A creative problem solving‐based flipped learning strategy for promoting students’ performing creativity, skills and tendencies of creative thinking and collaboration

Abstract In most performing classes, such as dance or performing arts, students passively follow the scripts or demonstration provided by the teacher, and focus on imitating the acts and practicing repeatedly. Although researchers have begun trying out flipped learning to provide students with opportunities for self‐learning and to increase the time for in‐class collaborative learning and interactions, students’ performing creativity is generally ignored. As a result, the present study proposes a creative problem solving‐based flipped learning (CPS‐based flipped learning) approach to guide students to comprehend the pre‐class materials and to develop their creativity through creative thinking. Moreover an experiment was conducted in a choreography activity of a dance course. A total of 125 university students were recruited and divided into the CPS‐based flipped learning (CPS‐FL) group, the conventional flipped learning (FL) group, and the conventional technology‐based learning (TBL) group for an 18‐week teaching experiment. The results showed that the CPS‐based flipped learning approach could significantly increase students' choreography creativity, dance skills and creative thinking tendency. In addition, the FL group also outperformed the TBL group on choreography creativity and dance skills. No significant differences between the three groups’ collaboration tendency could be found. Lastly, from the students' feedback, it was learned that the CPS‐based flipped learning approach was conducive to stimulating students' inspiration for creation, enhancing their ability to appreciate dance programs and improving their implementation and practice abilities. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic In traditional performing classes, students generally passively follow the examples of demonstration provided by the teacher and focus on repetitive practice. Flipped learning enables students to have more opportunities to practice and interact with peers and the teacher in the class. In flipped learning, proper learning design could be beneficial to increasing students' creativity. What this paper adds A creative problem solving‐based flipped learning approach is proposed. An experiment was conducted in a university dance course to evaluate the impacts of the proposed approach. In addition to performing skills, the proposed approach enhanced the students' creativity performances and learning perceptions. Implications for practice and/or policy Creative problem solving‐based flipped learning has great potential in promoting students’ Creative thinking. Such a learning approach could bring novel ideas into the fields related to creative thinking in addition to arts or performing art courses.