Teaching creative thinking in regular science lessons: Potentials and obstacles of three different approaches in an Asian context

Case 1: Making hypotheses

Teacher A was an experienced teacher who had been teaching biology for more than ten years. Before joining this creativity project, he was already keen in engaging students in scientific inquiries, but he only emphasized logical thinking side. In this study, Teacher A deliberately induced two short hypothesis-making exercises into a biology lesson on the unit “The Digestive System”, in a Form 4 class of 47 students of age 15 to 16. Through these exercises, he wished to develop students’ divergent thinking abilities and strengthen their hypothesis-making skill.

In the first exercise, Teacher A raised a question, “Why are some people more resistant to tooth decay?” Students were asked to write down as many as ten possible answers (i.e. hypotheses) in about five to ten minutes. Although most students could provide some reasonable answers (e.g. do not eat any sweets), they failed to provide as many as ten answers. Moreover, most of their answers were similar. For example, a student gave answers like: “do not eat sweets”, “do not eat marshmallows”, “do not eat chocolate”, “do not eat chewing gum”, and so forth. Their answers showed low flexibility in generating ideas from various perspectives. On the whole, Teacher A was not satisifed with the quantity and quality of answers given by his students.

On the next day, Teacher A deliberately used a similar question to assess students’ progress, “How can the rate of tooth decay be increased?” Again, students were required to propose as many as ten possible hypotheses in about five to ten minutes. This time they were able to suggest more answers than before. Many of them could write down ten answers. Their answers demonstrated higher diversity, ranging from unbrushing teeth to having more snacks. Teacher A reported that there was an improvement in student flexibility in generating ideas. He attributed such encouraging progress to the debriefing of the objectives of the activities after the first try-out. Teacher A explained the assessment criteria to the students that one mark would be given for each reasonable hypothesis, and bonus marks would be awarded to novel answers and answers from different perspectives. No similar information was given to students before students’ first hypothesis making exercise.

Apart from these problems, Teacher A reported a number of tensions and dilemmas. First, some students felt confused of the purpose of this activity. A student raised his hand and questioned, “Why are we doing such an exercise? It seems out of the syllabus.” The student made such a comment probably because he knew such kind of tasks would not appear in tests or examinations.

Second, some students did not have enough confidence or they did not understand what teacher requested, especially in the first try-out. They often asked the teacher questions such as “Can I write this?”, or “Is this answer correct?” It appeared that they were not comfortable with open-ended questions. Probably, they assumed there were model answers to the questions, as that in their usual learning.

Third, students’ attitudes towards the creative activities tended to go to two extremes. Five students were interviewed. Two of them said that they liked it very much and wanted to do more of this kind of exercise. They felt that they had progression in suggesting more answers, especially more innovative ones than before. Nonetheless, the other two said that such exercises were a waste of time, as they seemed irrelevant to the syllabus. Their performance was poorer than other classmates, and their improvement between the two exercises was not so obvious. Apparently, the two try-out teachings were not effective to all the students.

Fourth, some of their answers revealed their misconceptions in the topic. For example, a student suggested that drinking pure water could prevent tooth decay. Teacher A criticized that it was not precisely accurate, as water cannot prevent tooth decay unless fluoride is added. He did not accept answers which deviated from scientific facts taught in the science class, even though it was a creative learning activity.

Fifth, there were discrepancies between the behavior of the students and the expectations of the teacher. Teacher A expected his students to propose hypotheses that were meaningful to science investigations and daily-life application. Teacher A complained that some students gave non-serious answers for the first question, e.g. “no teeth”, “artificial teeth”, “eat nothing”, and “too much saliva” (in Cantonese it means talking too much). Similarly, in the second try-out, students gave responses like “eating lemon” (which implies “being rejected by your loved one” in Cantonese). It seemed that some of the students preferred humorous, joke-making answers, whereas Teacher preferred science-related serious answers. However, as the teacher had not fully explained his expectations, obviously there were some communication problems between Teacher A and his students. In reflective discussion, Teacher A reported that he was in a great struggle on whether he should keep an open mind, or to stop students from giving irrelevant or inappropriate answers. In this try-out process, Teacher A did reflect on some questions which he had never thought of before, and demonstrated in-depth reflection through this new attempt.

