Fine Arts and Jewellery Design HOD Completes his PhD




Dr Chris De Beer with FoAD's Information and Communications Officer. 

NASIPHI GIGABA 
The Head of Department (HOD) of Fine Arts and Jewellery Design, Chris de Beer recently completed his Doctoral Degree (PhD) in self-reflective study.
Titled: “An autoethnographic exploration of Creative Design Practice: Towards Pedagogic implications”, his thesis presented an ethnographic exploration of his Identity as a creative artist, a designer and a university educator.
“Being in the creative field and trying to cultivate the creativity within my students is what inspired my study. I examined my own creative practice by doing autoethnographic self-interviews of my contributions to exhibitions, and then examined the pedagogical implications inherited in these explorations,” said De Beer.
De Beer’s thesis  offers a visually exemplar for artists and educators interested in exploring pedagogic implications of an enhanced awareness of self in creative practice, he also stated that he discovered a lot about himself during his study.
“I discovered a lot about myself and about the vagaries of education, so it was definitely worthwhile and I feel better equipped to deal with my students.
He further stated that doing his PhD was a wonderful experience and that he learnt a lot from the research he did, as he highly acclaimed his supervisor for the support.
His development, refinement and use of autoethnographic self-interview makes a distinctive methological contribution to the self-reflective educational research.
De Beer mainly does research in Jewellery Design and Education, with one of his most recent publication being 'Shoes, suitcases, stones: Creative engagement with ourselves as artist–researcher–teachers through object inquiry'.
He also added that he now wants to focus on online teaching, making more jewellery and using conversations for learning.

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