Fostering Creativity: A Multiple Intelligences Approach to Designing Learning in Undergraduate Fine Art

Curriculum and pedagogy in undergraduate fine art can promote an approach to learning creativity that is more about being an artist than knowing about art. Lecturers can provide a road map for developing particular dispositions, in relation to student ideas and perceptions, to foster personalised creativity. This requires that lecturers have an ability to harness the range of learning approaches and interests that students bring to their studio learning environments. One way of doing this is to construct learning activities in ways that engage students' multiple intelligences so they may acquire deeper understandings of their own creative processes. Fostering this kind of creative think tank is artistry of an educational kind. In this article we explore such a creative think tank by examining a particular lecturer's pedagogical approach. We discuss how and why this lecturer designs activities in a way that draws on multiple intelligences to stimulate learning and foster creativity. Using narratives, we analyse this particular curriculum through the lens of multiple intelligence theory and explore how the pedagogical approach develops the whole person. We found that by attending to relationships and focusing on a plurality of intellect this particular curriculum and pedagogy promotes transformative learning in students studying fine art.