Problem Solving Thinking Research Articles

Jewish Creative Sensibilities: Framing a New Aspiration for Jewish Education

ABSTRACTProponents of building a “creative society” through educational innovation are calling for engaging learners in new modes of collaboration, problem solving, and original thinking. How might the enterprise of Jewish education contribute to this evolution in creative thinking and action? This article explores how “the Jewish sensibilities” can be adapted into a framework infusing Jewish “ways of seeing and being” into a vision of “Jewish education for a creative society.” The proposed conceptual framework aims to spark conversation, experimentation, research, and inquiry within the broader discourse of rethinking the aims of Jewish education for the future.

Examining the relationships between problem-solving and reading comprehension skills

Developing problem-solving thinking became extremely important in a well-functioning school system. It must be an integral part of the educational programme as the development of competence in the training of students with the right skills is possible through the processing of a specific curriculum. The purpose of our present survey was to examine the problem-solving skills of the 1st year students of Sapientia University. In our study, we report on the achievements of humanities and science students in solving complex tasks requiring computational thinking. The result data suggest that there is a close correlation between the level of problem-solving skills and the level of reading comprehension and writing skills. For each task, the number of those who tried to solve the task was high, but much more less could reach from recognising to understand and solve the problem.
 Keywords: Problem-solving, computational thinking, reading comprehension.

Supporting Case-Based Reasoning in Pharmacy Through Case Sequencing

Pharmacists are often required to solve ill-structured problems aimed at achieving optimal health outcomes at the patient, population, and institutional levels. Given the complexity of pharmacists’ clinical decisions, educators are exploring ways to foster complex problem-solving and higher order thinking in the classroom. One emerging strategy includes problem-based learning (PBL), which asks learners to collaboratively solve ill-structured cases that are representative of the types of problems faced by practitioners. Case-based reasoning argues that understanding and interpretation of a case is incremental and dynamic; that is, the lessons learned from one case might change in view of new experiences and across a case-based curriculum. While much of the literature is focused on how learners solve a single problem, it is unclear how learners construct their knowledge across multiple cases presented in PBL. To address this gap, this study focused on learners’ perception of case sequencing and how that design influenced the development of their internal case library. Because we are focused on formative assessment, we used qualitative analysis to understand the nuances of our design and explored its implications for programmatic changes. The feedback from the participants focused on index generation, index prioritization, alignment with prior knowledge, and reflection. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Effects of the group leadership promotion approach on students’ higher order thinking awareness and online interactive behavioral patterns in a blended learning environment

ABSTRACTThe present study aims to incorporate a group leadership promotion approach into collaborative learning tasks in the hope of developing students’ creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, we recruited 59 cross-professional students from a university in northern Taiwan, and divided them into an experimental group (6 sub-groups) and a control group (6 sub-groups). The experimental group students learned with the group leadership promotion approach, while the control group learned with conventional blended learning approach. The results show that the students could better develop their creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking, and learning achievement via the group leadership promotion approach. Lastly, sequential analysis of their behaviors indicated that students’ interaction with group leadership in online collaborative learning can promote many more creative ideas and comments, enhance reaching a consensus and making conclusions, and finally, facilitate completion of the group learning tasks.

Development and Application of Programming Education Model Based on Visual Thinking Strategy for Pre-service Teachers

In the software-oriented society, the importance of computational thinking for problem solving is increasing day by day. In particular, programming is a good way to improve this kind of computational thinking, and beginners are having difficulties in creating and programming procedures for problem solving. In this study, we developed a Thinking-Revise-Encoding-Evaluating (TREE) model based on a visual thinking strategy for pre-service teachers and applied a 15-week curriculum. The results of the study showed that pre-service teachers' SW education perception, block programming ability, computational thinking, and satisfaction were significant.

