Development of Creative Thinking Skills with Aesthetic Creativity Teaching Activities in Social Studies Course

This research is qualitative research that examined the effects of aesthetic creativity practices on students' creative- thinking skills in a Social Studies course. The research was designed according to the case study design of qualitative research methods. The study group was determined by criterion sampling from purposeful sampling types. The study group comprised 12 fourth-grade students and their classroom teacher and were from a middle socioeconomic school in Hatay in the 2017-2018 academic years. In the Social Studies course, aesthetic creativity activities were implemented through performance tasks in a 17-hour period, and students' development in creative thinking skills followed. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and structured observation. The interviews were conducted with the students and the classroom teacher. To evaluate students' development, the classroom teacher was interviewed at the end of the process. The students were interviewed at the end of the process, and the data were analyzed through content analysis. The data obtained from the observations were analyzed descriptively through the Creative Thinking Skills Evaluation Rubric (CTSER), structured by the researchers, and comprised creative thinking, imagination, idea production, humor, research, product creation, and problem-solving sub-dimensions. The results revealed that the students showed the most improvement in the dimensions of idea production and humor. In addition, the students demonstrated a distinguishable development in their research, problem-solving, and image dimensions. Although the students developed product building skills, none attained the level of creating unique products. Another result is that the aesthetic creativity teaching practices achieved the objectives in terms of sense-making and affective skills (e.g., providing a pleasant classroom environment, expressing emotions).