How to enchance student creativity at mathematics
Paper

Presenter(s): LOJZKA LUŠIN

According to Bloom’s Taxonomy classification of educational learning objectives, creativity falls into the highest level of complexity. To be more specific, creativity stands as the latest important component amongst higher order learning skills. Developing creativity means to encourage learners to think laterally and make associations between things that are usually not connected. It means encouraging learners to reinterpret and apply their learning in a new context, looking at things from different points of view and experimenting with alternative approaches to solve problems.
Learning mathematics does not solely stand for learning and practicing mathematical skills but can at the same time enhance critical, creative and transfer skills. The listed approaches to learning skills are more crucial for students in the information-driven economy of the 21st century, than only to know and understand arithmetic or algebra.
So how to enhance student creativity in a mathematical classroom? One can work on critical, creative and transfer skills through discipline-related concept-based challenges. Inquiry discipline-related concept-based prompts are prepared in the form of a provocative statement, photo, object, play, script, etc. In order to resolve the inquiry prompt students, need to start exploring by brainstorming and later analyzing own defined statements or questions related with prompt. The newest research done enable students to develop own idea how could the same relationship work or not at all on other examples. In the end, the idea needs to be tested and evaluated. Another path could be to challenge students with mathematical concepts wrapped in real- life situations. This learning process enhances creativity by asking questions, inquiring and analyzing, developing ideas, creating products and evaluating. The difference is that students do receive what is their real-life role (ex. designer, company director, architect, manager, gardener, environmentalist, journalist, etc. ), real-life situation and the problem that need to be resolved. And they are searching for a different, meaningful and innovative solution, products or ideas which when are evaluated do need to make sense for the given real-life context. By following a process, students make adequate progress according to their abilities and needs. In this sense, creativity also naturally leads to differentiation, since students design and create different products on different learning levels. It improves student’s motivation since they have a choice to work with different learning environments, different content, to follow different processes based on their readiness, learning style and interests.