Educating and Measuring Choice: A Test of the Transfer of Design Thinking in Problem Solving and Learning

Educators aim to equip students with learning strategies they can apply when approaching new problems on their own. Teaching design-thinking strategies may support this goal. A first test would show that the strategies are good for learning and that students spontaneously transfer them beyond classroom instruction. To examine this, we introduce choice-based assessments (CBAs). CBAs measure how people learn when there is minimal guidance and they must make decisions as independent learners. Here, sixth-grade students completed multiple design activities that emphasized either seeking constructive criticism or exploring a space of alternatives. Afterward, they completed the CBAs, which measured strategy transfer. Results showed that lower-achieving students benefitted most from instruction, exhibiting a relative increase in their use of design-thinking strategies. In addition, strategy choices correlated with prior achievement measures and appeared to mediate performance in and learning from the CBAs. The choices to use the two strategies themselves were not correlated, which indicates that they are not subsets of a larger construct, such as growth mindset. In sum, CBAs enabled a double demonstration: design-thinking strategies may improve learning and problem solving, and design-thinking instruction may improve the likelihood of lower-achieving students choosing to use effective strategies in novel settings that require new learning.

A future-focused conception of the New Zealand curriculum: culturally responsive approaches to technology education

New Zealand has had a technology curriculum since the mid 1990s. The curriculum has recently been revised, with a view to foster students’ digital fluency and ability to function in a technologically mediated world. The nature of schools is also changing in New Zealand. Advocated approaches encourage students’ engagement in creative and practical tasks, problem-solving and critical thinking, in relation to a range of global and local issues. This paper reports on qualitative research, to explore how two teachers fostered “future-focused” learning, within an innovative learning environment, at a junior secondary school level. Data were collected through observational and self-report methods. The findings suggest that future-focused approaches to an integrated curriculum are affected by teachers’ collaborative skills and knowledge of culturally responsive, digital, and learner-centred pedagogies.

Formal student thinking in mathematical problem-solving

The purpose of this research is to find out the students’ thinking process in formal cognitive development in solving mathematical problems. The problem solving used in this study uses patterns from the pattern that have been adapting to the habits of students in Indonesia, namely the first stage is known, the second stage is asking, and the third stage is answering. This study was included in a qualitative descriptive study using six junior high school students with formal that were used as research subjects. The research instrument used in this study is Test of Logical Operations and mathematical problem-solving tests. Data analysis techniques are used using Milles, Huberman, and Sandana. From the results and discussion of the research carried out, it can be concluded that students with formal cognitive in the first and second stages tend to think about assimilation and abstraction. While in the third stage, students in formal tend to think about assimilation processes even though there are subjects who do the accommodation thinking process.

Modifikasi Model Pembelajaran Problem Based Learning (PBL) dengan Strategi Pembelajaran Tugas dan Paksa

This writing aims to help teachers to increase motivation, activity, creativity, and critical thinking of students in solving problems in class. The way to increase student motivation in learning in class is to choose the right learning model with ongoing learning material. One learning model that increases students' creativity and critical thinking in problem solving is a Problem Based Learning (PBL) learning model. To improve students' insights in order to easily solve problems there is a need to do tasks, if students do not do the task then they must accept the agreed upon consequences when making learning contracts, thus modifying the Problem Based Learning (PBL) learning model with task strategies and forced. The results of the modification of learning with the Problem Based Learning (PBL) learning model through forced and forced strategies are expected to improve the learning process so that students become more disciplined and do not waste time doing assignments. The advantages of modifying the Problem Based Learning (PBL) learning model with task and forced learning strategies are increasing student learning motivation, improving the quality of learning, training students' understanding by giving assignments continuously, teaching discipline to students in order to be accountable for tasks assigned, and reducing laziness in students.

Characteristic profile of analytical thinking in mathematics problem solving

Analytical thinking is a thinking ability to help individuals in solving problems of mathematics. It is important for understanding the parts of situation, the ability to scrutinize and breakdown facts. However, there is a differentiation or variation in the way to solve these problems. The differentiation or variation is described as the characteristics of analytical thinking. The characteristics consisted of pre-analytical, partial-analytical, semi-analytical, and analytical. This study aims at describing analytical thinking characteristic profile of high school students in problem solving using two dimension materials. This is a qualitative study. The participants of this study are two high ability students at the eleventh grade of Public Senior High School 1 Kedungwaru Tulungagung. Think Aloud Method is applied to collect the data. The findings showed that the high-ability students have pre-analytical thinking characteristic when they are understanding the problems, planning the steps, and checking back the answer, and they have semi-analytical and pre-analytical thinking characteristic when they are implementing the plan. As the conclusion, the high-ability students have two out of four analytical thinking characteristics, namely pre-analytic and semi analytic.

