Specialty Groups and Creativity in Groups: A Comprehensive Overview

1. Chapter 9 Specialty Groups and Creativity in Groups Prepared by: Nathaniel N. Ivers, Wake Forest University

2. Roadmap • What specialty groups are • Different types of specialty groups • What creativity is in a group setting • Six Hat’s Approach • SCAMPER Model • Zig Zag Idea • Creative Exercises in Different Group Stages

3. Specialty Groups • Groups that focus on one particular population or problem, such as: • Military veterans • New mothers • Addiction • Require a great deal of knowledge and expertise from their leaders

4. Examples of Specialty Groups • Groups for Health Care Providers and Health Care Consumers • Groups for Military Personnel and Their Families • New Mothers’ Groups • Involuntary and Mandated Groups • Anger and Aggression Management Groups • Cancer Support Groups • Telephone Groups

5. Examples of Specialty Groups • Online Groups • Trauma Stress Groups • Disabled Persons Groups • Adventure Groups • Prevention Groups • Groups for Depression • Achievement Groups

6. Creativity in Groups • Creativity: • The ability to produce new and useful thoughts, behaviors, and feelings in a socially appropriate context (Csikszentmihalyi, 2013) • In group work, there is no recipe or formula. • Groups that work well depend on collaboration and the innovation that spawns from it.

7. Six Hats Approach to Creativity • Problems, difficulties, challenges, etc. ought to be broken down into six hats (six ways of thinking) • Each hat is color coded and is employed before a decision is made as to what to do. • In ordinary, unstructured thinking, the process is unfocused. • The six hats thinking process attempts to introduce parallel thinking, as opposed to spaghetti thinking (DeBono, 1999).

8. Six Hats • White hat: Information • Red hat: Emotions • Black hat: Negative points of an idea highlighted • Yellow hat: Good points of an idea highlighted • Green hat: Potential growth of a particular idea • Blue hat: Thinking about thinking – Organizing hat.

9. SCAMPER Model of Creativity • S – What can be substituted for what has been • C –What can be combined, such as ideas • A – What can be adapted or adopted • M – What can be modified • P – What can be “put to other uses” • E – What can be eliminated • R –What can be reversed or rearranged (Eberle, 1971)

10. Zig Zag Model of Creativity • Sawyer, the author of the zig zag model, believes the creativity process is a nonlinear set of behaviors that can be learned • Sawyer developed an eight-step process

11. Creative Exercises for Different Stages • Forming • Storming • Norming • Performing • Adjourning

12. Creative Exercises: Forming • Music Openings • Poems as a Group Catalyst • Train Station • Passive-Active

13. Creative Exercises: Storming • Circles • Home Spot • Hamlet’s Dilemma

14. Creative Exercises: Norming • Group Mural • Clay Pieces

15. Creative Exercises: Performing • Locomotion • Adverbs • Areas • Common Objects • Acting “As If” • Skits • Role-Plays

16. Creative Exercises: Adjourning • Music Good-bye • Saying “Good-bye” • Balloons • Rainbow • Closing Poems