Implementation of the creativity curriculum for the elementary gifted students

• Main Authors: Hu Tsung Kuang, 胡宗光
• Other Authors: Lu Tai Hwa
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/32977955642645012873

博士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 特殊教育學系 === 102 === The main purposes of these two stage studies were (1) to design creativity teaching materials for the 3rd and 4th grade gifted students according to the first learning stage competence indicators of the newly edited creativity curriculum guidelines for the students with special needs and the first and second stages competence indicators related to the seven learning areas and the important issues of the grade 1 to 9 regular education curriculum; and (2) to experiment the above edited creativity teaching materials to gifted students from other resource room programs. Action research was used in the first stage study and participants were 9 gifted students studying from Hi-Tian elementary school. Data were collected through creativity assessment instruments, observation checklists, interviews, daily research records, curriculum competence indicators checklists and written documents. The second stage study was a quasi-experimental design study. The experimental group with 29 gifted students received creativity teaching materials developed from the first stage study for 16 weeks, whereas the control group of 30 gifted students was still received the original creativity curriculum teachings in their own schools. The pretest-posttest of creativity assessment instruments, competence indicators checklists, observation checklists and interviews were conducted to explore the effects of the curriculum teaching materials. The main findings of the whole research were as the following. 1. Creativity teaching materials should be edited based on the needs of gifted students and the 4P creativity principles. The editing process should be firstly selecting the competence indicators from creativity curriculum guidelines for the students with special needs. And then combining the competence indicators with interesting topic units and integrated with the competence indicators from related learning areas or important issues of the grade 1-9 regular education curriculum. After that, the researcher transformed the above competence indicators into unit objectives by means of " substitution", "decomposition", "combination" and "focusing". Each unit included " knowing the task"," confirming the task", "developing and selecting innovative ideas", "modifying the ideas", "putting the ideas into practice" and "executing the task" sequentially. 2. The usage of the competence indicators should be based on the indicators students had learned and then added in new indicators systematically. The competence indicators could be be strengthened by means of practices and reviews. 3. The gifted students should be provided with creative examples and daily lives tasks , and their executive ability needed to be developed through teachers' assistance and urge. 4.The gifted students showed desirable creative behaviors such as interesting in learning, engaging the creative activities, collecting information, discussing with others, cooperating with others, using previous knowledge, modifying the work according to the suggestions from the teachers and classmates, learning certain knowledge, knowing how to do work, and thinking more deeply. 5.The creativity teaching materials were modifyed and adapted in teaching contents, aids, advanced organizers, the level of teacher's intervention and sequences of activities. Moreover, each unit added to 8 lessons and some columns to present the competence indicators and the results of transformation. 6. Through action research, the co-workers had more confidence not only in transforming the competence indicators but also in designing and implementing the creativity teaching materials. They could connect teaching materials with student’s individualized guidance plan and were willing to establish creative environment as well. The researcher was more capable and had more energy to adapt and edit creative teaching materials flexibly. 7.The gifted students in the action research improved significantly in fluency, flexibility , originality, elaboration and imagination of creative thinking and achieved competence indicators well. They were more highly satisfied with the hands-on units. 8.The experiment group 's fluency, originality, flexibility and elaboration of creative thinking both in verbal and figural versions, and the imagination and complexity of divergent thinking were higher than the control group. However, there were no significant differences found between the two group in risk-taking and curiosity of divergent thinking. 9.The experiment group achieved the competence indicators well and stably. However, creative writing needed more time to improve step by step. The 3rd and 4th grade gifted students both showed excellent performances in competence indicators related to curiosity and fluency, and the 3rd graders achieved more competence indicators than the 4th graders. 10.The 3rd grade gifted students' abilities to bear and deal with pressure increased. They were more willing to commit themselves to the tasks, cooperate with others, and actively perform in various ways. When giving comments to others, they not only criticized others, but also tried to give positive suggestions with clear expression. 11.The 4th grade gifted students were able to engage in each task. Moreover, their will to face challenges was enhanced and their thought became more diverse. Furthermore, they could apply the creative thinking skills learned to other teaching activities. 12.The results of both action and quasi-experimental research indicated that creativity curriculum should be designed according to gifted student's individulized guidance plan. The framework should firstly choose related competence indicators for deciding the topics and transforming the unit objectives. Then, teaching activities and procedures, resources and time, classroom management and assessment methods should all be infused into the units. According to the above findings, the researcher made some suggestions for the development and implementation of creativity curriculum and instructions in the future.