MA Creative Education

Our MA in Creative Education is oriented towards experimental developments in arts and pedagogy. It explores the transformational power of creative learning across different educational models and contexts. In examining the mutable relationship between art and learning, the role of creativity and making in education is fully explored in how the arts are taught.

We encourage diversity in thinking and making, acknowledging the potential in material exploration, collaborative working, cross-pollination of ideas, and the exploration of new and vital concepts. Critical inquiry and practice-based exploration are central to the programmes, helping you to make dynamic and challenging work that resonates and reflects your key concerns in light of current national and international dialogues.

The MA is appropriate for a wide range of subject specialists: teachers at all levels from primary to further and higher education, managers and support workers in formal education; current and aspiring lecturers, as well as creative and community practitioners. The program accepts learning as a process that takes place throughout our entire lives, where it extends beyond formal places of learning into communities, libraries, museums, nature, workplaces, social & health care and the third age.

Studying education at an arts university means that you will use the arts as a lens through which to re-imagine education, whilst emphasising the wide range of ways in which people understand and interact with the world: cognitively as well as emotionally, aesthetically and somatically.

The MA will provide you with the critical skills, resources and creative space to question existing educational arrangements, to seek out alternative approaches, apply pedagogies and explore your own practice as an artist, designer and educator.

As a student on the MA Creative Education course you will gain a thorough understanding of research methodologies, which supports the development of a rigorous inquiry that answers questions relevant to your professional or artistic practice. It draws upon the collaboration with a wider network of cultural organisations in Plymouth and beyond, to provide you with the opportunity to develop new perspectives on your own practice, educational research and the transformative potential of creativity.

Present environmental, social and political factors compel us to examine what education is for: what we need to learn in order to live in a rapidly changing environment and where and how such learning takes place.

To fit alongside professional careers and teaching commitments, the programme is available as a part-time route, as well as there being a full-time option. The program is not exclusive to students with a background in the arts, and our specifications around the portfolio should encourage a wide range of practitioners to apply.

You will have the opportunity to critically engage with current debates within the subject area, relevant institutional contexts and partners and be encouraged to consider what it means to be an artist in the 21st century.

We’ll support you in articulating your ideas, developing your working methods and creating independent work, through individual tutorials, lectures, subject-specific seminars, studio and gallery visits and group critiques with access to our rich workshop areas and technical resources across the university.

For both the full-time and part-time routes, all teaching will be face to face and on campus. You will have full access to all Arts University Plymouth's facilities and workshops. We recommend this course for both home (UK) and international applicants who are able to situate themselves in the region and attend the campus.

To support your professional development and research, students on the MA Creative Education can choose to work with one of our partners in the city; such as Makers HQ (adult education), or one of our partnering primary schools. You will also be able to work with students and lecturers on the Undergraduate and Pre-Degree courses at Arts University Plymouth, and we have ties with the Academy of Creative Education in Dundee, as well as schools in China.