The 21st-Century Language Arts Program and its Impact on Pupils' Creative and Critical Thinking Skills

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Development of students' critical and creative thinking skills are considered a crucial educational goal. However, despite the demonstrated effort of teachers in teaching the skills, later they found out that there is not mastery or improvement of the skills. In this chief reason, the researcher conducted the study to improve and or develop pupils' creative and critical thinking skills using the 21st CLAP (21ST Century LanguageArts Program).

METHODS

This study follows the participatory approach. The researcher adapted Orejola's (2016) 21st Century Language Arts Program. The content of the program was modified to suit the pupils' learning level and concentrated mainly on the improvement of creative and critical thinking skills. Grade 6 pupils, as the sample group underwent the 21st CLAP for two weeks.

RESULTS

The significant effect of 21st CLAP to pupils' critical thinking skills in terms of identifying the problem, analysis, problem-solving, and evaluation was recorded and so as in the development of pupils' creative thinking skills in terms of fluency, flexibility, and novelty. This infers that independent collaborative work, peer support, and brainstorming have a positive effect on pupils' ability to generate multiple ideas on how to solve a real-world problem, multiple answers to a problem exploring situations, and the capacity to generate solutions.

DISCUSSIONS

The development of pupils' creative thinking skills is equally important with the development of critical thinking skills. The pupil's ability to look and interpret things in different angles could help them surpass the challenges of the 21st century. It is imperative to implement programs and projects that would help them develop and or improve their capacity to think critically and creatively that would prepare them in the world of work in the next 15 to 20 years.