Browsing by Author "Kumpulainen, Petra"

This study analysed the organisation and characteristics of children's creative collaboration. In the study, the organisation of creative collaboration refers to children's initiatives, responses and reciprocal initiative–response sequences that affected the progression of children's creative collaboration. The characteristics refer to the content of children's creative collaboration. The study draws on sociocultural theory, which perceives creativity as a collective phenomenon with a dynamic relation to its social, physical, historical, and cultural world. This study views creative collaboration as a process that enables children's adult- and environment-supported collaborative learning. The research data were generated as a part of a museum project involving 19 preschool-aged children. The project sought to support children's creativity, joint action and collaborative learning. During the project, children worked individually, in small groups, and as a whole group. Videotaped and photographed small group activities, in which each small group designed and created miniature museums, were selected for the analysis. The video data were analysed to identify the initiatives, responses, and characteristics of creative collaboration. The results are in line with the findings from previous research suggesting that children's initiatives and their responses to these initiatives form a strong foundation for creative collaboration, such as shared idea construction, fictional narrative creation, and non-fictional conversation or chitchat. The study provides specific information about preschool-aged children's creative collaboration and indicates that working in small groups and with different projects provides important opportunities for children to be creative while interacting with each other. By applying these results into their teaching practices, early childhood educators are able to more effectively support children's creative collaboration.