TEXT TASKS – PREREQUISITE FOR DEVELOPMENT OF CREATIVE THINKING IN STUDENTS FROM GRADES 1-4

Abstract

Introduction: Creative work with text tasks helps to improve the educational process in mathematics for Grades 1-4, to create opportunities for developing education, to provoke the cognitive activity of the students and to develop their thinking. 
 Object: The object of this research work is to study certain tendencies for creative work with text tasks and to develop their respective methodology options for work in the education of mathematics for Grades 1-4.
 This research work presents some theoretical concepts related to: text tasks; the stages for their solving, some of the tendencies for creative work with them; and the problem-productive strategy for education in mathematics in the primary school. 
 Methods: The experimental work includes qualitative and quantitative research of the problems specified in the above paragraph. The following methods were applied: didactical experiment, observation, test, content analysis, mathematical-statistical method for data processing.
 Results: As a result of the experimental work it was found out that the percentage of the students from Grade 4 who failed to solve the text tasks with direct and indirect use of relations decreased from 31.2 % to 8.5 %. The percentage of the students who failed to describe situations from their surrounding environment using a mathematical model decreased from 45.3 % to 10.1 %. The percentage of the students who correctly composed text tasks increased from 29.5% to 71.6%. The difference in the results was proven to be statistically significant.
 Conclusion: The applied methodology system of work with text tasks helped to develop knowledge, skills and competencies from a competency cluster “Numbers” and “Modelling”, and to develop creative thinking in the students from Grades 1-4.