["International Journal of Art &Design Education, EarlyView. ", "\nAbstract\nThis paper presents findings from interviews with creative arts academics examining how the COVID‐19 disruption reshaped studio‐based teaching practices and informed future pedagogical thinking. Participants described the disruption as a period that compelled rapid adaptation and created opportunities to experiment, review and reflect on their teaching practices. Staff are committed to learning from this time. Lecturers expressed a strong preference for in‐person teaching, with the purposeful integration of online and digital pedagogies seen as key to expanding studio teaching. Our results suggest increased interest in the potential benefits of a blended approach. Results also revealed that the COVID‐19 disruption triggered deeper, systemic shifts in student behaviour and in teaching mindsets, changes they understood as extending beyond short‐term crisis responses and signalling more fundamental change. These findings reflect educator accounts, and we therefore interpret claims about student engagement as staff perceptions that warrant triangulation in future research.\n"]