Developing Student’s Creative Thinking through Integrative Thematic Learning

Abstract

This research was initiated by the need to develop the ability to think creatively on the students of Islamic primary schools. The low creative thinking skills of students can be seen from various surveys conducted by some researchers. Even though the ability to think creatively is very important for students to face increasingly complex global competition. The earlier the age of students to develop their creative thinking skills, the better the results will be. Therefore this study is intended to find an effective learning model to develop students' creative thinking skills. This research is a Research and Development research. The research subjects were Islamic primary students in Bandung city. Research instruments in the form of tests, observations, and interviews, to measure four aspects of creative thinking were namely; fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. The results showed that the thematic integrative learning model in Islamic elementary schools could develop both fluency and originality aspects, but still lacked the aspects of flexibility and elaboration. This is due to the strong influence of traditional rigid, normative learning models, doctrinal tendencies and strong teacher domination in the learning process.