Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Teacher Education Curricula

Assist. Prof. Dr. Belgin TanrıverdiAssist. Prof. Dr. Yıldız Oztan Ulusoy

Kocaeli University, Turkey

Economic and social changes in the world bring new opportunities and challenges.

Young people need a wider range of competences than ever before in increasingly diverse societies.

In this increasingly complex world, creativity and the ability to continue to learn will count as much as specific areas of knowledge.

European Council has stressed the need to equip people with ‘new skills for new jobs’ and to raise overall skills levels, by providing ‘initial and continuing education.

That’s why the trend in school curricula is to help learners acquire knowledge and the skills and attitudes necessary to apply it in real life situations.

To acquire competences, what learners need most, from an early age, is to 'learn to learn' by reflecting critically on their learning aims.

For almost thirty years, teaching critical thinking skills (CT) has been accepted as one of the desirable outcomes of undergraduate education and one of the highest priorities in college education as well by the researchers, psychologists and educators

Ennis (1987) defines CT as ‘reasonable and reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do’.

CT is not being able to know to stop for red lights or whether you received the correct change at the supermarket.

True critical thinking is higher-order thinking, enabling a person to, for example, responsibly judge between political candidates, evaluate society's need for nuclear power plants, and assess the consequences of global warming.

Almost everyone agrees that one of the main goals of education, at whatever level, is to help students develop critical-thinking skills.

The difficult part is knowing what to do about it. What enhancements would best promote the development of critical-thinking skills?

Situation in Turkey

The curricula of teacher education is determined by Higher Education Council mostly based on the ideas of all faculties in Turkey.

The courses are also determined by this council and most of the courses are compulsory. Elective courses are mostly related to their discipline or profession.

During Bologna process these courses are started to review in some universities.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the curricula of Faculty of Education in terms of developing students’ critical thinking skills. In order to fulfil that aim,

courses/topics in the curriculum strategies and methods used in these course, evaluation and assessment methods used in these

courses and the role of teacher/ classroom climate were analysed in terms of developing CT skills or

not.

Method In the study, qualitative research design

was used. The sample group is chosen according to the researcher’s idea of appropriateness (Purposive sampling). The sample of this study is limited to pre-service teachers enrolled to the fourth grade in Faculty of education since they have completed of all the courses in the curricula. Class attendance and academic success are taken into consideration since it is important to attend all of the courses in the curriculum.

43 volunteers who accepted the request were invited to the interview conducted by the researchers at the end of 2009-2010 academic year just before their graduation. 6 different interviews were conducted for different groups both from evening classes and regular classes.

The duration of the interviews ranges between 45 and 90 minutes. At the beginning of the interview they were told the entire interview would be recorded if they had no objections.

Instruments

The qualitative interview technique is used for this study. Qualitative interviews is used so that the researcher provide with deeper and richer data.

Another reason to use this technique was its yield to “data creation” rather than “data collection”. Data creation is a name better suited to the ontological assumptions of qualitative research.

During the interview process, the interviewers were seen as a part of the interview process because as teacher trainers they were a part of curriculum and education.

A one-page-long text summarizing CT skills was prepared based on the related literature in order to provide unity in content and the concept.

This text was read and corrected by the two professors who have studied CT Skills. After the changes through their suggestions, the final text was copied and scattered to the participants 10 days before the interview.

They were requested to read the text until they felt satisfied.

At the beginning of each session, the text was summarized at the beginning of each session to reach a consensus.

Interview Questions

The open-ended questions directed at the participants were as follows:

What courses/ topics do you think have positive impact on developing your CT skills?

What strategies/methods used in the courses do you think have positive impact on developing your CT skills?

What evaluation and assessment methods used in the courses do you think have positive impact on developing your CT skills?

The questions were drawn from the related literature considering three of the basic components of a curriculum; content, strategies/techniques used in the courses, and evaluation and assessment methods.

During the first interview, the answers of the students made us add another question to the entire process although it was not planned.

What do you think about the role of teacher in that process?

The analysis of the data

The tape recordings were transcribed verbatim and imported to N-Vivo8. The questions used in the interviews were used as general categories and the answers were coded into sub-categories. For example a main category “the courses/topics” was divided into two sub-categories as the courses/topics that exist in present curricula and the courses/topics that suggested by students but not existing in present curricula.

During categorization and coding process irrelevant ideas to the CT skills were not taken into consideration. Categorization and coding process was done by the researchers at the same time, the ideas were shared, combined and reach a consensus about categorization and coding.

Critical Thinking Skills

Courses/topics Strategies /Methods Evaluation/Assessment Methods

Coursesin the Cur.

