The resources and obstacles of creative collaboration in a long-term learning community

In the framework of a subject-centred socio-cultural approach, this study investigates creative collaboration and the resources for and obstacles to it in a long-term learning community of ten teacher students. The study focuses on five different learning situations over a 2-year period. The data were taken from teacher students’ evaluations and accounts (on given criteria) of their videotaped group-learning sessions, and their reports of the obstacles to creative collaboration. Using the students’ evaluations of the five videotaped group learning situations, the sessions they assessed as the least and most creative were compared, the aim being to discover the most important situation-specific contextual resources for collaborative creativity in the learning settings addressed. The findings showed that creative collaboration was manifested by the presentation of alternative views, and in most situations also by the production of new ideas. However, it was less evident that group discussion would in every session reveal contradictions or lead to the disclosure of opposing views concerning different meanings; nor would it necessarily create an elaborated understanding of the learning topic. The main obstacles to creative collaboration were related to the emotional atmosphere and power relations of the group. A comparison of the contextual conditions of the least and most creative evaluated situation illustrates that the least creative situation was characterised by participants’ disputational talk, aimed at invalidating opposing opinions. Here, the group atmosphere was emotionally charged in a negative sense, and mutual care taking was lacking. The unsafe atmosphere made group members afraid of being emotionally bruised by other members. The most creative situation was characterised by complementarity in participants’ talk and by inclusive utilisation of each other's views. The shared history of the group was an extremely important resource for group dialogue, allowing alternative future scenarios to be constructed reflectively. The emotional scaffolding between students was rich, and the tutor's resources were utilised. Results are discussed in terms of complementarity, emotions and power relations.     

Creativity through self-directed learning: three distinct dimensions of teacher support

ABSTRACT

Self-directed learning and creativity are critical workplace competences that are important to foster in formal educational settings. Previous studies have identified a relationship between self-directed learning and creativity, but the specific nature of this relationship is unclear. The purpose of the present theoretical paper is to examine through a literature review the possibility that creative learning outcomes can be supported through a self-directed learning process. The importance of considering self-directed learning in the context of adult learning – as a pragmatic learning process – is outlined. A conclusion is drawn that (1) creative learning outcomes are potentially supported through self-directed learning, and (2) in the process, teachers can provide support to learners in three distinct different ways. A variety of pragmatic educational activities that may enable self-directed learning and creative learning outcomes are discussed, including experiential learning; workplace simulations; and problem-, case-, and (e-) portfolio-based learning. In these activities, teacher support seems advantageous for many learners. The three distinct dimensions of teacher support identified in the present paper are important to consider in further empirical studies on self-directed learning.     

A systematic review of teacher guidance during collaborative learning in primary and secondary education

For this review, we synthesized quantitative and qualitative research on collaborative learning to examine the relationship between teacher guidance strategies and the processes and outcomes of collaboration among students (66 studies). The results show that several aspects of teacher guidance are positively related to student collaboration, for example when teachers focus their attention on students’ problem solving strategies. During student collaboration, opportunities arise for students to engage in collaborative activities that support their learning process. The way teachers take more or less control of these moments determines whether these opportunities can be turned into real moments of learning for the students. This review highlights the important yet challenging role of the teacher during collaborative learning.     

联结学习设计与学习分析:教师技术创新教学的突破口——访西班牙巴利亚多利德大学雅尼斯·迪米特里亚迪斯教授

雅尼斯·迪米特里亚迪斯(Yannis Dimitriadis)教授任职西班牙巴利亚多利德大学远程信息技术工程系,兼任信息通讯技术与教学研究中心GSIC/EMIC研究团队负责人,主持和参与了五十多项国际国内科研项目,在教育技术顶级期刊发表了八十多篇学术论文,组织了多次学习科学高端国际学术专题研讨会和工作坊。研究方向包括学习设计、计算机支持协作学习、学习分析等。本次访谈着重于介绍学习设计的核心思想,即无论外部学习技术如何变化,“教学法为王”的原则在教育教学情境中的主导地位不能变。因此,人工智能时代的学习技术仍需为创新教学服务。从教师角度看,联结学习设计与学习分析为教师技术创新教学提供了突破口。一方面,学习设计为学习分析提供理论引导,便于教师精准知晓学习者在不同学习活动中的学习情况,另一方面,学习分析为优化学习设计提供基于数据驱动的方法指导,便于教师靶向式更新学习活动设计。践行学习设计与学习分析双向互动的发展路径,需要建立研究者与教师合作设计机制,引导教师参与学习设计;推进隐性设计知识在学习设计中的应用;关注教师探究学习者学习过程。本次访谈对新时代背景下信息技术与教学应用的深度融合提供了新的理念和方法指导。     

