DEVELOPMENT OF OPEND-ENDED APPROACH IN IPS LEARNING TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’HIGH LEVEL SKILL OF THINKING

Abstract:       Open-ended approach is a learning approach that emphasizes more on students' efforts to arrive at answers rather than the correctness or accuracy of answers, students are who faced with a problem have more than one correct answer, the teacher does not limit the way students solve, even the teacher provide flexibility to find various approaches to problems. In social studies learning, the Open-ended approach is very appropriate to apply to develop high level thinking skill or HOT (high order thinking skill) of students. By high order thinking, learning process becomes complex and profound. This is very much in line with the purpose  and the essence of the open-ended approach. The facts in the field show that a a teacher emphasizes students more about giving material and how students can master the material in the learning process, so students do not get the opportunity to develop the potential to think especially in high cognitive such as analysis (C4) evaluation (C5) and Create (C6) , but they only move at a low cognitive level such as knowledge (C1) understanding (C2) and application (C3). Students who have a better understanding of the learning process will experience conceptual changes when needed. Characteristics of students should be a main concern for teachers. Students' reasoning abilities need to be developed by applying active, creative, inovative, and interesting learning methods.

Keywords:      High level thinking skill, open-ended approach, social studies learning