Cultivating Creativity in Group Environments

Cultivating Creativity in Group Environments
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Cultivating Creativity in Group Environments
Introduction
Individualism in education and classroom settings is a concept that started in the 1960s under the constructivist theory, which sought to challenge the hitherto prevalent paradigm: behaviorism. While behaviorism posited collective laws of learning and viewed education as the process of transferring knowledge into the learner’s empty minds, the constructivist theory holds that people constructed their knowledge based on their previous sociological foundations and experiences. However, this is not to say that constructivists do not see any importance in collaborative learning as part of the broader process of restructuring learners’ understandings. Social constructivism is one subset of the constructivist theory that values collective learning: it theorizes that learning occurs first in the social domain before any internalization occurs in the intra-psychological domain. Social constructivists view knowledge as happening and developing in communities. Indeed, some educators have posited that collaboration is necessary for learning and creativity in the education environment.
Formats for Promoting Creativity in Group Environments
Creative collaboration in group environments can take various forms: face to face, in pairs, online, and large groups. Besides, not all collaborations occur informal learning settings: several educators have argued that teams profit from increased chances for informal interactions and communication. A systematic literature review of the subject reveals that creative collaboration can occur among learners of the same aptitude or widely disparate levels of expertise. It can also happen among students working on the same projects or helping each other in individual projects. Overall, current literature identifies five principles of promoting creative collaboration in group environments (Gillies, 2016). The first principle is positive interdependence, which refers to the scenario where group members believe that their results are positively interrelated: what profits one group member profits the entire group, and what challenges one group member also impedes the rest of the group.
This feeling of togetherness and shared outcomes encourages group members to set aside their individualities and work together towards achieving group objectives. In creative group environments, positive interdependence enables group members to relinquish their egos and those facets of individual autonomy that prevent the free flow of ideas and information critical to innovation. The second principle of creative collaboration in creative environments is individual accountability. Group members are cognizant of other members’ contributions and feel the need to do their fair share. This principle tackles the biggest challenge in creative collaboration: social loafing by one or several group members. However, because everyone has their unique set of skills, background, way of working, and information, it is impossible to expect everyone to make contributions of equal importance or amount (Zambrano et al., 2019). Everyone doing their fair share means that despite the differences in amount and value of contributions, every member of the group is making a sincere effort at pulling their weight and ensuring the success of the group’s goals.
The third principle of creative collaboration is interpersonal and small group skills in a creative environment. Learners in group settings must acquire and ably employ various interpersonal and teamwork skills to harness the group's creative potential. Taking part in group learning entails peer interactions such as making suggestions, giving feedback, criticizing an idea, appreciating criticisms received, getting the group back on task, convincing others even when a minority supports one’s idea and informing others of the need to take a break and relax. All these activities aimed at unleashing creative potential require and help build and develop interpersonal and small group skills. For instance, one of the central interpersonal competencies required in group environments is knowing how to criticize an idea and not the person or accept being corrected without taking things personally. Creative collaboration involves candid and non-hostile debates to acquire deep familiarity with each other’s thinking as both partners and opponents. Disagreements and criticisms are part and parcel of unleashing the creative potential of a group.
The ability to appreciate and acknowledge each other’s differing perspectives, culture, or information backgrounds is essential to the effective exchange of ideas, mediation of differences, and production of innovative ideas. The empowering interpersonal and teamwork skills are also transferable in other areas of life outside education. Another principle of creative collaboration in group environments is meaningful interaction. In addition to cultural and interpersonal competence, positive interactions are critical to developing innovative ideas. When learners explain their experiences, perspectives, and methods when performing group tasks, the rest of the group receives the clarifications, even the member giving the explanations, profit. If students only provide their answers and no explanations or feedback are given, then neither the giver nor the recipient profit from the group environment (Kraatz et al., 2020). The purpose of meaningful interaction is to foster mutual appropriation of ideas and ensure every group member has learned something from the interaction to develop new ideas. Interactions between group members should strive to avoid concentrating among a few dominant people or cliques.
Even when some group members may choose to be passive during interactions, everyone must be given the same opportunity to contribute or criticize. Not all meaningful interactions revolve around group tasks: positive interactions can also include discussion outside group work. For instance, discussing juice preferences while taking a break can help create a safe and warm atmosphere among students, crucial in fostering meaningful on-task interactions. However, meaningful interactions should not form the focus of group meetings. They must be balanced by individual accountability: every interaction should maximize the completion of group tasks and ensure that everyone is doing their fair share of the work. The fifth principle of creative collaborative in group environments is group processing, which refers to the process of group members setting aside time to convene and discuss personal and collective attitudes, progress, and challenges (Zambrano et al., 2019). Reflection is a growing trend in education and group environments; the aim is to focus on those personal or group features that are often ignored or neglected by may be hindering or facilitating creativity.
Group processing should focus on bolstering personal accountability and group harmony by highlighting those areas that are going well and those that need to be improved even further. Reviewing how well each group me...