Function of Reflection in Musical Thinking for Problem Solving :

Function of Reflection in Musical Thinking for Problem Solving :

The role of metacognition in teaching clinical reasoning: Theory to practice

The ability to think critically in an uncertain and complex health-care environment is a paramount skill needed for health profession students to transition to clinical practice. Experts and educators in health profession education have unintentionally created confusion regarding operationalizing critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and clinical decision-making. In the purest form, health profession educators are referencing the cognitive abilities of a clinician to transfer thinking skills from an academic to a clinical setting. The problem with teaching clinical reasoning in health professions is that the ability to transfer knowledge and skill to patient care is often inefficient. Metacognitive awareness provides a theoretical and practical construct to make previously unconscious cognitive processes overt. The benefit of integrating and scaffolding pedagogical practices to emphasize explicit student knowledge and regulation of cognition may benefit health profession educators in teaching future clinicians how to handle cognitively complex problems. Making clinical reasoning overt through metacognitive awareness provides health profession educators a framework which helps to teach and assess cognitive strategies associated with clinical reasoning. Metacognitive awareness operationalizes a complex construct to allow a definitive way for health profession educators to instruct the cognitive system, resulting in enhanced clinical reasoning. Learning the components of metacognitive awareness is essential to a solid foundation for students and faculty. As students receive further instruction and feedback on cognitive strategies, the potential exists to improve metacognitive judgments. Case-based learning, simulated and standardized patient interactions, and experiential learning all provide pedagogical tools to promote metacognitive awareness in health profession students. Through serial assessment of metacognitive awareness, health profession educators may also gain valuable insight into how students develop cognitive strategies for future clinical reasoning. The increased ability to plan and evaluate cognitive processes may aid health profession students and educators in attaining more meaningful thinking for complex problem-solving in clinical practice.

Let’s Code: A Kid-friendly Interactive Application Designed to Teach Arabic-speaking Children Text-based Programming

Programming is the cornerstone for the development of all of the technologies we encounter in our daily lives. It also plays an important role in enhancing creativity, problem-solving, and logical thinking. Due to the importance of programming in combination with the shortage of Arabic content that aims to teach children programming, we decided to develop Let’s Code, an interactive mobile-based application designed for Arabic-speaking children from 8 to 12 years old. The application focuses on the basics of programming such as data types, variables, and control structures using the Python programming language through a simple, attractive, and age-appropriate design. The application presents its users with an interesting storyline that involves a trip to space with “Labeeb”, a robot character designed to explain programming concepts to the child throughout the trip. Each planet represents a level in the application and introduces a programming concept through a set of lessons and exercises. The application can be used by educational institutions and parents to teach programming and will provide an opportunity through which Arabic-speaking children can keep up with the development and dissemination of technology.

The Impact of the Content of the Science for the First Stage for Development of the Curriculum and its Effects on the Mental and Emotional Aspects of the Students

The paper aimed to analyze the content of the science book for the first stage of middle school based on standards of (STEAM). In order to achieve this objective, The researcher reviewed the studies that dealt with STEAM standards and prepared a list of STEAM standards, consisting of (5) fields and (50) standards, and presented them to a group of experts and specialists in teaching science and quality of education to express their opinions and observations. Consequently, the elements on the STEAM Standards List have been modified slightly. The analytical descriptive approach was used as a tool to analyze the content of the science book in light of STEAM standards. The study achieved the achievement of the STEAM standards in the content of the science book for the first middle in a very low percentage which was almost negligible. Results indicate that the STEAM standards should be included in the content of the first-middle science book for its integration of science, design, innovation, ability to work, and the generation of a generation capable of choosing the job that suits it in the future. STEAM provides meaningful learning experiences by linking education With daily life and the development of skills Meh labor market, such as the skill of problem-solving and critical thinking

Trends in smartphone-supported medical education: A review of journal publications from 2007 to 2016

