Experience of teaching creativity: Reaction to reviewers' comment

I submitted a conference paper titled "Teaching Creativity in Design Aesthetics: An Introspective Account of a University Lecturer" to the International Conference on Infomatics and Creative Multimedia 2013. The aim is the share my experience of teaching creativity in MRE3014, and this adheres the theme of the conference.

First reviewer's comment:

Despite being accepted for an oral presentation, the comments given by the reviewers reveal several issues possessed by both the reviewer and the organizer. Herewith one of the first  reviewer's comment:

"This is a commendable effort and a really interesting read. It was reflective and engaging especially on the topic of art and creativity. However, I find that it lacks the research rigor that is needed as a conference research paper. The title seems to say that it is a reflective research on teaching but the bulk of the literature and write up was on the teacher's understanding and debate of the concept of art and creativity etc. rather than the process of teaching this specific course with its struggles, successes or challenges as suggested by the title. The author needs to explain further what method as well as the research process that was undertook in this introspective account of him/her as a teacher. Please see other comments on the attached document." ~ Comment of Reviewer 1

Herewith my reaction to the first reviewer's comment:

Perhaps I should highlight this paper is not a research paper. If one would insist on regarding this as a research paper it is more like a reflective study--apparently one of the reviewer has a narrow view on what a conference paper must be. In other words, the reviewer has limited his or her view on the nature of academic conference, as he or she thought that a paper to be presented in a conference must be research paper. I do not denounce the reviewer for having such a narrow view, since it is the organizer's fault in requesting the reviewers to rate all papers on "Research method and data analysis are sound", "Findings and conclusions are properly presented", and other items that are only applicable for scientific or empirical research studies. If I would be a reviewer, I would insist to state "Not Applicable" or NA to all irrelevant fills, and this would be fair to authors who submitted concept papers or a paper like mine.

Nonetheless, I do agree that the paper should focus on "the process of teaching this specific course with its struggles, successes or challenges as suggested by the title." I will revise the paper by explaining how I did the reflection--using my reflection-reflexion continuum.

Second reviewer's comment: 

There are few contradicting statements in:
V. DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON CREATIVITY BETWEEN ART AND DESIGN

1) The arguments on INNOVATION, UNIQUENESS, AESTHETICS, DESIGN PROCESS, CREATIVE PROCESS between ART and DESIGN in the context of CREATIVITY was not properly clarified; it is contradictory and perplexing.

STATEMENTS ON ART’s creativity
“Whatever it is regarded, the process of art creation activity must be carried out in a completely free condition. Therefore it is completely sensual and exclusive. This is very different as compared to the spiritual force that pursues aesthetics in order to acquire human consensus. The value of art lies in its uniqueness—all great art are unique, thus artists are devoting themselves to create unprecedented content, and then express the content through unique form. In ancient times, aesthetics is a part of the value of art form, while the expression of the form is far beyond the scope of aesthetics.”

STATEMENT ON DESIGN’s Creativity
“Seeing design process as a thinking process, he defined design as a synthetic reaction of sensibility and rationality. The creation through design is objective-driven, while its meaning is innovation, which has nothing to do with uniqueness; although sometimes it does possess the characteristics of being unique. The objective-driven characteristic is primarily meant for improving human life. While this might also satisfy spiritual needs, the satisfaction is indeed a consequence of materialistic fulfillment. To reinforce the spiritual value of design, it is natural to pursue aesthetics in its form, and there is no reason to reject aesthetics in any field of the reality of life.”

2) The difference between ART’s creativity and DESIGN’s Creativity stated earlier in section IV does Not reflect in the conclusion

V. CONCLUSIONS
“With this revelation of different types of creativity, the dilemma of incorporating four criteria of creativity suggested by Tony Buzan became a non-issue. All four criteria are in fact interrelated to and complementing each other…”

3) And the statement brought forwards in the conclusions also contradictory to the argument in section V.

V. CONCLUSIONS
“…The teaching of later two cohorts of Design Aesthetics students indicated positive improvement as the engagement of students towards in-class lecture and activities increased, probably due to the acquired knowledge on their future role as designers and how they would work with professionals in pure art and applied sciences.”

Herewith my reaction to the second reviewer's comment:

Perhaps paraphrasing what Han (2012) said about the differences between pure art and applied art in terms of creativity might not be appropriate. Anyhow, this is my first attempt of openly adopting someone's idea and put it into my teaching context. I will try improving the paper by clarifying matters, concepts, etc, before sending it to a journal, as none of the journal that is linked to the conference is related to my topic.   

Feel really proud with my Tok Guru: Che' Ahmad Azhar

I always tell my Design Aesthetics students how my Tok Guru, Che' Ahmad Azhar trained me when I was a undergraduate student in MMU. He was very very strict with DEADLINE. I can never forget he locked the studio door and waved to those who came late. And I remembered hearing my friends crying outside the studio.

