Sina Hartmann

1.23 Promoting Creativity in Online Teaching during the Covid-19 Pandemic (Paper)

Sina Hartmann – University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, Germany

Abstract:

The research project “Promoting creativity at a distance” is dedicated to the question of how practical online teaching in the arts at a university has affected the creative development of students during the Covid-19 pandemic. The focus here is on students’ working methods and the challenges posed by physical and social distancing. Guideline-based interviews with students and lecturers provide detailed insights into the effects of digital teaching on creative processes. These results make it clear that the promotion of creativity in online teaching is closely linked to specific challenges – such as limited access to materials, changed spatial conditions and atypical semester structures. A particular focus is on the loss of co-existential work, which has been almost completely eliminated. The spontaneous exchange and insights into the work of others, which normally serve as a source of inspiration and mutual support for students, had no suitable counterpart in the digital environment, which meant that a fundamental dimension of creative interaction was missing. The question arises as to how creative processes and the motivation to work together can also be strengthened from a distance: What formats and approaches create co-existential experiences when students are working alone in their own rooms? To answer these questions, we are investigating how digital teaching formats can stimulate creativity and promote collaboration in the future. The aim is to develop forward-looking perspectives and provide impetus for university teaching in the digital space. These impulses should not only represent short-term solutions for the pandemic period but also open up long-term potential for creative teaching from a distance and enrich digital higher education in the long term.