Integration of Educational Board Game and Creative
Thinking Spiral Teaching Strategies to Developing
Student's Imagination and Curiosity
劉旨峰 國立中央大學學習與教學研究所教授 葉慈瑜 國立嘉義大學教育系博士候選人 蔡元隆 國立中正大學尖端研究中心研究助理 鍾濟謙 國立中央大學學習與教學研究所研究生 徐慧湘 國立中央大學師資培育中心與學習所研究助理中文摘要
本研究旨在結合教育型桌上遊戲 與創意思考螺旋教學策略對國小學童 想像力與好奇心的影響。研究者開發 了一套結合自然與生活科技課程的教 育型桌上遊戲以及測量想像力與好奇 心的量表工具。整合桌上遊戲與創意 思考螺旋教學策略，探討此教學策略 對國小 學 童在想 像 力與好 奇 心的影 響。研究結果發現，國小學童在想像 力、好奇心上有顯著提昇。在實際創 造的成品中，也展現學生的想像力。I. Introduction
In this knowledge-based economy era, creativity becomes one of the major components to compete with other countries. Creativity comes from curiosity and imagination, and they are also the start of human civilization. Hence, developing creative thinking, curiosity and imagination becomes one of the important aims in education. Resnick (2007) proposed a theory of Creative Thinking Spiral. He believed
that older children could still be very curious and full of imagination, just like preschoolers who involving themselves in inquiring and building up their ways of thinking, even though older children are probably defined as “more mature learners” who are given expectations of how they should learn in their age. It helps to foster children’s creative thinking through the spiral process: imagination, creativity, playing, sharing and reflecting. Learning should also be conducted under real situations. Through Learning by Making, a building and forming process of self-identification slowly demonstrated.
Nowadays, the threat of global warming is increasing. People could learn that from the raise of the sea level and the shocking amount of natural disasters, like the huge earthquake in Japan and the serious tsunami in 2004. Although people in Taiwan may not feel much of the impact of these disasters, being educators, we still have to instruct children to prepare for the future. In this
research, a scientific educational project will be carried out by a group of children who are going to use their curiosity and imagination to create their amphibious boat.
II. Literal Review
A. Game-Based LearningGame-Based Learning is attracting attractions with a growing number of research populations. Hwang and Wu (2012) studied lots of international journals about technological learning, especially related to Game-Based Learning, and found out that Taiwanese scholars from 2001 to 2010 published 22 journal articles (The first place was American scholars, about 30 articles, and English scholars published 20 articles.) Most of these researches were to explore the relationship between Game-Based Learning and learning performance, motive and attitude in different subjects. Taiwan was the second place and this indicated that there are certain kinds of academic society that constantly do research about Game-Based Learning. For example, Liu, Hsiao, Chen, & Huang, et al. (2009) published the most papers about relationship of Game-Based Learning and learning performance. Yien, Hung, Hwang, and Lin (2011) also researched on the application of Game-Based Learning in the subject areas of science. The result of this research was that
comparing to PPT, as an instrument of teaching, Game-Based Learning did increase students’ learning performance and attitude in school program of nutrition. Moreover, in Papastergiou’s (2009) study, it helped to increase students’ learning performance and motive when digital games were implied in program of computer science.
B. Application of Board Game
Researches on board games also distribute to subject learning. Take Siegler and Ramani’s study (2008) as an example. Children who were born in low-income family might have fewer experiences in playing board games about numbers when they were very young. Their numerical ability was inferior to those children who had such experience when they were very young. The researchers made children from low-income family play a series of board games about numbers. The result showed that the gap of numerical ability between children from low-income family and children from middle-income family had decreased. There were few more studies about board game from other countries. Alexander, Sevcik, Hicks and Schultz (2008) also designed a set of card games about chemical symbols of the element for junior high students. They hope students could learn subject knowledge while playing interesting games. Kirikkaya, Iseri, and Vurkaya (2010) designed board game of
galaxies, and from the result of semi-structured interviews, board game not only improves students’ learning motive, but also helps them to understand the abstract concept. The board game was further used for eluviation; the students’ test anxiety was greatly reduced and had better performance.
In Taiwan, there are still not a lot of people researching on the effect of board game, especially educational board game. This is the reason that this research has shown its certain importance. The researchers hope from the publication of this study could trigger other people to start looking deeper in the effect and significant of educational board game. The accessory to board game and rules of the game could actually be regarded as an objectification of digital media or multi-media. In other countries, these objectified board games are often seen as a “testing product.” Once the board game is widely accepted by the public, the opportunity of producing into digital game is increasing.
