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Group Creativity

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Mathematical Creativity

Part of the book series: Research in Mathematics Education ((RME))

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Abstract

Many of the discourses on creativity, although not explicitly so, assumes that creativity is a solitary activity—a phenomenon that happens within an individual working in isolation away from other people and other resources. But this is not how most people work. In this chapter, I look at creativity as something that can, and does, occur within groups, working collaboratively to solve problems in and among other groups also working to solve the same problem. Using burstiness as a theoretical construct to notice and name group creativity, I look specifically at how the environment can play a role in fostering and sustaining group creativity. Results indicate that one specific environment—the thinking classroom—is particularly well suited for occasioning group creativity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    More details about the methodologies involved and the results can be found in Liljedahl (2020, 2016).

  2. 2.

    Because of failure and acceleration, not all grade 11 students are in a grade 11 mathematics course. Likewise, not all students in a grade 11 mathematics course are grade 11 students.

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Correspondence to Peter Liljedahl .

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Liljedahl, P. (2022). Group Creativity. In: Chamberlin, S.A., Liljedahl, P., Savić, M. (eds) Mathematical Creativity . Research in Mathematics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14474-5_12

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