Abstract—Learning creative problem solving (CPS) and programming helps children develop problem solving skills. Although previous research has focused on how to teach problem solving, methods for teaching children how to analyze the gap between ideals and reality remain underexplored. Accordingly, there is a need for current CPS and programming education to improve the ways of teaching skills for analyzing a situation and defining ideals. In this research, 10 cards were developed as a thinking tool for CPS and programming learning. An experiment was conducted in elementary school programming classes, where students used the cards to analyze problems and discuss the gap between ideals and reality. The results of a questionnaire survey revealed an improvement in the students’ attitudes toward focusing on ideals. Therefore, from the viewpoint of clarifying ideals, the thinking material supports the development of CPS abilities. As a future research subject, in order to make it easier for students to analyze the gap between ideals and reality in CPS learning, it will be necessary to develop a thinking tool for the clarification of reality.
Index Terms—Define ideals, creative problem solving, thinking tools, teaching materials, programming education.
The authors are Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, Japan (e-mail: kazuya.takase.0221@gmail.com, yasunaga.taichi@gmail.com, shiota.shingo@shizuoka.ac.jp).
Cite:Kazuya Takase, Taichi Yasunaga, and Shingo Shiota, "Development of Thinking Tools to Foster Creative Problem Solving Skills: A Trial in Programming Education," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 471-475, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).