C. Imagination and Creative Thinking Spiral
According to Sparshott (1990), imagination is an ability to imagine the observed objects into other things. Imagination is not only to imagine, but also to apply, combine and transform the
prior experience into an original and unique viewpoint (McCloy, 1990). Reichling (1990) proposed three stages of imagination thinking process: 1) Fantasy or Magical Imagination; 2) Reproductive or Literal Imagination; and 3) Metaphorical and Paradoxical Imagination. 1) In Fantasy or Magical Imagination stage, perception of people is important. After sensational stimulations of real objects, people use their imagination to transform the objects into another imaginary object, and then retransform imaginary object into the other imaginary object. 2) In Reproductive or Literal Imagination stage, people utilize their perception and logic to transform an observable object into another imaginary object which is observable and really existed. In this stage, people’s emotions and feelings also take a part in the process of transforming an object to another object. 3) In Metaphorical and Paradoxical Imagination stage, there are four factors affecting people’s imagination process, namely intuition, perception, thinking and feeling. Metaphorical imagination gives multiple meaning of imagination, and paradoxical imagination fosters people’s imagination and brings imagination to a better or newer meaning by constantly thinking in a paradoxical way.
Resnick (2007) thinks that training children’s creative thinking improves their problem-solving ability in this fast
changing society. Creative thinking develops learners’ abilities of imagination, curiosity, critical thinking and creative problem-solving. Resnick also constructs a set of pedagogy of technology and instruction, Creative Thinking Spiral. Resnick considers that there are certain stages in building up children’s creative thinking, including imagination, creativity, playing, sharing and reflecting. These stages will be recycled in a pattern of spiral.
III. Methodology
The participants were a group of fourth graders from one of the elementary schools in northern Taiwan. There were 14 boys and 13 girls, all of them did not learn the unit of “Transportation and Energy” in school before.
A. Educational Board Game: “Go! Transportation”
Depending on the unit of “ Transportation and Energy” in curriculum of Science and Technology for fourth graders, the research tool, “ Go! Transportation,” (include the accessory to board game and rules of the game) was designed to meet the course objectives and make students understand the related knowledge and concept of science.
There are 120 cards, an instruction and five characters made in wood in the accessory. Two to five people as a proper number of players in “Go! Transportation,” and each wooden character represents a student. The cards are divided into seven different functions, include cards of topography, energy, transportation, population, problems, evens and cards of start point and finished line. Players have to decide appropriate cards of transportation and energy depending on the topographic point they are. Once they make the best combination, different steps are allowed to move forward. During the process, players also have opportunities to answer the cards of problems and gain extra points. The first team makes to the finished line gain the most points.
B. Creative Thinking Spiral and Imagination
This research uses Resnick’s Creative Thinking Spiral as a core to design an experimental program in order to develop fourth graders’ imagination and curiosity in science and technology learning. This research focuses on the unit of “transportation and energy,” and the researchers design and constructs an experimental educational board game and pedagogy. Depending on the spiral process and stages in Creative Thinking Spiral (include imagination, creativity, playing, sharing and reflecting), the researchers start with the introduction
and the rule of the board game and have the students played the game. They further refine the game and make it more complete. The students then be leaded into the process of creative thinking, hands-on experiment, try-out, sharing thoughts of trying-out, fixing the problems and reflecting, and then again, going through the above process.
The process is as the diagram below:
C. Worksheet
The worksheet is to make the students start creating their own amphibious boats through playing the board game. There are two parts in the worksheet. The first part is open-ended questions in order to make the students think about their boat, and also work as a reminder for the students that there could be other possible functions or aspects of an amphibious boat or other kinds of transportation. For example, what is the name of the amphibious boat, what is the appearance and function of the boat, what kind of energy
does the boat apply and what kind of device does the boat have. As to the second part of the worksheet, the students are allowed to draw their imaginary boat in this part. The students are welcome and freely to make their own decision whether to answer the open-ended questions and drawing part first.
D. Imagination and the Measurement of Curiosity
The measuring scale of survey is revised from Hsia’s “Measurement of Creativity” in 2008. In order to increase the validity of the survey, this survey is reviewed and revised by two elementary school teachers teaching Science and Technology and an expert from area of measuring scale. The situations of the questions in the survey have already been revised into the circumstances that relate to students’ life; moreover, the questions are easier for students to read and understand. There are 19 questions with two dimensions: Imagination (for 11 questions) and Curiosity (for 8 questions). IV
IV. Research Result
A. Result of the Measurement of Imagination and Curiosity
According to the statistics, after receiving the educational board game program (Pre-test of curiosity, M = 2.88,
SD = .47; post-test of curiosity, M = 3.50, SD = .37. Pre-test of imagination, M = 2.94, SD = .56; post-test of imagination, M = 3.29, SD = .44.), the fourth graders do have an improvement in their imagination and curiosity. (Curiosity, t(26) = -5.40, p<.001; Imagination, t(26) = -3.469, p<.01),
See Table 1:
B. The Creation of the Students’ Work
There are some of the students’ designing pictures and their introduction of the boat. Some of the teachers’ command is also attached.
