Recent progress, opportunities and challenges in collaborative learning and orchestrating creativity

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 analyzing and understanding of creative and collaborative processes and their contextual
adaption. Therefore, 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: general pedagogical bases, teachers’ preand real-time activities as well as opportunities and challenges for teacher activities. The review is
concluded with theoretical and practical implications regarding collaborative learning and creativity.

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WSN 9 (2015) 124-143