CoursesThat are Not in the

cur.

weakening

StrengtheningStrengthening weakening

Strengthening

weakening

Findings • 1. The courses/topics in the present curricula • I.A..Streghtening CT skills• Courses based on analyzing and synthesizing the previous

knowledge with the current one; especially courses based on media or literature analysis were thought to develop CT skills since they made the students see other people’s lives, culture and different point of views.

• “The science of environment could be an effective lesson but the method should be more student-centred. Rather than lecturing it should combine with media or art. For example it should combine photography with science. Analyzing the nature through photos is much better than lecturing”.

• A female student from Science Teaching

The courses repeated by the students are generally focused on media or literature analysis such as film analysis, media analysis, literature analysis, book analysis, Contrastive education, effective communication, drama, Special teaching methods, Material Development and Adaptation.

The reasons participants stated that these courses were based on practice rather than theory, comprehending content and making them draw conclusions.

Only two students think that there should be a discrete course for developing CT skills.

1.B. Courses or topics weakening CT skills “Courses related to our discipline generally prevent us from

thinking, comprehending even talking about the topics studied in the classroom. Courses based on our professional skills are much better than science and related courses to science”

A Female student from Science Teaching “Apart from Special teaching methods and material

development and adaptation we did not have a lesson developing our skills, because all of them are teacher centred. The philosophy of mathematics could be better with more student-centred approaches”.

A male student from Mathematics teaching

1.C. courses that do not exist in the present curricula. Art focused courses are thought to develop CT skills

such as theatre, film, photography, text writing. Also, they generally stated that their curricula should be more flexible with elective courses. Almost all of the students (32) think that they should take a philosophy course.

“We were only trained in one point of view. We have courses only related to our department or profession. Our curriculum should be supported by different elective or compulsory courses from other department or faculties such as philosophy, media analysis, text writing, music, poetry, or some other courses related to our departments that help us to understand nature better like Mountain climbing and so on.. “A male student from Science Teaching

2. Strategies used in the courses 2.1. Strengthening ones

Discussion, group discussion, group work, team work, model designing, material development, material adaptation, projects, text analysis, media analysis, case study, research-based/ problem-based methods, brain storming, Socratic questioning.

“In the film analysis course we watch a film and try to understand their thought and reasons behind it”. A student from ELT classroom

“Case studies are the best in order to solve real life problems because we listen an incident and discuss it and solve it. Since everybody has different solutions we get a lot of different ideas and start to think other solutions and understand ours is not always the best. In order to do that a suitable environment should be created by the teacher” A students from Pre-class teaching

– 2.b. Weakening ones• “When we heard we would make a presentation for the

first time we thought that we were lucky but in a while presentations turned into lecturing and we got bored because no one considered what the others said. They just focused on their work. I think students cannot teach something to the class, it is the teachers’ responsibility to lead the classroom”.

• A female student from ELT class

3. Evaluation and assessment 3.1.. Strengthening ones Most of the references are in favour of formative

evaluation, in other words success should not be determined by mid-terms or finals but what has been done during the term should be considered since students can make their self evaluation and also feedback should be given.“

“The type of question is also important. Open-ended questions are better than multiple choice questions. Question should be based on the capacity of students' analysing and synthesizing skills”.

A student from Science Teaching.

– 3. b. Weakening ones• “The understanding of evaluation should be

completely changed, we are generally evaluated d in mid-terms and exams, The courses should be project based, while those projects are evaluated at the end of the term what is done during the term should also be evaluated.

• A students from Turkish Language Teaching

• 4. The role of teacher• Most of the students relate the main categories and sub-

categories with the role of teacher. • They think courses or topics, methods and strategies

used in the courses and the evaluation and assessment techniques could develop students’ CT skills by the help of teacher.

• “We were given different topics at the beginning of the term, till the end of the course the lesson was completely based on our work and the teacher almost did nothing but grading our performances although the course was related to our discipline.

• A student from Science Teaching

Discussion

Considering all of the answers students state that the courses or topics based on art or aesthetics and also courses or topics based on analysis and a new production design.

They think that courses should be elective rather than compulsory based on practice.

They think that debates, group discussion, brainstorming, case studies are effective methods rather than lecturing.

They think that evaluation system should be based on process rather than product. Rather than multiple choice, fill in the blank or definition of terms, open ended questions based on their ideas should be taken into consideratiion.

They think that, whatever courses are implemented into the curriculum or what methods are used do not matter. The most importan thing is the attitude of their teachers.

Suggestions Teacher education curricula should be based on

elective courses rather than compulsory ones. In service training program based on student

centered methods and evaluation systems should be organized for university teachers.

Students from different departments should have the courses not related to their discipline only but they should courses from different departments.

Rather than a discrete course for developing CT, courses should be developed appropriate to CT skills.

THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE