"Figuring Your Own Worlds": Exploring Creativity-Specific Collaborative Factors

• In Event: New Developments in Cooperative Learning

Abstract

The increased discourse about the benefits of creative and collaborative skills asks for understanding the factors affecting collaborative creativity and imagination in educational settings. Although substantial research has investigated commonly known collaborative factors, more research is needed to understand the specific factors that affect students’ collaboration when they are engaged in group-level creativity projects. To this end, this study used 20h videos, field notes, interviews, and artifacts from 6th grade students attending a STEAM+L course. The data was analyzed with grounded theory approaches. Results point to two clusters of collaborative factors and highlight six creative-specific collaborative factors: conflicts between personal and shared loops of imagination, the trigger effect, reasoning, the unpredictability effect, the kinesthetic effect, and the use of props.

Authors

• Maria Kolovou, University of Miami

• Michela Galante, University of Miami

• Ji Shen, University of Miami