Collaborative Creativity: Learning and Teaching Towards Generative Justice

1. Collaborative Creativity: Learning and Teaching Towards Generative Justice Florence R. Sullivan, UMass, Amherst & Roberto GonçalvesBarbosa, University of Londrina Londrina, Brazil

2. Traditional Education and Conformity • Dewey • Transmission model of learning • Curricular imposition (knowledge of past) • Docility, receptivity, and obedience • Conformity not creativity • Freire • Banking (transmission) model of learning • Ideological imposition (teacher as knower) • School as Cultural Invasion • Domination • Reproduction of the social order

3. Alternative Views of Education Dewey: Progressive Education and Freedom • Interest and experience (knowledge creation) • Role of the peer community • Self regulation through social norms Freire: Education for Liberation/Emancipation • Conscientization • Critical analysis and experience (student as knower) • Critical Consciousness • Personal and cultural transformation • Creativity not conformity

4. Role of Technology in Education • Technology as a tool of domination • Standards movement (e.g., PARCC) • Conformity • Reproduction of Ideas • Curricular/Ideological imposition • Technology as a tool for liberation/creativity • Production-oriented media • Interest • Student as knower • Generation of ideas • Potential for criticality

5. Computational Media and Progressive Education • Open-ended or Scaffolded Challenges • Generation of Ideas • Problem solving • Collaborative Creativity • Transformation of problem • Collaborative discussion • Student as Producer of Knowledge • Student empowerment

6. Creativity as Dialogic Inquiry • Bakhtin • Language as creativity • Dialogism – Heteroglossia and multivocality • Authoritative vs. Internally persuasive discourses • Ideological becoming • Contact with/generation of ideas (ideology as a system of ideas) • Learning as the generation of meaning, learning as a creative act, itself (Bakhtin, 1981). • Transmission models of learning are more reliant on authoritative discourses

7. Our Research Findings (thus far) • Focus on Collaborative Creativity • Role of Multivocality in creative solutions • Play as a mode of inquiry when creativity is a goal • Environment that allows for play • Importance of bricolage/items at hand to creativity • Expanded definition of tools, freedom to select • Modeling of inquiry techniques • Teacher as consulting team member • Joint construction of understanding through discussion and activity • Collaborative interactions

8. Research Findingscontinued • Focus on Opportunities to Learn • Role of Playful Talk • Identity exploration • Roboticist • Competent Builder • Robotics/Legos as a Girls’ Activity • Regulating the functioning of the group • Disrupting dominating behavior • Creating solidarity • Working together

9. Future Research Directions • Service Learning Course • After school program – Holyoke, MA • Computational media lab • Developing, Implementing and Studying a Critical Computing Curriculum • Importance of community in developing curriculum • Importance of student voice in creation of knowledge