Backward Instructional Design based Learning Activities to Developing Students’ Creative Thinking with Lateral Thinking Technique

Creative thinking has been considered a vital foundation for students. Owing to existing instructional strategies, students are not well promoted for creative thinking. This study addresses this challenge by proposing an instructional approach that integrates the strengths of backward instructional design and lateral thinking to promote students' creative thinking. A series of learning activities were developed in the context of grade-5 Information Technology subject in Thailand. Each learning activity was designed to develop a major element of creative thinking in an authentic experience. The students were encouraged to think, participate, and interact with different points of view based on either internal or external stimulation. The approach has been tested and improved before the implementation. To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed instruction on developing students' creative thinking, this study conducted a quasi-experimental research method for 12 weeks with 60 fifth graders in a school in Thailand. All students were grouped by cognitive styles and joined in two lateral techniques (30 students with field dependence and 30 students with field independence cognitive style). The results of their creative thinking from TTCT-Figural (Form A) showed that all students have significantly improved their creative thinking after learning with the proposed learning activities. Students with field dependence thinking style improved their scores from 53.83 to 78.77 (t = 15.525, p = 0.000), while those with field independence thinking style improved their scores from 46.93 to 78.13 (t = 14.564, p = 0.000).