While being strict to students, he imposed strict discipline to himself as well. And today, his effort earned him the personal praise from YAB Datuk Seri Najib, the Prime Minister of Malaysia via Twitter:

I feel really proud with his success. And I will shared this joy with my students in upcoming semester. Herewith the news article, published online by Sinar Harian, titled Najib puji gambar rakaman Che' Ahmad Azhar and by New Straits Times, titled PM praises Che' Ahmad Azhar for his beautiful street photography.

And this is the original site featuring his photographs:

Potential Publication for Design Aesthetics students @ Journal of Arts Gendang Alam

Source: http://www.ums.edu.my/sps/index.php/en/maklumat-akademik/penerbitan/jurnal-journals

I received an invitation to submit article to the Journal of Arts Gendang Alam from the School of Arts, Universiti Sabah Malaysia. I think this is a good platform for developing Design Aesthetics students who are good in essay writing.

So those who scored A or A- in this course in the past semesters please contact me for joint paper writing.

RIP My Student - Muhd Amri Razali

I feel really sad the hear the bad news from Lai Siew Yee...I feel like losing my own kid... RIP my dear, Muhd Amri Razali.

The student in blue shirt is Muhd Amri Razali. A photo taken on my birthday in Design Aesthetics class (28 Mar 2013).

End of Semester 2 (2012/2013) Remark

Time flies and the second semester of 2012/2013 academic year reaches its end. It had been a really enjoyable time lecturing this batch of students. I am really impressed by their results. For the first time I have student scored full marks in the Final Exam, and there are 43 students or 35% scored either A or A-. This is really impressive to me! I knew they really worked hard for this course, and they deserved the excellent grade!! It's a pity that UPSI does not have A+ for those who score 90 and above, there are two people who did that! Congratulations!

However, this is also the first time I failed so many students in one course (10%). From the feedback and criticism given by those who submitted the make-good assignment, I wrote the following blog (http://gbl4malaysia.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-to-prepare-interactive-lecture-notes.html), intend to revise my lecture notes for next semester--making them interactive.

However, there are some matters I need to clarify here:
1. I knew that English language is their barrier to learn Design Aesthetics, I PURPOSELY prepared lecture notes in ENGLISH to force them read, write and speak English. They should get ready before taking my course.

2. They should try to understand my notes through ENGLISH instead of translating them into Malay. Mistranslated notes is worse than not having notes. If they want to be professional designers, English is the number one language they need to master now!

3. I knew some of them will be lazy and copy my answers when writing reflection and reflexion in learning journal. But when they actually did that, they lost the opportunity to think for themselves. Some students actually did in-class reflexion during my lecture and then they wrote their reflection after class, and compared their own two versions of answers. Those who copied my answers should really learn from the hardworking students.

4. I did noticed students who came in late or did their own work at the back of the lecture hall--in fact, as adult learners, they have the right to do whatever they want. I respect their right as long as they can score in the course, it doesn't really matter to me.

5. By reading their Learning Journal and Final Exam paper scripts, I noticed there are students who face reading difficulty (dyslexia), I have informed them in person to meet me next semester and I will arrange specific support and learning aid for them.

For those who failed this course and intend to retake this course next semester, they can see me in person during Week 1 of next semester. I will arrange special class and group for them. Hopefully they don't feel shy and demotivated. Not everybody can pass in one shot, even me have multiple failing experience in life. What's important, I survive and shine!

Plagiarism again!! This time is worse as it happens in Make-good Assignment

I had been working hard to revise the students' mid-term grade through the analysis of the Make-good Assignment. I REALLY READ what they wrote because I tried to give as many marks as I can. However, I feel really sad when I discovered plagiarism among the students. Plagiarism (meniru) is a SERIOUS academic offence. Apart from give ZERO score to both parties who involved, I am considering take disciplinary action against both parties.

When I re-checked the Make-good Assignment submission all-over again, I discovered another pair of problematic students. I feel really sad and upset... My intention of giving this make-good assignment is to help weak students to survive, but I never thought such good deed would turn into a sour experience. I rather spend time doing other works then checking whether there are any other student who plagiarize or not. Really wasting my precious time...

Uncertainty of Peer-assessment

After marking the group assignment, I was surprised by the low mark given by most of the students to their peers. This prompted me to reveal the scores on Facebook course group so that the students understand the complexity of being judged by others—assessment is a combination of subjective, objective, relative and emotive judgment.

As predicted, when students knew how others judged them, they began to argue on issues related to peer-assessment. I managed to moderate the situation to avoid aftermath conflict. One issue that is worth highlighting: when this course is offered without prerequisite, there is no such thing as "senior" or "junior", i.e. every student is treated as blank slate--John Locke's Blank Slate Theory. 

In fact, this learning process is very useful for the students to realise what would happen when they join the creative industry later in their life. They have to compete with all designers, regardless of their social, academic and economic background. Everybody is on the same arena to judge each other's work. To gain high score, you need to work hard to EARN it, not really because you are senior that you deserve higher mark, or vice versa.