Preservice Teachers' Development and Application of Critical Thinking Skills in a Social Studies Methods Course

Author(s):  
Dallas Ann Dallman ◽  
Jayne A. Downey

Critical thinking skills are essential in the success of effective citizens. However, it is unclear how well preservice teachers (PTs) are prepared to teach these skills to K-8 students. This chapter investigates the application of PTs' critical thinking skills in a social studies methods course. In addition, it examines how often PTs include critical thinking strategies in their lesson plans. Findings suggest that PTs consider themselves to be critical thinkers. Yet they may lack the tools, skills, and strategies to promote student engagement with critical thinking through rigorous, complex lessons. The authors present a research study and offer strategies to enhance the development of PTs' critical thinking skills. The chapter discusses how to promote the transfer of these skills to K-8 students.

Author(s):  
Katie Peterson-Hernandez ◽  
Steven S. Fletcher

This chapter documents the development of critical thinking skills in preservice teachers as they engaged in practicum settings in a teacher education program. Qualitative data helps illustrate the shifts in thinking that correlated with particular experiences in the program. Data is used to illustrate strategies that teacher preparation programs might draw on to help teacher education students develop critical thinking skills related to pedagogies and practices. The authors conclude by theorizing a relationship between the structure and strategies employed within a literacy methods course and the expansion of preservice teachers understanding of literacy, teaching, and learning.


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 01155
Author(s):  
Yuliya Savinova ◽  
Tatiana Akhmetzyanova ◽  
Svetlana Pozdnyakova ◽  
Ekaterina Dvorak ◽  
Zhanna Zarutskaya

The issues of the student engagement in science-related activities and the development of students’ language communicative competence are especially relevant in a technical university, where due to the prevailing of the Sciences, the professional communicative competence has become increasingly vital. The goal of this article is to examine how interdisciplinary scientific conferences for students held in foreign languages can foster the foreign language communicative competence of students. In the article, we present the definition and the three basic models of communicative competence. A method of pedagogical observation is used that represents comprehension and analysis of goal-oriented preparation of students for practical scientific conferences. We reveal the fact that interdisciplinary scientific conferences for students held in foreign languages allow educators to foster the foreign language communicative competence of students and deepen their knowledge in professional area, as well as to equip them with research skills since students’ participation in the conferences increases their attention and focus, motivates them to practice critical thinking skills of high level.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-302
Author(s):  
Julie Loveland Swanstrom ◽  

For disciplines depending upon precise definitions and distinctions, students’ notes provide an avenue for student engagement with skill and content. Activities enliven the classroom, and those discussed here can also help students develop and exercise critical thinking skills through note-taking. Lecturing and experiential learning happen hand-in-hand when the instructor uses teaching about notes and note-taking as a method for critical engagement with class content. In this paper, I integrate research on the cognitive function of student note-taking with research on student engagement—particularly, motivating student learning, engaging students with texts, lecture, or discussion, and promoting metacognition about learning practices—by arguing that the instructor who teaches and emphasizes student note-taking elevates note-taking to a method of student engagement and daily critical thinking practice; I discuss particular methods for supporting teaching note-taking, methods that promote active learning, student engagement, and student understanding (and could be utilized in a variety of classes).


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-254
Author(s):  
Deasy Rahmawati ◽  
Ike Annita