Case 2: Creative Writing

Having been teaching physics for six years, Teacher B was already a very skilful Physics teacher with high confidence in his teaching. Teacher B had taught the unit “Properties of Light” in Form 3 Physics for several years. He complained that students just tried to memorize some main points and examples in it, instead of really understanding the concepts. Teacher B tried to infuse creative writing activities in this unit in order to enhance more in-depth study of this topic, and, at the same time, fostering student creative thinking.

In one Form 3 Physics lesson, Teacher B asked 30 of his students aged 14 to 15, and of average academic standard, to spend about ten minutes writing a short story starting with “I am a light beam emitted from the sun.” He asked his students to introduce scientific facts into the passage, and to express their imagination in writing. He also informed students that their writings would be assessed, using two criteria. First, marks were given to all correct scientific concepts or knowledge, no matter whether they were related to optics or not. Second, writing with personal analogies would be given additional marks.

In the creative writing, a few students demonstrated higher abilities in both creative thinking and application of science concepts. Table 1 shows one of the best writings collected from the class. It mentioned concepts of optics such as light being able to pass through a vacuum, reflection, refraction, ultraviolet rays, and the green house effect. The writing was dramatic, with application of metaphors and personification. For example, carbon dioxide was described as a security guard, and the light beam entering the Earth was described as someone crossing the border. This student was able to make empathetic connection with non-living things, which was a high level of personal analogy (Joyce, Weil & Showers, 1992). Both the applications of light concepts and the innovative portraits of the scientific phenomena of these outstanding students have impressed Teacher B. He believed that this creative writing exercise could reinforce the student’s science content learning and train their creativity.

       I am a light beam emitted from the sun. I went to a planet called Earth. On the way, I could not talk with my companions. I could not even see them. However, when I saw some light spots, I knew they had collided with something. I prayed that I would not follow them. I hoped I could arrive on Earth.
       After a journey of thousands of years, I eventually reached the ozone layer of Earth. Alas! My body became lighter, because the ultraviolet rays and some other energy could not cross the border. Oh! My friends were greeting me. I could see them and talk with them now. I asked them why and they said we were reflected by air particles.
       I was impressed by the beautiful city in front of me. I collided with the ground powerfully and rebounded into the sky. However, carbon dioxide, the security guard at the border, did not allow me to leave and sent me back to the ground. I lost my balance and fell into the sea. I felt my body was splitting, and different parts of my body diverged in different directions. I did not expect that my first journey to Earth would also be my last…

Table 1: Sample creative writing rated as excellent (translated from Chinese)

However, not all students had this level of performance. Average students were able to mention three to four properties of light or phenomena of light waves in the writing, demonstrating their understanding of the science contents. Table 2 shows a sample of writing ranked as average by the teacher. The passage mentioned science concepts, such as melting, photosynthesis and evaporation. However, most descriptions were just about some daily-life phenomena without dramatization or innovation. In fact, merely replacing “the light ray” with “I” was the lowest level of personal analogy (Joyce, Weil & Showers, 1992). In Teacher B’s class, most students were at this level, with limited imaginative thinking in their creative writing work.

        I am a light beam emitted from the sun. I have traveled through space. After a hard journey, I eventually arrived on Earth and shone on the ground.
        I melted the ice at the South Pole and the North Pole. I provided energy to plants for photosynthesis so that they could grow healthy. I dried the clothes for the housewives by evaporating the water inside. I shone on children’s face, energized them and brightened their future.
        Although I am just a light beam emitted from the sun, I possess a lot of power.

