The development of learning innovation to enhance higher order thinking skills for students in Thailand junior high schools

Abstract

The research aims to design and develop learning innovation to enhance higher order thinking skills for students in Thailand junior high schools. The design development research model of Richey and Klien (2007) is used and divided into two phases: (1) to design and develop innovative learning and validate of its quality based on the interviews and survey from 13 experts, 10 teachers and 30 students, and (2) to test the tools' validity by three experts and 153 students from five junior high schools at five provinces in Thailand. The findings indicate that analytical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving thinking and critical thinking skill are developed by researchers, and experienced and practiced by learners in their lessons. The higher order thinking skills of learners after experiencing the learning innovation have a higher average score than the previous one. Following the students' perspectives on the learning innovation, 1) The design of content is in line with students' knowledge levels, easy to understand, and enable to connect science contents to their daily life. However, some contents cannot fully cover into all classroom lessons; 2) Multimedia. A navigation design is easy for students to find information and direct to their needs. The icon symbols could hint the meaning of various information sources and have links to these sources. Also, multimedia could considerably explain scientific processes and help students understand better; 3) The design of problem scenarios supports easier connection to the daily life. In addition, using videos as a learning resource could suitably illustrate scientific process, and improve communicative and collaborative skills in problem solving.