivism. Choose the theories that resonate most with your teaching style and apply them to create a lesson plan that addresses your chosen learning problem.

Week 8: Putting into Practice

Conclude the course by looking back at your creative education journey. You’ll create a short reflective video summarising your key insights, learning theories that influenced you, and next steps for your professional development. This final reflection helps consolidate your learning and celebrates your progress as a creative educator.

*When scheduled, live sessions usually take place Thursday early evenings, however this can be subject to change.

On completion of the course, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge of creative approaches in different contexts 
• Interpret and evaluate creative approaches and responses to educational and 
• creative contexts
• Evaluate creative approaches to learning and creative production

Communicate the results of your creative work accurately and coherently, developing lines of enquiry that are grounded in the basic theories and  concepts of creative education

This course is delivered entirely online through OCA Learn. Most of our learning materials are original and have been specially commissioned for this programme. If any course videos are subject to UK rights restrictions your will not impact your learning.

Through our interactive online environment, you will develop your creative practice, visual research, and reflective writing skills. Working alongside a small peer group and with the support of a tutor, you will:

• Explore new ways to create and share your work.
• Collaborate and connect in group forums.
• Attend live group video sessions to discuss course readings, case studies, and reflections.

There is no formal, graded exam (summative assessment) for this course. Instead, you will receive a personalised summary feedback report from your tutor at the conclusion of the programme.

This course is 8 weeks and will require around 10 study hours each week.

Your unit materials and tuition are all included in our course fees.

Some additional costs aren’t included:

• You’ll need your own computer and internet access.
• You’ll need to purchase your own art resources and equipment, which will be dependant on your own creative practice.