Issues relevant to smartphone-supported mobile learning have been extensively discussed and investigated over the past years. Unlike general mobile devices, the advantages of smartphones, such as recording learning and portability, can cross formal and informal education. Smartphones can promote communication between health professionals; however, there is still a lack of systematic analysis of the application and development trends of smartphone use in medical education. The present study systematically reviewed research articles published in international academic journals from 2007 to 2016, analyzed the application domains, subjects, and adopted learning strategies, and investigated the research issues of smartphone-supported medical education. The findings revealed that the application of smartphones in medical education and training has not gained much popularity over the past years. In addition to the changes in the software technology in smartphones and the rising number of studies on mobile learning in medical education, research issues have become increasingly diverse in recent years. Smartphone-supported learning has mainly been implemented to develop basic concepts of biomedical information and in information technology environments; moreover, applying smartphones in medical education did not extensively adopt such learning strategies as inquiry-based learning, contextual mobile learning, mindtools, game-based learning, or synchronous sharing. This indicates that most of the studies adopting smartphones focused on skills training and basic knowledge acquisition rather than on the development of learners’ higher-order thinking, for example, problem solving or critical thinking. On the other hand, it was found that the number of experimental studies related to smartphones has increased recently. The majority of research adopted questionnaire surveys and reported learners’ cognitive performances and concepts, while learning behaviors were seldom analyzed. Therefore, this study indicates the research trends and potential research issues of integrating smartphones into medical education, and provides suggestions and references for researchers, medical teachers, and decision-makers.

Thinking through the non-native language

Extending Vygotsky's theory and research to non-native language speakers, the literature available to date has provided inconclusive findings on whether L2 speakers use the non-native language to mediate thinking in problem solving. Avoiding limitations in previous studies, the present study investigated private speech produced by non-native speakers with the objective of discovering whether the non-native language can be effectively used as a medium for thinking just as the L1. Non-technical highly challenging multi-level problem-solving activity was utilized to collect private speech from four native speakers and seven L2 speakers of English. Data analysis focused on examining the characteristics of private speech in order to assess cognitive mediation in the L2. The results provided strong evidence that proficient speakers - with extensive formal and informal language acquisition experiences - used the non-native language to mediate their thinking and, unlike in previous research, there was no reversion to the L1.

AN INVESTIGATION OF PRESERVICE TEACHERS’ LIFE SKILLS IN TERMS OF VARIOUS VARIABLES

This study aims to investigate whether preservice teachers’ opinion about perspectives on life skills vary by gender, undergraduate program and grade level. It is a survey study. A total of 460preservice teachers from the preschool education and classroom education departments of the Educational Faculty of Afyon Kocatepe University constituted the participants. The Life Skills Scale developed by Bolat and Balaman (2017) was used to collect the data. The scale consists of 30 five-point Likert-type items. The scale has five dimensions: coping with stress and emotions, showing empathy and self-awareness, decision making and problem solving, creative and critical thinking, and communication and interpersonal relationships. Bolat and Balaman (2017) found a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .90 for the scale. This study also found a Cronbach's alpha internal consistency of .90 for its sample. The data were analyzed using SPSS software. The one-group Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to analyze the distribution of the data, and the coefficients of skewness were examined. Since the dataset had a normal distribution, parametric tests were used. The unpaired t-test was used to determine whether the preservice teachers’ perspectives on life skills vary by gender and undergraduate program. The one-way ANOVA test was used to determine whether their perspectives on life skills vary by grade level. The preservice teachers thought that they had the most creative and critical thinking skills. Compared to their male counterparts, the female preservice teachers had more positive perspectives about showing empathy and self-awareness. The preservice teachers’ ability to cope with stress and emotions decrease as their grade level increases. Article visualizations:

Themes of Reflective Thinking as a Predictor of Physical Education and Sport Pre-Service Teachers’ the Entrepreneurial Characteristics

