This course was called ‘Creativity in the Classroom’ and was delivered by Dr Mojtaba Ammari. This workshop was very positive – it encouraged me to reflect on the meaning of ‘creativity’ and to consider how this can be utilised within the context of a law classroom – unfairly, in my opinion, regarded as being not particularly creative places. It also made me consider questions of inclusivity – in particular, the quotation attributed to Einstein regarding not judging a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree provided some food for thought.
One concept which grasped me was that of ‘functional abstractionalism’ – ideas existing in a stand-alone context which flourish when introduced to either a real-world context or a new situation. This is perhaps something which is not utilised enough in the teaching of Law – there are many concepts which overlap across different areas and much of this is not discussed in the course of lectures or seminars.
There was also considerable overlap with the idea of ‘authenticity’. Authenticity is regarded as a facilitator of creative thought in a classroom setting. This is a good thing to be mindful of when designing lesson plans and seminar activities as, seemingly, the higher the likelihood of creative learning the higher the likelihood of students engaging higher order thinking skills and approaching a degree of innovation.
My PgCert Journey 