Formation of critical thinking of future teachers while designing a quest as a collection of puzzles

Abstract

Problem and goal. An urgent problem in higher education is the search for effective forms of learning that have didactic potential in terms of developing systematic, critical, creative, and other types of thinking demanded by the digital society. The authors propose to actively involve students in designing quests in the format of a collection of puzzles to develop critical thinking as a universal skill that meets the challenges of transformation and globalization. The purpose of the study is to study the influence of the participation of future teachers in the activity of constructing a quest as a collection of puzzles on the level of formation of their critical thinking. Research methods. At the stage of obtaining theoretical generalizations, an analysis of scientific works on the problem of gamification of learning and the use of digital resources for the intellectual development of the individual was used. The questions of the author's test for diagnosing critical thinking were compiled taking into account Bloom's classification. The quest, as a series of tasks united by a single didactic plot, is implemented in the environment of the Kvestodel designer. 60 students of Vyatka State University (Russian Federation) were involved in the design of a collection of puzzles for educational purposes. Training program - Pedagogical education, bachelor's level. Statistical processing of data was performed using Pearson's χ2 (chi-square) criterion. Results. Collections of puzzles are designed and used in the study of the disciplines “Modern Information Technologies” and “Technologies of Social and Professional Interaction” according to the following plan: analysis of educational needs and capabilities of teachers; studying the digital resource and its functionality; working in an environment for designing an escape room; presentation and defense of the project; application of a complete series of tasks in practice. Statistically significant differences were revealed in the qualitative changes that occurred in the pedagogical system (χ2 = 6.533; p < 0.05). In conclusion, the conditions are formulated under which, involving students in the design of quests as a collection of puzzles, will contribute to the creation of additional resources for the development of critical thinking: highly creative activity, participation in discussions, selection of sources and search for information, analysis of opinions (decisions), individual and group work on thinking through a series of tasks.