Resources

For Instructors

The Creative Discovery Fellows curriculum appeals to faculty interested in developing and implementing a well-structured, meaningful creative assignment. These resources are based in the anti-racist and student-centered philosophy of the CDF program and are designed around a set of "premises" underlying our four phases of development to help instructors teach storytelling and navigate pedagogy, technology, and student learning. 

For information about support available for individual instructors, please email cd-fellows@berkeley.edu.

NOTE: These resources are currently in development and will be published on this page as soon as they are ready.

Premises

The Creative Discovery Fellows program operates from several interrelated premises:

Constraint-Based Storytelling

The Creative Discovery Fellows curriculum helps teachers guide students through a storytelling process, which is viewed as a constrained activity: only some get to tell stories, although all are capable; some have no control over how their stories are told; and, pushing even further, some have their life experiences affirmed by stories featured in our classrooms, while others find theirs dismissed, erased, and/or rewritten. 

Structural Inequity

The educational system isn’t broken. It is built to produce inequity; therefore, no amount of labor can fix it. First disassembly is required.

Institutional Value

Education centers on estimations of value. As much as we teachers would like to think of our courses as autonomous centers for active learning, they are formed and informed by institutional protocols, of which value is one. That is, our radical, liberatory curriculum still falls under institutional frameworks for value. Historically, value has been calculated by so-called merit-based frameworks; these practices, however, offer underdeveloped and severely limited estimations, which some critics have described as inequitable, disingenuous, racist, white supremacist.

Representation Matters

Representation is a situated (i.e., positioned) act that involves speaker, spoken for, spoken about; it reconstitutes power. Stories are one form of representation. Stories are situated (and not neutral). Not everyone gets to tell stories. Not everyone has control over the stories told about them (or their communities). Not everyone’s experiences are validated by course content; some are actively threatened, antagonized, and unsettled. How we tell stories can be a liberatory process.

TBD (Technology Beyond Determinism)

Technology helps us to tell stories while changing the way we do so. Technology is more than just a tool – it is a system, a set of practices (i.e., techniques), and technical devices (i.e., the tool aspect). The relationship of technology to humanity is beyond utopic and dystopic narratives, it is co-extensive: over time, each reconstitutes itself in relation to the other. Technology is neither good, bad, nor neutral, it is through the design and application of technology that these three terms gain meaning.

CDF Curriculum: An Open Process

Phase 1: Self-Inquiry

A precursor to developing an effective assignment is articulating a clear pedagogical "stance" in relation to students, teaching, and learning. This set of activities and reflection prompts, framed around a set of driving questions, guides instructors to interrogate their deeply held assumptions and beliefs; for example, What do you value? What counts as knowledge? What role does student choice play? 

Phase 2: Project Design

These resources focus on the tactical realm of the pedagogical process--developing affective learning outcomes, designing effective supports for different stages of the creative process, connecting assignments to course content--all within the context of situated learning, or what we call "constraint-based storytelling." The goal of the project design process is to maximize student agency, creativity, and choice AND help learners confront their own understanding and experiences.

Phase 3: Implementation

These resources are designed to help instructors think through the practical aspects of implementing a creative assignment in their class, particularly in a remote instruction environment: sequencing and scheduling activities, technology support and training, research skills, peer feedback and review, in-class discussions, assessment, student reflections, and final presentations.

Phase 4: Community of Practice

We encourage instructors to iterate and refine their creative assignments, and to share ideas and experiences with peers. Through these exchanges, we hope to collectively create a body of recommendations and best practices for future.

For Students

The Creative Discovery program provides software training, technical advice, and general design help to students taking on a creative project. This team is made up of current students who work to curate a hub of resources in the form of peer consultations, guidance towards different project types (ex. presentations, podcasts), tutorials on applications (ie. Adobe Creative Cloud) and general design support. 

While support is tailored to assist students in Creative Discovery classes–we also hope to support long-term creative instruction beyond a single assignment with access to our resources and consultations available to any interested student. 

Resources

  1. The Creative Discovery Student Hub was created for students by students. It houses all of our resources, software guides, tool sheets, project guides, and more that are available for all students.

  2. 1:1 Peer Consultations (by appointment): Individuals or groups can schedule a meeting with a member of the Creative Discovery team to receive project support.

  3. Email us at cd-fellows@berkeley.edu for technical support, bCourses hub questions, and any other questions you may have.

  4. Workshops are student-led presentations that focus on different software and projects. However, due to COVID-19, these are temporarily unavailable.

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