Date of Award
1990
Document Type
Practicum-NSU Access Only
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Child and Youth Studies
Advisor
Georgianna Lowen
Keywords
critical-thinking, critical-thinking skills, elementary schools, teaching thinking, thinking skills, questioning techniques
Abstract
Many teachers et this elementary school considered Critical thinking skills as a separate subject and assumed them to be on I y a part of the gifted curriculum. As a result critical thinking skills were not being integrated on a daily basis in the regular elementary classroom.
Thie practicum proposed to eliminate the problem through ln-service training and teacher application of critical -thinking skills in the elementary classroom. There were seven sessions in which the writer trained the teacher on using graphic organizers. Effective questioning techniques. the Inductive model. and the integrative model. After each session the teachers applied and integrated the critical thinking skills taught at the workshop in their classrooms. The writer followed up each session with a week of classroom visitations to monitor the implementation and offer assistance.
Twenty-six out of thirty-five teachers attended the ln-service and successfully completed the implementation. They showed on the average a 50 percent gain from the pretest to the posttest. An additional benefit was noted during Implementation. Even though the reminder of the teachers did not attend the in-service sessions. they became interested in the materials to utilize in their classroom.