Better Together: Fostering Divergent Thinking, Collaborative Play and Creative Production in the Classroom

By Kali Frederick

This year-long study looked at what classroom structures support students' development of creative production skills (bringing unique ideas to fruition). Team teachers, Kali Frederick and Joseph Acker analyzed their team of fifty-four students to understand how students experience a collaborative environment and how they develop creative production skills. We learned that students need to laugh and to play before they can effectively work together. Students were engaged and produced creative work when they collaborated and had time to explore. We found that the foundation of creative production is fostering trust amongst the team of students and that this trust allowed students to work more closely together. When we encouraged (or forced) collaboration, they come up with divergent ideas, which were often the culmination of imaginative brainstorming sessions. In the end, we found that semi-structured work time also was necessary for students to collaborate successfully and experiment with bringing their divergent ideas to fruition.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1490410112
• ISBN13: 9781490410111
• Release Date: June 2013
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.4" x 6.0"