TEACHING CREATIVE THINKING THROUGH BLENDED PROBLEM BASED LEARNING AND HISTORY OF SCIENCE APPROACH: NEW VINE IN OLD BOTTLE

Over the past 50 years, many studies have examined on a shift in teaching science course content delivery, instruction, and teacher-learner interaction that occurs neither wholly face-to-face, nor entirely online. The synthesis, represents as blended learning, in many cases, an essential change in the learning environment that teachers and students experience. The terms hybrid, mixed or integrative are used interchangeably. This is mainly because there is no consensus on a universal definition of blended learning methodology. Blended learning is generally a combination of formal classroom methods (Problem based learning, Argumentation, Project based approaches, etc.) with e-learning, and it has three components: the mentor or teacher, online learning materials and skills developed during the classroom experience. The present research constitutes a conscious attempt to focus on using a blend of two effective learning approaches, Problem base learning (PBL) & History of science (HOS), with technology. I was interested in enticing pre-service science teachers to think about history and philosophy of science issues and drawing them into an authentic PBL learning environment for developing creative thinking and also pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching scientific inquiry and nature of science. Participants completed pre and post the Torrance test of creative thinking and data were collected over a 14-week period. The responses were analyzed using a combination of content analysis (Silverman, 1999) and the constant-comparative method (Glaser & Straus, 1967) to determine patterns or themes in the data. The result indicate that instruction to support enhancing of creativity requires blended problem based learning and history of science teaching that includes explicit approach to encourage cognitive flexibility. Further research required some of the different strategies if more students were motivated to learn science and to think creatively as scientist.

Acknowledgment:
This research is supported by the Scientific Research Projects of Abant İzzet Baysal University (Project number: BAP-2017.02.04.1184).