Table 2: Sample creative writing rated as average (translated from Chinese)

Teacher B faced some difficulties in the teaching. Students’ performance varied. About ten students worked slowly and cheerlessly, and could only write about two to three sentences. Teacher B asked them why, and they said that they could not think of any more points. It seemed that some students lacked of the creative writing skills, and also the motivation to complete this difficult exercise. In reflective discussion, Teacher B reported that it was important to encourage those students to drop down as many points or sentences as they could, no matter they were good or not. Some of them could write more with this kind of encouragement.

Another dilemma faced by Teacher B was the lack of lesson time. As restricted by the heavy curriculum, Teacher B reported that he could only spend little time on the creative writing exercises. Like Teacher A, Teacher B only assigned ten minutes in class to the creative tasks. He solved the problem by asking students to complete the writing at home. Teacher B believed that students could do better if they were given more time for discussion in class.

Case 3: Creative problem solving (CPS)

Teacher C was a young teacher who had several years’ junior Science teaching experience. She wished to enhance students’ interest in science through creating a playful and happy atmosphere in creative activities. After some preliminary try-outs, Teacher C induced a partial CPS model into a Form 2 lesson on the science unit “photosynthesis”. The class had 42 students, aged 13 to 14, and of average academic ability. Teacher C asked students to imagine “what would happen if all plants were to disappear from the earth”. The teacher guided the students through two CPS steps: problem-finding and idea-finding.

In the problem-finding step, students were active to suggest their answers aloud. Some answers were scientific (e.g. unbalanced proportion of oxygen and carbon dioxide, landslides, broken food chain, and etc.), while some were related to daily life (e.g. no paper to use, birds cannot live on trees, gardeners would lose their jobs, and etc.). After brainstorming 12 problems, Teacher C asked the students to vote for one single problem for further discussion. Eventually, the majority of the class chose the problem of “constipation” caused by the lack of fruit and vegetables.

The class moved on to the idea-finding step in which they suggested multiple solutions to solve the problem of constipation. Some students suggested reasonable solutions (e.g. using laxatives, intestinal lavage, etc.). However, many other students gave irrelevant answers or those with misconceptions (e.g. vomiting, washing the anus, etc.) Obviously, some students deliberately made jokes for fun, and enjoyed other classmates clap hands or laugh at their answers. At the end, the whole class came up with 10 solutions to the constipation problem collectively.

Teacher C was happy to see that students were excited and responsive in the lessons. Although the activity lasted for only about 20 minutes, the class generated quite a number of ideas. Many students raised their hands and provided their answers voluntarily. Some shouted out their answers directly. Her classroom was full of laughter. She enjoyed the pleasurable and exciting atmosphere of her class. Moreover, she believed students’ interest in creative thinking and the topic of “photosynthesis” was enhanced through this kind of activities.

In spite of this enjoyable classroom time, Teacher C was facing some challenges. As a young and playful teacher, Teacher C had an open mind to accept students’ crazy and wild ideas, however, her students might think differently. Five students were interviewed after the lesson. All of them reported that their dominant feeling in the class was happy and “high”. And yet, most of them criticized that “the lesson like playing more than learning” and “Why should we do this activity? It is not useful to examination.”

After discussing with her mentor, Teacher C admitted that her CPS teaching had room for improvement. In the lessons that followed, Teacher C conducted several more CPS exercises with debriefing, metacognitive discussion and transfer of learning. She asked her students to find out the characteristics of this problem solving strategy, its strengths and weaknesses, and when and how to apply it in daily-life. Her student performance in CPS tasks became more satisfactory. In follow-up interviews, some students reported that this CPS strategy stimulated their thinking, and was useful to their daily-life.

Though Teacher C started her CPS task with a topic-related scenario (i.e. around plant), the discussion on constipation was obviously deviated from the photosynthesis content in the original syllabus. As Teacher C had spent considerable teaching time on CPS activities, with some of them quite unrelated to the content, she later found that she needed to arrange extra lessons to complete the original science syllabus before the mid-term examination of her school. In final reflective discussion, Teacher C commented that infusing CPS activities into the science curriculum was much more difficult than she originally assumed.