User:Philipp Lechner EN/sandbox

The School of Creative Solutions is a program for secondary schools that consider the promotion of creative problem-solving skills to be an essential educational task. In this program, not only does the transfer of knowledge play a role, but also the development of the ability to tackle problems and find creative solutions to them. Participating schools are characterized by their openness to new ideas and their ability to take up challenges posed by society and to generate solutions.

Basic elements
The school program consists of three basic elements: flex-based learning, creative personality and creative problem solving.

flex-based Learning
In order to impart creativity and problem-solving skills to young people, flex-based learning was developed at the Upper Austrian University of Education. It contains a collection of teaching techniques for science lessons, the focus of which lies in the promotion of intellectual and experimental flexibility. All of the following techniques have been published in textbooks in the Expedition Chemistry or Expedition Physics series by E.Dornerverlag.

These teaching techniques are:

Thinkflex
Think-flex tasks train the change of perspective and promote skills such as "finding hypotheses", "drawing conclusions" and "recognising opportunities and risks".

Woseco
As an abbreviation for word-sentence constructions, young people are stimulated in their linguistic creativity when doing Woseco's. Given technical terms have to be brought together in a new, meaningful context.

Nano Live Act & Modeling
Forming analogies is a central element of creative development processes. In addition to applying existing analogies, young people are encouraged to develop and present real, practical models based on scientific phenomena.

Memo techniques
Memo techniques lead to the storage of complex expert knowledge by means of flexible thinking strategies.

flex experiments
flex experiments train creative and experimental problem solving. For scientific problems, as many and as different ideas for solutions as possible should be found and implemented in an experimental setting. The restriction to the handling of given everyday materials forces the misuse of materials and thus promotes lateral thinking. flex experiments enable not only the independent planning, execution and presentation of solutions, but also the development of a positive error culture and the cultivation of an increased self-efficacy expectation.

flex-Box


Innovative material collections were developed for the subjects chemistry and physics for all flex experiments. As a so-called flex-box it can be used as a mobile experimental laboratory. The flex-Box is a mobile stack of boxes consisting of 7 “Euro boxes”, filled with over 100 materials (in 6 to 8 copies) and over 50 chemicals (flex-Box Chemistry). It contains numerous experiment instructions for basic experiments, experiments and flex experiments as well as instruction sheets for students and accompanying material for teachers. Since 2020, the flex-boxes have been distributed by the teaching materials company Conatex GmbH.

Creative personality
This basic element intends to awaken the creative spirit of young people. The training and promotion of a creative personality and mindset are therefore at the forefront.

Growth-Mindset
With the help of Carol Dweck's program, a so-called growth mindset is taught, thus training personality traits such as determination, tolerance of mistakes and the conviction that future problems can be solved.

Embodiment
Through embodiment, the mutual relationship between body and mind is addressed. Studies show that posture, movement and muscle tension significantly influence emotional and cognitive states such as thinking styles, judgment, attitudes and self-confidence. Techniques such as asynchronous movements, meditation, Qigong and juggling are taught to positively influence different emotional and cognitive states.

Qigong
Qigong is a combination of meditation, breathing techniques, concentration and movement. In addition to strengthening physical fitness, Qigong leads to a calming of the mind, physical and mental relaxation and thus to increased awareness.

Creative problem solving
Based on the idea of service learning, students are confronted with real challenges during class and develop innovative solutions. Young people learn how to deal with real problems and challenges relevant to the school in accordance with the typical phases of a creative process. Those “real” problems can come from the school itself, from other national or international schools via the community or from the immediate environment of the community and/or institutions.

Research & Publications
The research of scientific creativity is a central concern of the Didactics Centre for Natural Sciences at the University of Education Upper Austria. Since 2010, educationalists in the fields of chemistry, physics and biology have been working on the following topics and research questions:


 * 1) the development of a diagnostic instrument for the assessment of divergent thinking in scientific problems. By means of the DPAS-TEST (Divergent Problemsolving Ability in Science), valid statements about the scientific creativity of young people can be made since 2020.
 * 2) effectiveness of flex-based learning on the development of creative problem-solving ability in young people
 * 3) research on the effectiveness of courses offered at the Upper Austrian University of Education in teaching the contents of the School of Creative Solutions to teachers

Community
The development of an international community is a concern of the School of Creative Solutions. The Upper Austrian University of Education acts as a platform for linking participating schools so that they can support each other, share their expertise or benefit from the problems of other schools.

Further education
The University of Education of Upper Austria offers advanced training programmes for teachers. In courses and seminars, participants are trained to implement the basic elements of the School of Creative Solutions, in particular "flex-based learning" and "creative personality" in the classroom.

Team
Since 2010, a team of 10 teachers under the leadership of Kurt Haim has been working on the development of teaching techniques that serve to promote creative problem-solving skills in science lessons. Wolfgang Aschauer is in charge of researching creative problem-solving competence in the natural science domain. Wolfgang Aschauer, Christian Kloimböck and Philipp Lechner are responsible for the physics domain. Kurt Haim, Joachim Strasser, Ines Mader and Florian Strasser are responsible for chemistry. Sabine Putz-Kollmann, Julia Schleritzko and David Eichinger are responsible for biology.

Publications
Haim, Aschauer & Weber (2020). Diagnose divergenter Denkstrategien bei naturwiss. Problemstellungen. In: S. Habig (Hrsg.), Naturwissenschaftliche Kompetenzen in der Gesellschaft von morgen. Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Chemie und Physik, Jahrestagung in Wien 2019. (S. 381). Universität Duisburg-Essen

Oyrer, Haim & Aschauer (2020). Effektive Lehrerfortbildung zur Vermittlung von flex-based learning. In: S. Habig (Hrsg.), Naturwissenschaftliche Kompetenzen in der Gesellschaft von morgen. Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Chemie und Physik, Jahrestagung in Wien 2019. (S. 605). Universität Duisburg-Essen

Haim, Kurt (2013). Kreatives Lösungsorientiertes Experimentieren – KLEx In: Praxis der Naturwissenschaften – Chemie in der Schule 4, 62, 34 – 37

Haim & Weber (2014). KLEx – Eine Experimentiertechnik zur Förderung kreativer Problemlösekompetenz im naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht In: Last oder Lust? Forschung und Lehrer/innenbildung Hrsg. E .Feyerer, K. Hirschenhauser u. K. Soukup-Altrichter, Münster, Waxmann

Weblinks
Homepage of the School of Creative Soultions