The discourse of collaborative creative writing: Peer collaboration as a context for mutual inspiration

Drawing on socio-cultural theory, this paper focuses on children's classroom-based collaborative creative writing. The central aim of the reported research was to contribute to our understanding of young children's creativity, and describe ways in which peer collaboration can resource, stimulate and enhance classroom-based creative writing activities. The study drew on longitudinal observations of ongoing activities in Year 3 and Year 4 classrooms (children aged 7-9) in England. Selected pairs’ collaborative creative writing activities were observed and recorded using video and audio equipment in the literacy classroom and in the ICT suite (13 pairs, about 2-4 occasions each).The research built on the contextualised, qualitative analysis of the social and cognitive processes connected to shared creative text composition. Using an analytic tool developed specifically for creative writing tasks, we linked collaborative and discursive features to cognitive processes associated with writing (‘engagement’ and ‘reflection’). The research has identified discourse patterns and collaborative strategies which facilitate ‘sharedness’ and thus support joint creative writing activities.The paper discusses two significant aspects of the observed paired creative writing discourse. It reports the significance of emotions throughout the shared creative writing episodes, including joint reviewing. Also, it shows children's reliance on collaborative floor (Coates, 1996), with discourse building on interruptions and overlaps. We argue that such use of collaborative floor was indicative of joint focus and intense sharing, thus facilitating mutual inspiration in the content generation phases of the children's writing activities. These findings have implications for both educational research and practice, contributing to our understanding of how peer interaction can be used to resource school-based creative activities.     

Developing conceptual frameworks for creativity, ICT and teacher education

This paper presents the first phase of a study in teacher education, which explored how a conceptual framework for creativity with information and communication technology (ICT) might be developed and expressed in professional development for primary education pre-service and newly qualified teachers. The Creativity and Professional Development Project (C&PD) involved 16 education ICT specialists in the final stage of their BA in an English University. They participated in the project to investigate their classroom practice in the use of ICT to promote creativity in the making of digital video movies, and to reflect upon the development of their pedagogy with ICT in primary classrooms. The analysis focuses on the student teachers’ experience of engaging in creative activities to prepare, teach and evaluate a school-based project, and identified themes of their understandings and personal experience of creativity, the contribution of ICT, and their reflections on professional development. This analysis raises the issue of designing learning experiences, which promote and support creativity with ICT in the context of teacher learning. A conceptual framework to describe creative practices with ICT in teacher education was developed from the study.     

Teacher learning in collaborative curriculum design

The Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002) was used to identify processes of teacher learning during the collaborative design of curriculum materials in the context of curriculum innovation. Nine published studies from six different countries about teachers’ collaborative curriculum design were analyzed to identify the learning processes that collaborative curriculum design fosters. It was concluded that the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth, although initially developed to recognize learning processes in individual teachers, can also be used to identify learning processes that are fostered by collaborative curriculum design in teams of teachers.     

Exploring processes of collaborative creativity—The role of emotions in children''s joint creative writing

This paper reports a study on children's classroom-based collaborative creative writing. Based on socio-cultural theory, the central aim of the research was to contribute to current understanding of young children's creativity, and describe ways in which peer collaboration can resource, stimulate and enhance classroom-based creative writing. The study drew on longitudinal observations of ongoing classroom activities in year 3 and year 4 classrooms, working with 24 children (12 pairs) aged 7–9 in England. The pairs’ collaborative creative writing sessions were observed and recorded using video and audio equipment in the literacy classroom and in the ICT suite with 2–4 recordings per pair. A functional model was developed to analyse cognitive processes associated with creative text composition (engagement and reflection) via the in-depth study of collaborative discourse. Based on the analysis of paired talk, the study has identified discourse patterns and collaborative strategies which facilitate sharedness and thus support joint creative writing activities. A key finding was the centrality of emotions in the observed creative writing sessions. This paper discusses the role of emotion-driven thinking in phases of shared engagement. The study has implications for creativity research and pedagogy, revealing the special features of shared creative thinking. It also contributes to the current methodological debate about how best to analyse collaborative discourse, highlighting the need to explore the generalisability and domain specificity of existing characterisations of productive groupwork.     