a. S1
It is called “the Fighting Machine.” It looks like a jet and is built up by stainless steel which could prevent from oxidization. Its energy comes from water which causes less pollution. Its equipment include shoot gun, wings, armor and alarms (see Picture 1). Teacher’s command: This jet looks very cool and fancy, looks like the jet from
fiction movie. The jet has powerful equipment, and is also built up by stainless steel. It not only fully uses martial to build shoot gun, armor and radar, but also apply water power as its energy source. This is a very environmental friendly jet.
Picture 1. S1’s creation
b. S5
It is called “Land and Water Car.” It looks like a fish with a round shape and is made up by aluminum. It uses solar energy which causes less pollution. The equipment includes wheels, headlight, fin and GPS (see Picture 2). Teacher’s command: Solar energy as the power of Land and Water Car is a smart choice of protecting the environment. Aluminum is a lighter material which makes the car lighter and saves more energy. GPS helps to locate the position and gives direction. The round appearance with fins and wheels shows its two function of moving. It is special and could show its best function in both land and water.
Picture 2. S5’s creation
c. S8
It is called “Water and Land Bus.” It is oval, and looks like a fish, so that it has fewer obstacles in the water. It is made by steel and less easily to be broken. It uses solar energy which causes less pollution. Its equipment includes a turbine, a motor and speakers (see Picture 3). Teacher’s command: Water and Land Bus must move very fast because of its cute oval shape and turbine engine. It is also a good choice to use solar energy to protect the environment. However, it will be better to put a car battery for storing the solar energy to keep the bus moving even though there is no sun light.
Picture 3. S8’s creation
d. S15
It is called “Dragonfly Car.” It is round and has the benefit of moving around. Recycled bottle caps are used as the material to build this car. Its power comes from magnetic force which could be easily replaced. Dragonfly Car moves by a propeller or claws (see Picture 4). Teacher’s command: The round shape, cute propeller and rich colors catch people’s eyes in the first sight. Moreover, Dragonfly Car can fly. What a magnification design. The use of magnetic force and recycled bottle caps are very practical and are very environmental friendly choices. It will be better if you could display the usage of the magnetic force. Moving by claws is also a very special design.
Picture 4. S15’s creation e. S17
It is called “Ice Cream Car.” It is rectangle and has a larger space to put all the equipment, such as headlight and kitchen, etc. The car is made up by steel to prevent from rusting, and uses ice cream as its energy source (see Picture 5). The energy source not only has no pollution, but also eatable. Teacher’s command: It is rare to use ice cream as energy source. Ice Cream Car creates ice cream and cool air. It will attract many children to buy your ice cream. If ice cream can really be developed into a kind of energy, it will be a very, very important invention.
Picture 5. S17’s creation
V. Conclusion
The research is to explore the impact of Creative Thinking Spiral on elementary school students’ imagination and curiosity. The target of this empirical research is a group of fourth graders, and an educational board game is designed depending on the unit of “Transpiration and Energy” in students’ Science and Technology program. The result indicates that the students’ imagination and curiosity are greatly improved and they does perform better after they play the educational board game which is especially designed to have the students understand the structure and function of boats. As to the creation of the students, they show their creative in designing new concept of boats. From the material choice, equipment of the inner and outer space to the usage of the energy all inspire by their living experience. For example, the shape of their boats includes circle, oval, rectangle, triangle, squire, and oval is the most used shape by the students; circle is the second. There are some other distinctive shapes, like irregular shape, car shape, plane shape or streamline shape. The material that is used to build up the boats includes steel, stainless steel, aluminum, gold and even recycled bottle cap. As to the energy, solar energy, water power, wind power, electricity and magnetic force are often seen. The students also design a lot of imaginary equipment, like headlight,
telescope, wings, bullet-proof glasses, wheels, turbine, and so on. As long as the students are able to design their own creation, it is one of a kind. For instance, some students use ice cream as their energy power and they put a propeller and fins on their boat. Their design not only interweaves modern technology, but also as a trigger to the possible new technology in the future. The students’ imagination may become a stimulus to the future technology inventions.
Acknowledgement
This research is under the sponsor by “The Project of Online Tutoring for After School’s Learning,” hosting by Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science and Technology (Project number: 102-2511-S-008-014-MY3, NSC100-2511-S-008-017-MY2,
NSC-100-2511-S-008 -006 -MY2 and NSC-100-2631-S-008-001). The researchers appreciate the above sponsors very much.
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