Learning barriers and student creativity in solving math problems

Abstract

Innovation and creativity are essential for all disciplines and learning activities. Creative processes, such as imagination, are a crucial component in understanding the learning experience of mathematics. Approaches in teaching and learning are considered in this study to foster student creativity and innovation in understanding cases of implementing differential equations. The objects of this research were 154 students. Subjects were selected based on barriers to learning and academic achievement. The selected subjects represent the categories of students with very not inhibiting, not inhibit, pretty inhibit, and inhibit. Selected subjects were given two different types of problems (ordinary mathematical problems and word problems). The results showed that the way students work in getting answers to word questions was more varied than routine mathematical problems. Students’ imagination of understanding the questions and answers provides a different perspective. These results conclude that the approach to learning and evaluation using story questions increases students’ mathematical imagination in education.