DEVELOPING AND EVALUATING A LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM OF STEAM EDUCATION FOR ENHANCING CREATIVE THINKING OF STUDENTS IN SMALL ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

Abstract

Creative thinking skills are one of the 4Cs of the 21^st century that young people use in their work. The two purposes of this research were to develop a learning management system of STEAM education for enhancing the creative thinking of students and to study the effect of using the learning management system. The 47 students in grades 5 and 6 in a small elementary school were selected to be the sample by simple random sampling. A learning management system assessment form with a very high level of internal consistency, an achievement test with a high confidence value, a creativity assessment test, and STEAM education lesson plans were used as research tools. Data were collected by organizing learning activities in accordance with STEAM education's four plans. The mean, standard deviation, and t-test were used to analyze the data. According to the findings, a learning management system for enhancing creativity thinking has three components: 1. teaching objectives, 2. teaching and learning activities, and 3. evaluations. This learning management system includes a 7-step STEAM education teaching model, as well as four activity sets: 1) skyscraper activities, 2) rescue boat activities, 3) fantastic turbine activities, and 4) delicious jelly activities. Results of using the learning management system according to the STEAM education were as follows: learning achievement was significantly higher than before; learning achievement was significantly higher than the 70% criterion; and creative thinking was significantly higher than before. Therefore, it will be beneficial to smaller schools with fewer science and math teachers.