Students’ Creative Thinking Process in Solving Ill-Structured Problem at Eight Grade Students with High Ability

Abstract

Creativity and problem solving are important skills in facing 21st century, but students’ creativity in solving mathematics problem is various. Therefore, to improve students’ creative thinking, teacher have to know their creative thinking process. The purpose of this research is to describe the students’ creative thinking process in solving ill-structured problem at high-ability students. The research type is descriptive with qualitative approach. The subjects of this study were two high-ability students. Result of the research showed that in the preparation stage, high-ability students understand the problem well and collected the datas and informations known from the problems. In the incubation stage, they were silent for a moment; reread the information obtained from preparation stage; made an illustration from the problem; and recalled ideas from their prior knowledge. In the illumination stage, high ability students found another idea by analyze the previous idea, planned the problem solving carefully; connected mathematic ideas to the reality; and continued solve the problems use the idea obtained from the previous stage. In the verification stage, high-ability students rechecked the calculation; verified the ideas; and revised the invalid ideas.