Combinatorial thinking and creativity skills in solving a colored-square paving decoration problem

Abstract

Nowadays, Higher Education (HE) 4.0 demands students to have the top ten skills which are seeked by the businessmen in 2020, such as creativity. One of the fields in mathematics which has many applications for everyday life and can give a chance for students to gain their creative ideas is mathematics discrete, especially on combinatorics topic. The objective of this study was to describe the students’ combinatorial thinking and creativity skills in solving a colored-square paving decoration problem. This research was conducted in University of Jember, Indonesia. The subjects of this study were 4 students of Mathematics Education Department, The Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, University of Jember. The research subjects were chosen based on their learning abilities. This study used qualitative approach. The researchers gave open-ended problem test about colored-square paving decoration problem and conducted interview to the subjects of the research on discreate mathematics issues. The test results were analyzed based on the process to find some alternative solutions that were in accordance with the creative thinking indicators. The creative thinking indicators used in this research were fluency, flexibility and originality. The results of this research showed that the creativity level achievement was classified into creative category and the combinatorial thinking achievement was on level 4 in which the students were able to change the problem into another combinatorial problem.