IDEA Courses help develop competencies in many vital areas: Critical Thinking, Creativity, and Innovation, Communication, Intercultural Awareness, Social and Environmental Justice, Informational and Interdisciplinary Literacy, Collaboration and Teamwork, Civic, Ethical and Professional Responsibility.
IDEA Course Descriptions
IDEA 1100: Exploring Self and World: Transcultural, Creative and Interdisciplinary Inquiry
In this course, students will focus on awareness and knowledge, skills and capacities that support self-discovery and broader understanding of the world. Students will have the opportunity to explore transcultural, creative and interdisciplinary inquiry to further personal, social, academic and professional development. Course themes will be explored by way of student-generated dialogue, creativity-based exercises, experiential activities, and student-centered assignments.
IDEA 1240: New Forms and Media: Networked Narratives
Students will learn and practice new forms of creative writing such as collaborative composition, writing for new and social media, blogging, and writing for digital publications. They will study emerging uses of online technologies and will learn writing skills through individual composition, group work, and the development of electronic portfolios. Note: Students may earn credits for only one of CRWR 1240 or IDEA 1240, as they are the same course.
IDEA 1400: Explorations in Expressive Arts through Drama and Theatre
Working largely in groups, students will explore themselves and their relationship to others through the creation and performance of student generated and published dramatic material. They will learn to build and perform material (which may include theatre, dance, film, or other forms of dramatic expression) based on their own lives and those of people in other parts of the world, while tackling local, international, personal, communal, and multicultural issues. To build confidence and knowledge of the process of dramatic expression, students will engage in improvisational and scripted performance work, be exposed to various styles of acting and stagecraft, as well as write critical reflections or journals based on individual and group processes of imagining, creating, and performing for the class, and potentially the larger university and local community. Working together, students will engage with and contribute to an expressive arts community through the creation of interdisciplinary imaginative projects. They will have opportunities to achieve personal growth and to develop critical and empathic sensibilities through mentorship activities.
IDEA 2100: Rewarding Our Hearts and Actions: Ecology, Sustainability & Creativity
In this course, students will have the opportunity to explore key elements and processes of rewilding. They will be supported to make connections between the web of life and ecological feeling, thinking and action that nourishes personal, ethical and social transformation. Students will engage with a wide range of interdisciplinary and Indigenous course materials, deepening their understandings of nature as well as sustainability. Creative and experiential activities, including nature experiences, will be a fundamental aspect of the course. Students will be encouraged and supported to meaningfully connect their journeys, interests and commitments to course thematics.
IDEA 2900: Special Topics in Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts
This course will explore a contemporary and compelling theme from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students will learn and engage with key concepts and knowledge in the specific area of inquiry through experiential and creative engagement. They will critically and reflectively explore the interdisciplinary thematic of the course in relation to their lives and broader society. The course will be aligned with the Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts program’s commitment to collaborative and creative whole-person learning, and mindfully integrate emotional, social, ecological and ethical literacy with academic and professional development.
IDEA 3100: Creativity, Imagination and Innovation
Students will engage in contemporary research on creativity and apply it in an interdisciplinary arts context. They will develop an understanding of the creative process including best practices for team-based collaboration in academic and professional contexts. Working in an experiential learning environment that involves high levels of communication, engagement, and collaboration, students will express their research through a series of expressive arts projects and reflective essays. Note: Students may earn credits for only one of IDEA 3100 and CUST 3100, as they are the same course.
IDEA 3200: Theatre for Social Change
In this class, learners improvise, create and perform live drama based on their own experiences and the issues they encounter in the world around them. Learners will analyze psycho-social forces which they feel require change, and experiment with how to creatively resist and transform such forces. Learners will study the history of political theatre and learn how practitioners from diverse cultural contexts have used theatre to respond to social issues. Drawing on a range of performance practices, members of this improvisational performing arts community mentor one another and learn to construct their own dramatic plots, characters and scenes, eventually presenting an interactive performance to an audience. This collaborative creative process facilitates personal growth, risk-taking and empathy, while building a critical and political consciousness.
IDEA 3301: Myth, Culture, and Creativity
Students will study mythological narratives from diverse cultural origins and learn about the role of myth making as a fundamental need of human nature. Students will learn how myth is expressed through disciplines such as art, science and religion and respond to this learning through a series of expressive arts projects. Students will learn how mythological understanding informs our cultural and personal worldview and come to understand the necessity of developing new myths in relation to the ecological imperatives of our age.
IDEA 3302: Creativity and Leadership in Groups
In this course, students will learn to facilitate as well as lead interpersonal and creative processes within small and large group contexts. They will explore multifaceted creative modalities, self-inquiry practices, and leadership-building processes. Students will apply interdisciplinary knowledge and leadership frameworks that promote creativity, community and ethical development. There will be ongoing exploration of the intersections between inner work and self-awareness and individually and socially responsive and responsible participation in varied group settings. Students will have an opportunity to explore and dialogue around the distinctions as well as interconnections between diverse group contexts, from families and communities, workplaces and educational contexts to businesses, organizations and social and political groups.
IDEA 4100: Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts 2 (The Creativity Course)
Students will learn to apply a diverse number of current interdisciplinary approaches within the expressive arts. They will develop the interdisciplinary skills to employ creativity across multiple expressive modalities (creative writing, music, movement, fine arts, theatre, expressive arts therapies, storytelling, mythopoetics, photography, film making, etc.) and will explore potential academic and career directions within the cultural and social services sectors