EVALUATING THE APPROPRIATENESS OF TASKS AND THE ELABORATION OF MULTIPLE SOLUTIONS TO OCCASION FOURTH-GRADERS’ MATHEMATICAL CREATIVE THINKING

Abstract

Creativity is not only for gifted students, but also for regular ones. This case study was aimed to analyze the appropriateness of tasks and the elaboration of multiple solutions to occasion fourth-graders’ mathematical creative thinking through a documentary multiple-solution counting task in a figurative setting. The data came from the written report of 48 fourth graders in two classes in Taiwan, China. The appropriateness of creativity was reflected in the appropriateness of tasks and solutions, particularly suitable for complex problem solving. Elaboration was detail-dependent, and visualization was beneficial to the analysis of elaboration. The regular students who had just entered the fourth grade could show their creative thinking through different angles (horizontally or vertically) and starting points (holistic or partial), but with slightly more partial and horizontal than holistic and longitudinal, more adaptation than transformation. These fourth-grade students have had the basic mathematical creative thinking capability of adaptation, combination, change, rearrangement, extension or going back by using counting, combining, adding and reducing, overlapping, moving, and diagonal division strategies. Keywords: creative thinking, mathematical creativity, multiple-solution task, primary school students