Student Teachers’ Perspectives on Teaching Critical Thinking in Elementary Classrooms

Abstract

Critical thinking skills are necessary to develop reflective, autonomous learners who can analyze, interpret, and evaluate information. The present study aimed to explore the emerging perceptions of the student teachers regarding the instructional strategies they use to foster critical thinking in the classroom while performing their teaching practice in the public sector university of Sialkot. A qualitative phenomenological research design was used to bring out the lived experiences of the participants. Ten future teachers who had taken part in teaching practice were selected by using purposive sampling, and data were collected by semi-structured interviews, which were guided by the previous literature. Audio recordings of the interviews, with participants’ consent, were used to analyze data through the six-phase model of Braun & Clarke (2020) to provide a rich description of the themes. The main theme of “Instructional Strategies and Classroom Practices for Promoting Critical Thinking” was broken down into four sub-themes: questioning techniques and open-ended tasks, collaborative and group-based learning, activity-based/hands-on learning, and memorable student responses/ unexpected critical insights. Results indicate that student teachers prefer open-ended questions, think-pair-share, group activities, and real-life/activity-based tasks to be used for critical thinking, while many elementary students find these difficult at the beginning, using extended justification of their answers to open-ended questions. Participants also talked of being pleasantly surprised by students' unexpected criticism as proof of the possibility of HOTS when pedagogy is properly scaffolded. The study concludes that, although prospective teachers expressed positive attitudes towards critical thinking in the classroom, they need more systematic preparation and support in the school environment in order to be able to manage participative classrooms and continue to maintain critical thinking-oriented practices.