Karen Hall, School of Creative Arts and Media, CALE
Davina Wright, School of Creative Arts and Media, CALE
Work-integrated learning (WIL) experiences within the creative disciplines are challenging at scale: organisations within the creative industries have limited capacity to support placements. Nonetheless, in preparing students for portfolio careers, it is essential that students are equipped to “find, create and sustain meaningful work across the career lifespan” (Bennett, 2020, p. v). FSX207 Creative Lab provides a scalable WIL experience to all Creative Arts and Media students: where working in interdisciplinary groups to produce creative works for public delivery requires self-reflection and collective negotiation in the development of professional practices.
Collaboration is not only central to the student experience and creative outcomes for this unit, but it is also introduced as fundamental to the cognitive and social development required by emerging professionals. As students encounter the need to work together in extending and applying professional skills in idea generation and refinement; communication and documentation; and safe work practices and risk management, their collaborative problem-solving integrates disciplinary skills within an employability frame.
We reflect on how this unit develops purpose and pathways during study and beyond. In particular, we consider how the scale of this unit - in terms of its range of disciplinary knowledges and practices; numbers of students; and profile of the public outcomes – centres work-integrated learning within the student’s pathway through their university experience. This scale also enables us to provide an inclusive and meaningful experience that encourages students to collaborate in becoming critical thinkers and makers: a necessity in generating future work and expanding the Tasmanian Arts sector.
Bennett, D. (2020). Embedding employability thinking across higher education. Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment.
https://ltr.edu.au/resources/FS16-0274_Bennett_Report_2020.pdf