Today, entrepreneurship has gained great importance, especially with the transition from industrial society to information society. Therefore, in order to ensure economic and social development of societies, entrepreneurship must comprehensively be supported, encouraged and entrepreneurship education has to be provided. Many similar qualities and skills among individuals having reflective thinking abilities and entrepreneurial individuals arise when reflective thinking, one of the higher-level thinking skills, is defined as the cognitive inquiry that will lead the individual to produce new knowledge and develop alternative ways. The purpose of this research is to identify whether physical education and sports teachers' reflective thinking themes predict entrepreneurial characteristics. Research is designed in accordance with the relational screening model. Semerci (2007), “Reflective Thinking Tendency Scale” and Yilmaz and Sunbul (2009), “Entrepreneurship Scale for University Students” were used as data collection tool. Multilevel regression analysis was benefitted in the analyze of the data. As a result of this research, it is determined that effective and interrogated teaching sub-dimension was the most independent variable contributing to the entrepreneurial characteristics of physical education and sports pre-service teachers and this was followed by continuous and intentional thinking, responsibility of teaching and science and looking professional sub-dimensions. It has also been determined that sub-dimensions such as open-mindedness, foresighted and sincere and researcher do not make a meaningful contribution to the prediction of entrepreneurial characteristics. Based on these results, it can be said that a pre-service teacher with high entrepreneurial characteristics will have higher reflective thinking tendencies. Besides, it is also possible to analyze how thinking skills such as critical thinking, creative thinking, problem solving and supra-cognitive thinking predict entrepreneurial characteristics.

PERBEDAAN HASIL KEMAMPUAN BERPIKIR KRITIS DAN BERPIKIR KREATIF SISWA MENGGUNAKAN HANDOUT BERBASIS PEMECAHAN MASALAH

This study aims to determine the effect of problem solving handouts on students critical thinking skills and the effect of problem-solving handouts on the students creative thinking ability and the difference in learning outcomes of the two measured thinking skills after learning using handout-based physics problem solving on static fluid materials. The study population is all students of class XI MIA SMAN 1 Praya Timur with research sample consist of two classes that class XI MIA 1 as critical thinking experiment group and class XI MIA 2 as experiment group of creative thinking. Both samples are taught using handout-based troubleshooting. The instrument used in this study uses critical thinking test and essay of creative thinking. The result of analysis of class XI MIA 1 data obtained pretest average value of 45.1 and posttest of 75.3 so obtained Sig value. (2-tailed) data (0.00) < alfa test (0.05). This result indicates that there is influence of problem solving handout to critical thinking skill of XI MIA class 1. The result of analysis of class XI MIA 2 data obtained pretest value of equal to 35,9 and posttest of 62,4 so obtained by Sig value. (2-tailed) data (0.00) < alfa test (0.05). These results indicate that there is a problem-based handout effect on problem-solving thinking ability of XI MIA class 2 students. The average difference in learning outcomes from both experimental groups of critical thinking and creative thinking suggests that learning using handouts based on problem solving is more appropriate to be used to train students 'critical thinking skills are compared to train students' creative thinking skills.

Ways of using musical knowledge to think about one's piano repertoire learning: three case studies

ABSTRACTInstrumental music practice has been conceived and investigated from the perspective of self-regulated learning (SRL), i.e. how students acquire the tools necessary to take control of their own learning. SRL processes depend on variables such as ways of studying (method), time invested in practice and behavioural and social/cultural factors. Thus, this paper examines ways of thinking throughout the piano repertoire learning of three undergraduate students at different academic levels in a Brazilian academic context. Using a phenomenological approach, four research techniques were employed: a semi-structured interview, observation of the recorded performances, a non-structured interview about the repertoire being prepared, and a recall-stimulated interview to follow the repertoire learning process during an academic semester. The data analysis demonstrated that the degree, nature, and quality of the interaction between each undergraduate student and his respective repertoire learning were distinct and dependent on their personal disposition for coping with his repertoire learning. The nature of this musical thinking was creative or involved learned actions. In this study, the actions were shown to be related to previous experience, including prior academic training. On the other hand, activities that are independent of the students’ academic level seem to result from individual dispositions for solving problems faced during repertoire learning. This result helps argue in favour of the need to promote a student's awareness of the role of activities that promote problem-solving thinking, in combination with learned actions, during the musical practice. Through this combination, students may be able to better prepare their musical repertoire according to principles of excellence in artistic expression.