Collective Creativity: A Characteristic of Professional Communities

The schools which function as professional learning communities have a characteristic that teachers from diverse backgrounds and experiences collaboratively work for maximizing their abilities to create new patterns of learning for themselves and for the students. A reflective dialogue as highlighted by Louis and Kruse (as cited in Hord, 1997), in a school is a form of collaborative creativity where teachers discuss issues regarding the teaching and learning process and seek solutions. Miller (2000) added that the diversity of patterns and ideas relevant to learning in schools encourages openness to experimentation, innovation, and flexibility which teachers need to demonstrate in the teaching and learning process.

In Hargreaves’s (2003) case study, teachers had the diverse backgrounds and experiences.  Many had joined the school from other fields of life namely radio broadcasting, communications consulting, steel work and the automobile industry. Through which, a set of diverse experiences and a strong source of outside learning were brought into teaching.  Hargreaves found that teachers explored that opportunities for taking responsibility, problem solving, decision making and planning were the ways to achieve their personal visions of students-centered teaching and learning process. 

By collective creativity, teachers were enthusiastic while interacting with their colleagues, involving in risk taking tasks and experimentation in teaching to develop a variety of ways to engage students in learning. Many teachers experienced an enhanced professional growth in the school where they internalized new ways of working and thinking. A school that functions as a professional learning community described by Carver (as cited in Goldstein, 2004) as it provides a safe environment for teachers under collective creativity share their practice to their peers and freely discuss issues and concerns, successes and failures.