Provoking Creativity in Groups

When organizing group work in their classes, faculty are often times faced with many difficulties, ranging from lack of student motivation, to procrastination, varying work ethics, and uncertainty of how to fairly assess all the group members and the final product. One of the difficulties reported is also lack of creativity. Numerous studies suggest that creativity is not an innate trait of the genial few, but rather, that training in creativity can hone creative thinking skills in any student.

Dr. Sunwolf generated thirty six techniques that provoke creativity in groups (2002, p.208). Consider using some of them listed below to assist your students with tapping into their own creative potentials (to read all her tips on generating creative opportunities in group work, check out the book, available in Sprague Library):

• Crystal Ball is a technique that will help students envision the future by imagining various possibilities (outcomes, results, situations) for their end goal;
• Reverse Brainstorming requires students to change the usual process of brainstorming by coming up with ideas that would make their problem even worse and then creating a list of ideas for doing just the opposite;
• Role Storming technique will have students experience problems from different points of view as they are brainstorming possible solutions to problems from perspectives of people affected by the problem;
• Six Thinking Hats is a technique in which students visualize themselves wearing different color hats and, depending on the color they are “wearing” at the moment, they focus on new aspects of problems (e.g. white – facts and figures, red – emotional views, black – negative aspects, yellow – positive possibilities, green – creativity and new ideas, blue – control of thinking and focus);
• Buzz Groups technique includes students discussing a specific issue and generating a variety of ideas in small groups which are then analyzed by the whole group;
• Wildest Idea will challenge students’ mind-sets by encouraging them to come up with the wildest ideas, think of possible variations, and then find practical uses for each idea

Sunwolf (2002). Getting to “groupaha!”: Provoking creative processes in task groups. In L.R. Frey, (Ed.), New directions in group communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Pp. 203-217.