Abstract:

The study aims at evaluating dynamics of teacher’s beliefs towards the usage of ICT during the lessons that foster creativity and critical thinking.

Despite the fact that XXI century skills are stated as the most important education results some teachers struggle to foster them. They also sometimes struggle to use ICT during their lessons, although in Russia there are widespread programs on informatization in Russia (e.g. 1:1). But simply the presence of digital technologies technology in the classroom does not produce the desired results (Cuban, 2001; Firipis et al., 2018; Kozma, 1991, 1994; Owens et al., 2002).

A challenge for the research is that in Russian schools, and not only there, students' mobile devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones) are seen by teachers as an obstacle for learning rather than a learning tool (Kukulska-Hulme et al. 2011; O'bannon and Thomas 2015; Ott 2014). Nevertheless, the question seems to be essential, since the digitalization of education is declared one of the most priority tasks of education (program " Informatization of the society 2011-2020").

It seems that technology should serve a specified purpose of a particular lesson, and a teacher should know how and why it can be used – then teacher’s beliefs towards both might change.

Research questions:
1. How and under what circumstances do teachers’ beliefs towards fostering creativity and critical thinking with the use of ICT change?
2. How do teachers’ beliefs towards fostering creativity and critical thinking change?
3. How do the effects of new practices on teachers’ beliefs correlate with experience and students' beliefs?
4. What should be the content of guidelines that will facilitate teachers to work with ICT?

Thus, the study lies at the intersection of teachers’ professional development (TPD), new educational outcomes (XXI century skills) and how to implement them in the classroom and the ICT to foster the former.

Sample:
15 teachers from two Russian regions and 300 students.

Study design:
The design of the study is supposed to be carried out in the paradigm of "Participatory Action research" (Freire, 1970). The study implies a mixed design using quantitative and qualitative methods:
1) Quantitative part includes pre- and post-tests for students with further correlation analysis to identify any change of practice in the classroom during the intervention;
2) Qualitative part includes semi-structured interviews with teachers before, during and after the interventions about their beliefs towards new practices; focus-groups with students; structured classroom observations.

It is expected to conduct at least 4 lessons-interventions that develop critical thinking and creativity (OECD, 2019), using mobile devices of students in grades 3-4 and 8-9.

Hypotheses:
• Teachers’ beliefs change with the existance of new experience of how to use ICT
• ICT fits the activities that foster creativity and critical thinking

Keywords:

Creativity, critical thinking, ICT, teachers' beliefs.