COLLABORATORY : characteristics of collaborative creativity

Teaching and learning in working groups is a challenge to both teacher and student. Collaboration is an elusive concept, difficult to teach, impossible to enforce, yet the ability to work in this way is an essential characteristic of any Creative Industries professional. In 2006, a group of creative industries students were charged with the task of collaboratively creating a performance as part of their coursework. This research project closely followed their development as agents of collaborative creativity using an innovative methodology which combined performance and documentary making. The result is COLLABORATORY - a DVD documentary isolating key behaviours and features of collaborative learning: Convergence and divergence of ideas, Characters and behaviours in collaboration, Leadership and facilitation, Motivation and Intersubjectivity. An engaging presentation of theory and practice capturing what Meill and Littleton (2004) call “the emotional dance of collaboration”.