Theoretical and pedagogical perspectives on orchestrating creativity and collaborative learning

Abstract

The role of teacher is increasingly related to designing and arranging collaborative learning situations in which fruitful and creative group work may occur. This thematic review presents recent studies on creativity and collaborative learning from the perspective of the teacher as conductor of learning processes. The precondition for the design and orchestration of these kinds of learning situations is analysing and understanding of creative and collaborative processes and their contextual adaption. Thus, the first section of this review focuses on the theoretical vantage points of creativity and collaborative learning mainly from socio-cultural perspective. Based on this theoretical grounding, the second section describes principles for orchestrating productive collaborative learning and supporting creativity from the teacher's perspective. We discuss three dimensions related to how teachers can bring about collaborative learning and creativity: (1) general pedagogical bases, (2) teachers' pre-and real-time activities and (3) opportunities and challenges for teacher activities. The review is concluded with theoretical and practical implications regarding collaborative learning and creativity.

Challenge of supporting vocational learning: Empowering collaboration in a scripted 3D game – How does teachers’ real-time orchestration make a difference?

“…The learners, for one, are given enough degrees of freedom to construct shared knowledge. The collaborative learning situation thus challenges the teacher to simultaneously design, monitor, and support the group learning processes based on situational needs (Hämäläinen & Vähäsantanen 2011). This study supplements research on collaboration scripts by teachers and timely support, and focuses on flexible approaches to orchestrate learning in future TEL spaces (e.g.…”

Collaborative 3D learning games for future learning: teachers’ instructional practices to enhance shared knowledge construction among students

“…In this study, the role of the teacher was to collaborate with students during the game play. In practice, this meant that the teacher did not only guide and facilitate but also participate by joining the students shared knowledge construction (see Hämäläinen & Vähäsantanen, 2011). In Condition 1 of the present study, the students and the teacher thus worked together to identify problems and methods of finding solutions (Sawyer, 2004).…”

“…Third, as the question itself did not provide enough support to solve a problem the teacher provided knowledge that this was a challenging part of the task, but did not offer a ready-made solution [3]. Fourth, after some time, the teacher used his own experience to explain the problem as grounds for the group to This empirical example illustrates the teacher's ability to apply learning methods that require students to formulate hypothesis, interpret context, provide explanations, and describe observations (Hämäläinen & Vähäsantanen 2011). As we can see, the teacher's instructional activities were grounded by intention to facilitate, channel, and monitor shared knowledge construction while he left the responsibility of solving the task to the students.…”

“…Moreover, the reaction of students in the teacher's real-life based scenario [6] indicates an emotionally safe atmosphere of knowledge construction (see Eteläpelto & Lahti 2008). Thus, the teacher's role as a fellow collaborator was to activate productive knowledge construction processes, such as encouraging students to formulate hypotheses, providing explanations, conceptualizing his own experiences, and describing observations (see also Hämäläinen & Vähäsantanen 2011). …”

“…Collaboration in game environments takes place in many ways: by distributing participants' own expertise and thoughts; by following others' actions; by listening to and elaborating on the views of others; and by participating in the shared knowledge construction of different ideas, hypotheses, and conclusions (Hämäläinen & Vähäsantanen, 2011). Recent results on collaborative learning have shown that shared knowledge construction is a challenging and multi-faceted process influenced by several contextual factorsnamely, students' own lives and experiences (Arvaja, 2012).…”