THE EFFECT OF USING THE SIX HATS STRATEGY TO ENHANCE CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING ON THE LEVEL OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN JERUSALEM PUBLIC SCHOOLS
In recent years, educators' interest in developing students' thinking abilities has increased because it is linked to the level of academic achievement. Thus, interest in developing higher-order thinking skills has increased. This depends heavily on the teaching strategies used in schools, which must encourage these abilities and enhance mental skills appropriate to raising achievement and also appropriate for the twenty-first century. This study aims to identify the impact of using the Six Hats strategy to enhance critical and creative thinking on the level of academic achievement in Jerusalem schools. The study sample consists of Jerusalem school students (96 male and female) from the third to seventh grades studying in Jerusalem schools in the academic year 2022-2023. The study also aims to know the effect of some independent factors (student’s gender, parents’ education level, student’s family arrangement) on the student’s achievement. This study adopts the experimental approach, where the study sample was divided into two groups, experimental and control. The research used two tools. The first was a pre-classification examination for the students to determine their educational level. After the end of the research period, a post-classification examination was conducted for the sample, and the results of the experimental group were compared to the control group. The second tool is the student’s economic and social status questionnaire, which is a questionnaire designed specifically for research. The study reached a number of results, the most important of which are: The achievement rate of students in the experimental group who were taught according to strategies that promote creative thinking is higher than the achievement rate of students who were taught in the traditional way. The gender of the student affects his level of education, as the achievement level of females is higher. The student’s level of achievement is directly proportional to the level of education of the parents, and the student who is ranked first in the family has higher achievement than the rest of his siblings. The study presents some recommendations based on its findings, and the most important of these recommendations are: the necessity of moving from rote teaching to teaching based on modern educational strategies that work to develop creative thinking capabilities
Keywords: Educational Strategies - Six Thinking Hats - Academic Achievement - Creative Thinking - Critical Thinking