Motivation in a computer-supported collaborative learning scenario and its impact on learning activities and knowledge acquisition

Addressing a drawback in current research on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), this study investigated the influence of motivation on learning activities and knowledge acquisition during CSCL. Participants’ (N = 200 university students) task was to develop a handout for which they had first an individual preparing phase followed by a computer-supported collaborative learning phase immediately afterwards. It was hypothesized that in both phases current motivation (in terms of expectancy and value components) influences both learning activities and knowledge acquisition in a positive way. According to main results, only goal orientations (before learning) were associated with knowledge acquisition respectively observed learning activities during the collaborative phase. Expectancy and value components of current motivation related neither to observed learning activities nor to knowledge acquisition during collaborative learning but were in part associated with learning activities and knowledge acquisition during individual learning. The discussion addresses several possible explanations for these unexpected results.     

Creative pedagogy: a case for teachers’ creative learning being at the centre

While educators in many parts of the world grapple with what creativity means in practice, discussions about creative pedagogy usually include the elements of creative teaching, teaching for creativity and creative learning. This article stems from a research project that occurred at a Preparatory to Year 9 school in Australia where we worked with staff to explore their understandings of creativity and creative learning in the Arts. We found that while students’ creative learning is a fundamental element in a creative pedagogy framework, the notion of creative learning of teachers is largely overlooked in discourses of teachers’ professional learning. Given the important role teachers play in student learning, we argue that teachers need to be informed not only about how to teach creatively and for creativity, but also how to consider possibilities and understand things in new ways, thereby making a case that a teacher’s own creative learning is crucial.     

学习与创新的关系及其教育

本从社会发展和个体生存发展的角度，阐述了学习与创新的重要价值。并从多方面深入研究了学习、创新之间的区别和联系，揭示了学习能力和创新能力之间的转化关系，论证了在大学里把学生教育和创新教育揉合在一起的必要性和可行性。     

Collaborative teacher learning in different primary school settings

During the last two decades there has been a growing awareness of the potentially strong role teacher collaboration can play in relation to teacher and team learning. Teachers collaborate with their colleagues in different formal and informal settings. Because most studies have focused on teacher learning in one collaborative setting or are related to a specific innovation, little is known about how teachers learn within the different collaborative settings that emerge out of their teaching work. The aim of this exploratory study was to gain deeper insight into collaborative teacher learning during regular work at primary schools. Collaborative teacher learning was investigated within multiple settings, taking into account both the undertaken learning activities by teachers and the learning outcomes. Teacher and principal perceptions were collected through semi-structured interviews that were conducted with two teachers and one principal per school, including seven primary schools. Results show that teacher learning occurred within different collaborative settings in schools, however, with different degrees of intensity and outcomes across these various settings. Thus, depending on the collaborative setting, more or less different learning activities and learning outcomes were reported by teachers and principals. The results suggest that high quality team meetings can be a powerful context for teacher learning.     

Collaboration, creativity and the co-construction of oral and written texts

In this paper we explore how primary school children ‘learn to collaborate’ and ‘collaborate to learn’ on creative writing projects by using diverse cultural artefacts—including oracy, literacy and ICT. We begin by reviewing some key sociocultural concepts which serve as a theoretical framework for the research reported. Secondly, we describe the context in which the children talked and worked together to create their projects. This context is a ‘learning community’ developed as part of an innovative educational programme with the aim of promoting the social construction of knowledge among all participants. We then present microgenetic analyses of the quality of the interaction and dialogues taking place as peers worked together on their projects, and how these collaborative processes and uses of the mediational artefacts were taken up by the children. In order to exemplify these processes, our analyses centre on a selection of examples of dialogues, texts and multimedia products of stories created by groups of fourth grade (9-10 years old) children. Overall, the work reveals the dynamic functioning in educational settings of some central sociocultural concepts. These include: co-construction; intertextuality and intercontextuality amongst oracy, literacy and uses of ICT; collaborative creativity; development of dialogical and text production strategies and appropriation of diverse cultural artefacts for knowledge construction.     

Preparing teacher-students for twenty-first-century learning practices (PREP 21): a framework for enhancing collaborative problem-solving and strategic learning skills

With regard to the growing interest in developing teacher education to match the twenty-first-century skills, while many assumptions have been made, there has been less theoretical elaboration and empirical research on this topic. The aim of this article is to present our pedagogical framework for the twenty-first-century learning practices in teacher education. We will first review the current status of policy frameworks for the twenty-first-century learning skills. Based on our previous work and current understanding in the field of learning sciences, we will next elaborate the processes and strategies for collaborative problem-solving skills and strategic learning skills to specify current, rather general claims presented regarding the discussion on twenty-first-century skills. We will also provide concrete case examples facilitating strategic learning skills, collaborative problem-solving skills, and the skills to use information and communication technologies in contexts of our previous studies.     

