Creativity of Pre-service Teachers in Problem Posing

Abstract

Problem posing and technology are attracting the attention of mathematics educators because of their potential to affect positively many aspects of students' learning. Little research has been done on the relationship between technology and mathematical creativity. The present study investigates this issue in the context of problem posing, in the presence and absence of a strategy for problem posing (the "what-if-not" strategy). Participants were pre-service mathematics teachers. The research was conducted during the academic year 2013-2014. Participants were randomly divided into four groups of 19 to 21 participants and who differed in their use of technology and of the what-if-not strategy. The participants who used technology used the Paper Pools applet. The data was collected from the participants' posing problems on a specific mathematics situation; the Paper Pool situation. The data analysis was done using SPSS 18.0. The research findings indicate that the combination of technology and the what-if-not strategy has a positive and significant effect on the three components of participants' creativity: fluency, flexibility and originality. Separately, both technology and the what-if-not strategy had a positive and significant effect on participants' fluency and flexibility related to problem types, but not related to strategy types. The findings also indicate that the originality of participants who worked without technology but with the what-if-not strategy was significantly lower than that of participants who worked with technology, whether with or without the what-if-not strategy. Thus, results indicated that technology is more effective than the what-if-not strategy in encouraging originality in problem posing. We recommend the use of technology together with the what-if-not strategy to enhance pre-service teachers' mathematical thinking, because this combination makes available for student's learning multiple agencies required for his/her creative acts.

Flexibility Processes of Pre-service Teachers in Problem Solving with Technology

“…On the other hand, the particular processes imply that there is room for the individual student to be different in his or her creativity in mathematical problem solving, which gives more space for creativity. The encouragement of creativity processes could happen when using open-ended problems (Daher & Anabousy, 2018a), as halving-the-rectangle described in the present research.…”

Identifying creative thinking skills in subject matter bio-chemistry

“…"I do the task faster and do more than other children" Fluency indicators in the ability to think creatively are related to the number of ideas or answers produced by students. Fluency in creative thinking can be seen from the number of problems given and given answers to the problem [50][51][52][53][54]; which will later involve students actively to carry out activities to explore problems to develop various problem-solving ideas. That makes this research work with Fluency indicated by the ability to produce a large number of ideas to solve problems smoothly and precisely and find different and extraordinary ideas to solve a problem [55].…”

“…During learning, not all groups are able to provide more than one varied strategy. But this deficiency can be supplemented by group discussions because there is an opportunity for groups with different strategies to express their opinions so that various strategies emerge which can later present a concept in different ways that show student creativity [54][55][56][57][58][59].…”

A Trajectory for Advancing the Meta-Cognitive Solving of Mathematics-Based Programming Problems with Scratch

“…Tools and strategies are suggested as means that empower students in their mathematics problem solving activity. Two such tools and strategies are technology (e.g., [1,2]), especially programming (e.g., [3]), and meta-cognition (e.g., [4][5][6]). For tools and strategies to be effective in processes of teaching and learning, an expert teacher is needed, which indicates the need for prospective teachers' preparation in the utilization of tools and strategies in the classroom processes.…”