Paper Code and Title: (Becoming a Research Capable Teacher)
Introduction During my experience as a secondary school educator, and currently, as an educational administrator, I have come to realize a "critical-thinking deficit" in our students. Ultimately, a lot of the teaching pedagogies used, regardless of the program, are largely subconscious; teachers already know. However, I believe that this lack of critical-thinking ability in our students should effect a change for us; away from being subconscious teachers, to become conscious, reflective teachers who aim to do better.
Thus, the purpose of this annotated bibliography is to explore my research question: "How can teachers develop and enhance learners' skills of critical thinking within the teaching and learning in primary classrooms?" This research question should point the way in helping to discover new strategies to help children to attain the goal of developing into critical thinkers. This is a multi-faceted question that requires a detailed literature review. First, there needs to be a consideration of what critical thinking is, whether it can be defined, and how it should be defined. Second, what can or should educators do to promote critical thinking in primary classrooms, and what strategies can they adopt to enhance critical-thinking skills? Last, whether there are needs to overhaul collective thinking about critical thinking, and the effects to educational psychology and philosophy.
The ten sources that I have chosen in this annotated bibliography seek to answer the pointers set out above. Through a variety of sources across a wide chronological, geographical, theoretical, and philosophical spectrum, I aim to track how thinking pertaining to my research question has developed over time.
Kuhn, D. (1999). A Developmental Model of Critical Thinking. Educational Researcher, Deanna Kuhn is a professor of psychology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has published widely in psychology and education, in journals ranging from Psychological Review to Harvard Educational Review. In recent years, her work has focused on developing inquiry and argument curricula for middle schoolers.
Kuhn suggests that her readers consider critical thinking in a developmental framework. She outlines a developmental model derived from contemporary empirical research and processes and identifies three forms of second-order cognition metacognitive, meta-strategic, and epistemological making critical thinking possible.
The author provides a strong theoretical background for readers to understand the developmental origins of meta-knowing, before arguing for recognizing critical thinking as a developmental phenomenon. The structure of her paper is also easy to understand, with categorical sub-divisions, to bring her readers through her thought process. Also, her theories stated are well supported by other theorists like herself, and drawn from a trove of research done...