Demonstrating a situated learning approach for in-service teacher education in rural India: The Quality Education Programme in Rajasthan

Recent educational policy in India has repositioned elementary school teachers as active, reflective practitioners, not just ‘deliverers’ of syllabus material. This article examines innovations in teacher support in Rajasthan's government schools through the ‘Quality Education Program.’ Drawing on qualitative research of collaborative learning processes, the paper discusses two support strategies used by the program: professional dialogic interactions and modeling of pedagogic strategies, which paralleled introductory or developmental phases within a ‘collaborative apprenticeship model’ of teacher professional development. In doing so, the paper outlines the potential of situated, collaborative approaches for Indian in-service teacher education and education development reform, more broadly.     

Nurturing Creativity in Education

Across continents, creativity is a priority for education and is central to the discourse on 21^st century learning. In this article, we explore how a greater focus on ‘everyday creativity’ in schools changes the dynamics of teaching and learning. We look briefly at the main concepts in the literature on creativity in education. We then focus on examples from the Centre for Creative Education's creative partnerships, which bring together educators, learners and creative professionals. This is followed by a discussion on how teachers assess learners’ creative dispositions, as well as the quality of creative processes and products. We conclude with recommendations for school-level strategies and policy and research to support learner and teacher creativity.     

Teachers as metacognitive role models

This paper draws on data collected during a longitudinal collaborative project with teachers in England from schools and further education colleges. The project investigated ‘Learning to Learn’ in partnership with teacher–researchers with a focus on how metacognitive awareness can be improved by enquiring into creative combinations of pedagogy, environment and learners’ dispositions. The paper is an attempt to make clear the theoretical underpinnings of our belief that the project teachers were enacting something different, something metacognitive. We present a pragmatic model of metacognition development based on ideas collaboratively produced across the project. The five cycles of development are exemplified from the pedagogic and the professional learning perspective with quotes, vignettes and case study excerpts. We show a catalytic relationship between the pedagogies used by the teachers to develop their students’ metacognition and the teachers’ own learning and metacognitive knowledge and skilfulness.     

Student teachers’ conceptions of creativity in the secondary music classroom

This study aims to explore the meaning of the concept of creativity from the perspective of student teachers pursuing a one year teacher training course following their first degree. Seventeen student teachers following a specialist music teaching route in secondary education were selected as the sample for this study to offer their understanding on creativity in the secondary music classroom. Data were collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews and were subject to in-depth qualitative analysis using Atlas.ti software. All student teachers seemed eager to teach for creativity as they thought it was a vital component of their pupils’ musical engagement and development. However, some held richer conceptions than others or tended to overlook significant areas of musical involvement, such as improvisation, group work and engagement in evaluating and refining the creative musical product. Creativity was generally expected but it would emerge on an intuitive level as a by-product of a learning objective rather than being explicitly considered in the planning process. These narrow conceptions of the meaning of creativity in the music classroom need to be taken seriously and explicitly addressed in music education programs in order to maximize the expression of pupils’ creative potential in the music classroom and beyond.     

设计型学习模式在高职ICT课程教学中的设计及应用

当前,探索高职ICT课程教学改革,培养学生创新实践能力,是推动高职ICT人才培养的关键。设计型学习作为一种面向学习和创新能力培养的学习方式,为高职ICT课程教学的改革提供了有效的实施路径。通过梳理设计型学习与高职ICT人才培养之间的适切性,以典型设计型学习操作模型为基础,从师生活动视角出发,构建了面向高职ICT课程教学的设计型学习模式,并详细阐述其关键特征。同时,结合具体教学案例"Applica-tion内置对象"进行深入分析,以期为高职ICT课程设计型学习模式的实践提供有价值的借鉴。     

Teachers at the zone of proximal development – Collaboration promoting or hindering the development process

This study focuses on collaborative teacher learning during an in-service education course that supports teachers in creating knowledge and practices for teaching. The study investigates what types of activity support or hinder collaborative development within more-or-less successful teacher teams' group discussions. The findings indicate that collaboration that supports collaborative development consists of ideation, further development of ideas and raising questions. Excessive agreement appears to prevent successful collaborative development. The study suggests that in symmetrical peer-to-peer collaboration, equals are able to support creative collaboration by revising and questioning developed constructions and the developmental process itself, through the application of theoretical knowledge.