ABSTRACT This aims of this study is to comprehend  the increase in the critical thinking skills of PGSD students through the implementation of social inquiry models in elementary social studies education courses. The population of this study were all 3rd semester students of the PGSD FKIP Unla study program. Sampling was carried out by using saturated sampling technique, where all members of the population were sampled, class A01 as a control class that applied conventional learning and class A02 as an experimental class that was treated with social inquiry learning models. The data in this study were obtained through the results of the pretest and posttest using the critical thinking essay test instrument. The results of this study indicate that there are differences in the increase in the critical thinking skills of PGSD students in the SD social studies course after the social inquiry learning model is applied. Beside that, the critical thinking skills of PGSD students in the Elementary Social Sciences Education course after applying the social inquiry learning model are better than the control class using conventional learning methods.   ABSTRAK Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui peningkatan kemampuan berpikir kritis mahasiswa PGSD melalui penerapan model inkuiri sosial dalam mata kuliah pendidikan IPS SD.  Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah seluruh mahasiswa semester 3 program studi PGSD FKIP Unla. Penarikan sampel dilakukan dengan teknik sampling jenuh, dimana seluruh anggota populasi dijadikan sampel, yaitu kelas A01 dijadikan kelas kontrol yang menerapkan pembelajaran konvensional dan kelas A02 dijadikan kelas eksperimen yang mendapatkan perlakuan model pembelajaran inkuiri sosial. Data yang dalam penelitian ini diperoleh melalui hasil pretes dan postes dengan menggunakan instrumen tes uraian berpikir  kritis. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa terdapat perbedaan peningkatan kemampuan berpikir kritis mahasiswa PGSD pada mata kuliah Pendidikan IPS SD setelah diterapkan model  pembelajaran inkuiri sosial. Selain itu, kemampuan berpikir kritis mahasiswa PGSD pada mata kuliah Pendidikan IPS SD setelah diterapkan model  pembelajaran inkuiri sosial lebih baik daripada kelas kontrol yang menggunakan metode pembelajaran konvensional.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-110
Author(s):  
Andi Wahyudi

Critical thinking and creative thinking are important dimension in teaching of 21st century to facing the challenges of the industrial revolution 4.0. The aim of this research was to analyze undergraduate preservice teachers’ critical and creative thinking skills on a biochemistry course. It was conducted using case study to analyse real circumstance that happened in biochemistry course.  The instruments was observation sheet, test items of critical thinking skills, test items of creative thinking skills and questionnaires were used to determine the responses students towards learning activity. Participant was 30 undergraduate preservice chemistry teachers in 2015. The finding of this research showed that biochemistry course only emphasizes on critical thinking skills and not provided briefing creative thinking skills. This means that the biochemistry course has not showed students’ balance skills on critical and creative thinking skills. This study suggest that need further research to develop a biochemistry program who can improve students’ critical thinking and creative thinking.


10.28945/2124 ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsa Mentz ◽  
Roxanne Bailey

[The final form of this paper was published in the journal Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology.] Information Technology (IT) high school learners are constantly struggling to cope with the challenges of succeeding in the subject. IT teachers therefore need to be empowered to utilize appropriate teaching-learning strategies to improve IT learners’ success in the subject. By promoting critical thinking skills, IT learners have the opportunity to achieve greater success in the most difficult part of the curriculum, which is programming. IT teachers received a once-of face-to-face professional development where some teachers received professional development in critical thinking strategies and other IT teachers received professional development in critical thinking strategies infused in pair programming. To determine how teachers experience these suggested strategies, teachers participated in initial interviews as well as follow-up interviews after they had implemented the suggested strategies. From the interviews it became evident that teachers felt that their learners benefited from the strategies. Teachers in the pair programming infusing critical thinking strategies focused more on the pair programming implementation. Although teachers are initially willing to change their ways, they are not always willing to implement new teaching-learning strategies.


10.28945/2257 ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 141-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roxanne Bailey ◽  
Elsa Mentz

Information Technology (IT) high school learners are constantly struggling to cope with the challenges of succeeding in the subject. IT teachers, therefore, need to be empowered to utilize appropriate teaching–learning strategies to improve IT learners’ success in the subject. By promoting critical thinking skills, IT learners have the opportunity to achieve greater success in the most difficult part of the curriculum, which is programming. Participating IT teachers received once-off face-to-face professional development where some teachers received professional development in critical thinking strategies while other IT teachers received professional development in critical thinking strategies infused into pair programming. To determine how teachers experience these suggested strategies, teachers participated in initial interviews as well as follow-up interviews after they had implemented the suggested strategies. From the interviews, it became evident that teachers felt that their learners benefited from the strategies. Teachers in the pair programming infusing critical thinking strategies focused more on the pair programming implementation than on the totality of pair programming infused with critical thinking. Although teachers were initially willing to change their ways, they were not always willing to implement new teaching–learning strategies.


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