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Subject material concerning Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (DNA) structure in the format of creativity-driven laboratory practice offers meaningful learning experience to the students. Therefore, a laboratory practice in which utilizes simple procedures and easy-safe-affordable household materials should be promoted to students to develop their creativity. This study aimed to examine whether designing and conducting DNA extraction with household materials could foster students' creative thinking. We also described how this laboratory practice affected students' knowledge and views. A total of 47 students participated in this study. These students were grouped and asked to utilize available household materials and modify procedures using hands-on worksheet. Result showed that this approach encouraged creative thinking as well as improved subject-related knowledge. Students also demonstrated positive views about content knowledge, social skills, and creative thinking skills. This study implies that extracting DNA with household materials is able to develop content knowledge, social skills, and creative thinking of the students. © 2016 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 45(3):216-225, 2017.

Th e research aims at exploring Indonesian pre-service biology teachers' metacognitive skills, measuring the development of learning strategies (LS) used by the teachers before and aft er the learning process, and describing the teachers' responses aft erwards. Th ere were 25 subjects studied using a pretest-posttest design. Results showed that there was an increase in students' metacognitive skills and their LS knowledge. Morever, they stated that they had got a lot of benefi ts aft er the learning process. Th is research concludes that metacognitive strategy can be used to teach LS so that students can broaden their LS understanding and thus enable to choose LS that fi ts them.

The Scientific Critical Thinking (SCT) model is a learning model developed to train critical thinking skills and student self-efficacy. This study aims to analyze the effect of the SCT model in improving critical thinking skills and the self-efficacy of Primary School Teacher Study Program students. This study used quasi-experimental research with the design of one group pre-test and post-test. The research subjects were one hundred and eight students of the Primary School Teacher Study Program from three classes of the Lambung Mangkurat University. Data was collected through tests of Critical Thinking Skills, questionnaires about student self-efficacy, and in-depth interviews. The collected data was analyzed using paired t-test / Wilcoxon test and n-gain. The results of the research on class D, class E, and class F indicate that the sig value is obtained. (2-tailed) critical thinking skills are 0.00 (p = <0.05) and n-gain is class D 0.77, class E 0.77 and class F 0.77 show that it is important in high criteria. In addition, sig is obtained. (2-tailed) student’s self-efficacy is 0.00 (p = <0.05) and n-gain is class D 0.77, class E 0.81 and class F 0.79; shows significant results in high criteria. It was concluded that the SCT model was effective. This study implies that the SCT model can be used as an alternative to training students’ critical thinking skills and self-efficacy.

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