Design and validation of a curriculum pattern based on creative thinking skills for elementary students

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Today, creativity and fostering creative people is a very important issue in the education of any society. Creative people are actively able to direct their interests and desires. Creativity is a process whose application in adulthood is conditional on its upbringing in childhood. Accordingly, training creative, innovative and constructive people should start from the first years of their life. What is important in creating something new or new design and in the creative process in general is thinking, because creativity is a kind of intellectual activity. One of the prominent features of human and the basic axis of their life is the power of thought. During their life, human has never been free from thinking, and with the power of correct thinking, they have made decisions and have been able to solve problems and issues and achieve growth and excellence; Therefore, all human success and progress depend on fertile, dynamic and effective thought. Therefore, the present study has tried to investigate different theories related to creative thinking skills as one of the research variables, identify and extract its theoretical, philosophical, social and psychological foundations from different sources and based on it identify different components of creativity that is appropriate for elementary school children and design a creative thinking curriculum model based on the main elements of the curriculum (objectives, content, teaching methods, and evaluation). In addition, in order to validate the designed model, it was provided to curriculum specialists, education psychologists, and educational staff (educators), so that ultimately the designed model would be provided to specialists and educational staff with suggestions and solutions. Methods: This research is applied in terms of purpose. In terms of tools, it is an evaluation and its method is descriptive. The statistical population of the study includes curriculum specialists and education psychologists in public universities of Bandar Abbas, Shiraz and educational psychologists and educators working in primary schools in Bandar Abbas. The sample size was selected using stratified sampling method and a total of 208 people were selected. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire based on the creative thinking skills curriculum. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (Chi-square) were used to analyze the data. Findings: Statistically, there is a difference between the views of the three groups, namely the curriculum group, educational psychologists and educators in the element of objectives, content, teaching methods and curriculum evaluation in relation to the curriculum model based on creative thinking skills for elementary students. Conclusion: The results of the study generally show that based on the designed curriculum model, creative thinking skills based on the three main components of knowledge, attitude and skills for primary school children, revising the usual student education programs and paying more attention to the creative factor is necessary in educational programs. It is suggested that curriculum planners and educators in the elementary school try to exploit the goals mentioned in this model and include them in their current and future plans. Also, the authors of the elementary school textbooks should pay attention to the use and arrangement of the content based on the suggested topics mentioned in the model and use the suggested teaching and evaluation. It is suggested that according to the model designed in the form of four main elements of the curriculum, which include: objectives, content, teaching method and evaluation method, in further research other elements of the curriculum such as teacher role, organizing space and learning environment, time, tools and learning tools, etc. be consdiered. ===================================================================================== COPYRIGHTS ©2021 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers. =====================================================================================

Keywords

• curriculum pattern
• creative thinking
• primary school