Does Your Course Effectively Promote Creativity? Introducing the Mathematical Problem Solving Creativity Rubric

Abstract

As believers in the power of blending the creative with the quantitative, we design our courses with an eye towards developing creative problem solvers. However, when it comes time to evaluate our course's success in developing creative problem solvers we come away with a plethora of qualitative evidence and yet we are left hungry for the quantitative evidence we desire as mathematicians. In this article we describe the development of the Mathematical Problem Solving Creativity Rubric and its pilot use in a freshman-level Mathematical Modeling and Introduction to Calculus course at the United States Military Academy. We not only come away with the necessary quantitative evidence to satiate our hunger for now, but with a rubric that will allow us to do so in future semesters and courses.

Development of Rubric of Higher Order Thinking Skills Assessment on Mathematics Learning

“…Some studies found that rubric is effective in assessing students' higher-order thinking skills, e.g., Marzano Rubric (Marzano & Kendall, 2007), Simulation Thinking Rubric (Doolen, 2015), and Assessment Evaluation Rubric (Tractenberg, 2020). However, the study of the effectiveness of rubric in measuring students higher-order thinking comprehensively in mathematics learning is limited, although there are problem-solving rubrics (Blyman et al, 2020;Di Leo et al, 2019;Gallagher et al, 2000), critical thinking rubric (Saxton et al, 2012), and performance assessment rubric (Borko et al, 1997;Lane et al, 1994) used. Therefore, to measure students' HOTs in mathematics learning, the teacher needs to develop an appropriate rubric.…”