Research Group Dynamics with Critical Collaborative Creativity
Tetsuya Fukuda
Tim Murphey
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Abstract
Researching alone can be a lonely journey hampered by limited resources and interactions, and thus many researchers turn to collaboration. But researching in groups can also become a journey impeded by false starts, roadblocks, disagreements, and uncoordinated follow-ups in the many messy stages of researching, writing, and submitting. However, when a group aligns itself with critical collaborative creativity, positive group dynamics can emerge with researchers saying what they truly believe without fear and the whole group benefiting from the critical perspectives that in other situations might not have been voiced. Such teams can be described as socially adaptive and critically creative, using such dialectic goal-directed processes as brainstorming, improvising, languaging, and playing. So, what is critical collaborative creativity more precisely? CRITICAL highlights two characteristics of our working group. One is that we are always questioning things, the dogma in the world, and the growing dogma within each of us as to how things " have to be. " The second is that we are continuously searching for the " critical " elements that help make education work. We think we have identified several critical elements for learning that lead our students toward effective, motivated learning. COLLABORATIVE highlights not only our mutually directed effort toward group goals but the socialization that we believe makes learning environments so much more productive. We collaborate with our students as well as with each other and the wider academic community. CREATIVITY comes from the freedom to play and explore, and it tends to happen in groups when the critical and collaborative are well established. If we feel like we belong to a group that accepts us and can collaborate enthusiastically, we are not afraid of being critical and questioning things, and then new, creative ideas and insights tend to emerge. The diversity of our lives also adds to the mix of ideas that bubble up from our discussions and rants. Note also that while our group seems to be working well, there are times when it does not work well, and we have our ups and downs. We hope that in describing what works for our team, we might help other groups develop more productively. Critically, collaboratively, and creatively putting these three elements together illustrates the concept itself and opens our minds towards other possibilities. Words and the meanings we give them can guide us toward deeper and more ecological understandings of our working and learning lives. Critical collaborative creativity gives groups the imaginative resources, alternatives, and insightful discoveries that together inspire more research than when individuals are isolated. Important for attaining these pivotal moments is that all of us do our own things for a while, and then come back and share and teach each other new things, and see how our evolving ideas might fit together. We are each a major part of each other's continuing education. We also see our own students as part of our extended research group, so we listen to our students seriously and involve them in our research efforts to help them learn better and teach us better. Our collaborative projects eventually developed into papers in domestic and international vetted journals, and into book chapters with international publishers (see our publications at http://www3.hp-ez.com/hp/englisheducation/). In this paper we focus on the back-stories, narrating the other processes of critical collaborative creativity that we are so fortunate to have slowly emerging, and at times springing forth, from healthy group dynamics. We hope that our examples will encourage others to likewise experience prosperous researching in diverse groups.
