COD302- Creative Ways to Work with Community

Task:

Unit description

If you haven't done so already, by now in your degree you will be asking yourself ‘How can I start putting some of my study to practical use?’ You have probably spent time considering questions such as ‘what is community development’, ‘where is it being carried out?’ and, ‘what contextual factors shape the life of a community?’ All of these questions and areas of study are important in helping prepare you to work with community. However, this unit will ask you to turn much more to the ‘how to?’ questions. Building upon the work in other units it will provide students with a chance to look at and test out some of the creative methods that are being used to encourage communities to get more involved in shaping their destiny.

Aims of the unit

This unit will assist you to:

1.understand literature and other sources concerned with the use of creativity in community practice.
2.understand some of the limits of the idea of ‘participation’ in the context of community development.
3.examine a range of projects (case studies) that draw upon creative ways of encouraging ‘communities’ to get involved in both planning and government.
4.experiment with a number of methods and tools designed to encourage groups to become more involved in decision making and social action
5.test out the merits and limits of these methods and creative ‘tools’.

What is community participation and engagement? The history of participation – theoretical and practical traditions  ‘A picture speaks a thousand words’: learning to use digital technology in planning

Drawing on community”: using cultural development and arts practice

Assignment 1: Forum participation

Joining in discussion about the unit material is an important part of this course. Internal students should attend the workshops and be prepared to contribute (read in advance). External  students should post at least once in each of the five online discussion forums on the LMS unit page. Posts can be short, but they should refer to the workshop themes or readings in some way (this can include responding to a post made by another student). You can of course post more than five times, but five posts are needed to gain the maximum of 10% marks (2% for each).

Assignment 2: Report on workshops

Internal students:

Work in groups of at least three in number. Prepare a ‘picture book’ report of one of the workshops. Using powerpoint or some other software package prepare a report for external students on what happened during one a half of a full-day workshop (we will sort people into groups and schedule workshops for each groups in week one)

People are encouraged to draw on the processes and technology that we learn in workshops to help prepare the report. This will mean using digital images, text and other devices to present to people who cannot attend workshops.

Within two weeks of the allocated workshop submit the report so that it can be posted on the Unit Webpage. It is important that documents are carefully reduced in size so they can be posted on the internet.

External students:

Either prepare a digital report on some element of work with community using the process outlined in the unit and applied by internal students.

Or

Prepare a 1500 word review of one of the reports by internal student groups that have been posted on the unit resources. Draw in the literature to help discuss the strengths of the tools used, the quality of the report for people living at a distance and any suggestions for how things could be improved.

The review could also include a discussion of:

Further background (from research) to the methodological devices, tools or processes used.
The theoretical and/or political background to the method
The purported strengths of this method
The limits of the method
Any lessons learnt as a con sequence of having the workshop presented in this way.

Assignment 3: tools for participation

Write an essay in response to the following:

“Research and write an essay on one example of a project that involves the use of creativity in working with community. When you are choosing the case study be sure to undertake an extensive literature search rather than direct observation.” 12-15 references
Important in the essay will be a discussion of (but not necessarily limited to):

The background or history of the case study
The creativity processes used
Who has been involved
The strengths of the creative processes used
Limitations of the processes
Any other lessons that have emerged from this work.