Creative Learning and Innovative Teaching

The importance of creative learning and innovative teaching has been discussed in many policies, researches, and education institutions in various country. The government works with many educators together, such as lecturers, students, teachers, researchers in order to foster the quality of education by applying creative learning and innovative teaching in their curricula, materials, schools and its classes. A study mixed methods from various sources, such as literature review, workshop, analysis of curricula, teachers survey, educational stakeholder interview and cases study have been done to provide a better understanding of what aspects are dealt to enhance creative learning and innovative teaching. This essay will elaborate the major areas where effort and improvement is needed to enable more creative learning and innovative teaching.

First of all, the prominent aspect is curricula. Scheme of cognitive chain and creative potential development can be designed in school curricula or learning objective. In addition, curricula can facilitate a product of thinking skill of creativity. For instance, creative thinking or creative problem solving. In brief, it is seen as an integral part of the learning process to help students to be successful learners, creative citizens and innovative contributors.

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Section 2: Fun Class Game

Here are simple class game to overcome boredom:

Factor It In

Formation: Students divided in 4 groups and each group is sent to a corner of the

room.

Equipment needed: 4 pieces of scrap paper labelled 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Directions:

1. Teacher labels each corner of the room with one of the pieces of scrap paper.

2. Teacher calls out a number that is a multiple of 2, 3, 4, and 5.

3. Students in a corner that is a factor of that number will move to another

corner.

4. Movements include:

àJumping, Skipping, Walking, Hopping on one foot, Marching

5. Example- If teacher calls out 6, students in corners labelled 2 and 3 will move

to another corner.

Variations:

1. Have students move to a corner labelled with a factor of the number called. If

a prime number is called, have students move to center of the room.

Two-Dice Sums

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Section 1: Boredom is the bridge to be happy in learning mathematics

How to overcome boredom in learning mathematics and make it more fun, interesting and challenging.

Boredom is a complex case and problem today. There are many reasons that support to be bored. The most common one is that you have no idea what to do. The Other reasons because you feel lazy, tired or just don't want to do the things that are available for you to do. Maybe you have ideas about somethings but you guess that you can't do the things you want to do. Boredom becomes a great concern when it results in procrastination, indecision and feeling listless and jaded.

Yesterday, I was teaching mathematics for 2nd level of Junior High School student. “Oooo, what will we learn today?”, I shouted. “How about multiplying exponentials?”, They answered. “Ok, let’s start with that”. I began with multiplying exponential. I asked, ”do you understand with this material, Multiplying exponentials?”. And then he said “emm...... just a little bit”. Maybe for them, this materials is very difficult. “Why?”, I said. Then he answered “I’m still confuse, it’s so complicated to understand, then I’m bored, sir”. It was probably difficult to understand for students because of boredom especially.”.

From the above case study, we concluded that if the methods using in a learning process are not adaptive, suitable, and also appropriate to learning target, then boredom would be dominated inside.

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Brief Concept of Worked Example

Presenting examples of both correctly and incorrectly worker solution is a practical classroom strategy that helps students counters misconceptions about algebra.

When we study Algebra, We exactly find some equation. There are many problems when we solve the equation. If we don’t help the student, they will becomes confuse and make some misconceptions.

Many misconceptions that prohibit students from developing a deeper understanding of algebra.

For students to be successful in algebra, they must have a truly conceptual understanding of key algebraic features as well as the procedural skills to complete a problem. One strategy to correct students’ misconceptions combines the use of worked example problems in the classroom with student self-explanation. Self-explanation is the “activity of generating explanations to oneself” (Chi 2000, p. 164)

A tip to solve misconceptions problem is worker example problem. A worked example problem, to be differentiated from working an example problem, shows students an already completed problem and directs their attention to certain steps of the task as the focus of questioning.  The important thing in this tip is Self-Explanation. It encourages students to identify the reasoning behind the steps that they see carried out and to explain why these steps were completed.

There are some kinds of worker example problem.

A unique and powerful aspect of using worked examples in the classroom occurs with the inclusion of examples of both correct and incorrect solutions

LINKING TO THE COMMON CORE

Solving equations is a key in algebra, And this content area under the following two standards:

1. Explain each step in solving a simple equation as following from the equality of numbers asserted at the previous step, starting from the assumption that the original equation has a solution. Construct a viable argument to justify a solution method.

2. Solve simple rational and radical equations in one variable, and give examples showing how extraneous solutions may arise.

USING EXAMPLES IN A COMPUTER-BASED ACTIVITY

Correct and incorrect examples have been used successfully in a classroom setting through a computer program. For example,

The answer turns green if the student responds correctly. If the student answers incorrectly, the answer turns red, and a pop-up box appears with a suggestion to review certain aspects of the problem.

USING EXAMPLES IN A TRADITIONAL CLASSROOM

Example in a traditional classroom is student homework. Even without  computer-based system, students displayed better conceptual understanding after completing assignments that included analyzing correctly worked and incorrectly worked examples.

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