(1792) TEACHING STRATEGIES FOR ENHANCING CREATIVE THINKING IN VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS: GUIDELINES FROM A SURVEY RESULTS

摘要

The Thai Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (TQF: HEd) focused on enhancing learner'scognitive skills. Besides the collaborative learning skills and communication skills that instructoremphasizes, creative thinking of higher education students is pointed up as one of the desirable skill.Teaching and learning of higher education nowadays is using various online approach, some coursesare designed as a blended learning. Virtual learning environments are being used as part or mainlearning atmosphere. The survey was conducted and collected data from 38 instructors and 497undergraduate students in the design and media production area. With the intention of determining ifthe effective teaching in both on-campus and virtual learning environments are different amonginstructors and students, the survey also took into account the opinions of using blended learning,teaching strategies and learning activities, instructional media and online tools, and criteria of creativethinking evaluation. Activities, which instructors used for enhancing creative thinking and were used76-100% of learning activities, were: 1) provided flexible and friendly environment in order toencourage learner's confidence to think ability and assertiveness of learners, 2) assigned learners tosearch current/ up to date knowledge from modern learning resources, 3) used group process forsupporting learning procedures. While, students identified more activities that instructors used andstrengthened their creative thinking were: 1) peer assessment, 2) assigned learner to presentcontinuing work, and 3) used some techniques to organize and guide learner's thinking such asbrainstorming, reflective writing, and mind mapping. Teaching techniques for enhancing creativethinking have been used by most instructors consisted of brainstorming, Wh-question, and problemsolving. While, most unfamiliar techniques were Plus-Minus-Interesting (PMI) and SCAMPER. Onlinetools have been used in teaching and learning consisted of social media, e-mail, discussion board,and chat room respectively. In addition, most instructors tended to use Moodle as learningmanagement system in virtual classroom environment. As the popular of social media is accepted inhigher education, the survey showed e-mail is ordinary as the most communication tools instructorsuse to contact their learners. This study suggests the social learning platform such as Edmodo andSchoology for instructors as an alternative tools for setting up the virtual learning classroom.