Collaborative Creativity Idea Book for Educators: Activities, Tactics and Strategies for Building a Collaborative Culture of Creativity

Unlock the creative power of collaborative teams

Imagine telling your group their next task will be building a life-size model of a humpback whale in the foyer. Would they gaze at you with blank stares, or would their eyes light up as they turn to each other to get busy?

Written by a team of five educators, the Collaborative Creativity Idea Book is designed to grow a culture of collaborative creativity in educational and professional environments. This idea book helps educators venture out from Robert Kelly’s seminal Collaborative Creativity: Educating for Creative Development, Innovation and Entrepreneurship to discover a wealth of practical learning activities educators can start using today.

The Collaborative Creativity Idea Book goes beyond team-building exercises and icebreakers to walk you through five stages to establish a culture of collaborative creativity:

• Getting to Know Each Other: build trust and identify strengths among individuals when they first form a group
• Learning to Listen: enhance group interactivity through the development of deep and active listening, allowing ideas to multiply
• The Design Process: prepare as a group to tackle larger-scale initiatives that move into real-world contexts
• Growing the Collaborative Culture of Creativity: establish sophisticated group norms to take on creative-design initiatives of greater complexity
• Collaborative Creativity for Real-World Audiences: tap into the creative power of the group to engage in real-world problems for real-world audiences

Whether as a support for the Collaborative Creativity textbook or as a standalone resource, the Collaborative Creativity Idea Book for Educators empowers groups to exponentially increase their creative potential to accomplish amazing results.

Educator, author, artist, and keynote speaker Robert Kelly is a recognized leader in the fields of collaborative creativity, creative development, design thinking for innovation, and transformational educational practice. He is academic coordinator of the Collaborative Creativity and Design Thinking for Innovation graduate program in the Werklund School of Education, and an associate professor at the University of Calgary. Robert has been an invited visiting scholar and keynote speaker at several postsecondary institutions for his work in the field of collaborative creativity.

Stephanie Bartlett is a PhD student in Educational Research at the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary where she is also a postsecondary instructor at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She has been a co-designer of graduate level courses in education focused on creativity, design thinking and social innovation.

Keith Christensen is K-12 educator known for innovative and inventive educational practice. He is widely recognized as a leader, mentor and primary professional development resource in design thinking and innovation in education.

Erin Quinn is an educator who prioritizes creativity, design thinking, and collaboration in her work and life. She teaches middle school Humanities and Art, and has also taught and co-designed graduate courses in education focused on creativity, design thinking and social innovation.

Carla-Jayne Samuelson is an educator specializing in Drama, Theatre Education and English with a focus on building educational collaborative cultures to enhance school-wide creativity. Carla-Jayne comes from an extensive background in theatre, singing, and songwriting and as co-designer of collaborative creativity learning experiences at the graduate level in education.