Improving Critical Thinking Skills in History

Abstract

This action research project, conducted by a classroom teacher, investigated strategies and techniques to improve critical thinking skills and engagement in a high school history classroom. The research methods involved comparing quiz, test, and essay scores as well as student surveys, interviews and teacher-created field notes from inquiry-based and lecturebased classrooms. The inquiry classroom involved role-playing, simulations, re-enactments, multiple text analysis, and oral/visual presentations. Students engaged in analyzing bias, examining different viewpoints and perspectives, and analyzing documents. The findings indicate that when critical thinking skills were emphasized and integrated in lesson planning, students achieved higher scores on tests, quizzes, and assignments and gained a deeper and more meaningful understanding of history.

The utilisation of a Mobile Phone Forum on the Winksite application in the teaching and learning of History: a case study of Pre-service Teachers at Makerere University

“…History teachers ought to encourage interactive classroom climate that supports shared construction of History knowledge and skills and student-teacher dialogic conversations about the past (Sebbowa, 2016). Research on the use of constructivist approaches in a History classroom indicates high levels of teacher-student interactions, Historical consciousness, deeper understanding and construction of history meanings (Savich, 2009;Guyver, 2016;Mclean, Cook & Stanley, 2017). Importantly, participants are leaning towards constructivism which opens the possibility of using mobile phone forums to complement the history meaning making process through sending Short Messaging Services; asking and responding to each other's questions as well as listening to recorded speeches and videos.…”

“…The challenge of large student numbers forces lecturers to engage with methods of teaching like lecturestorytelling and chalk and talk during History education classes. These methods emphasise memorising of facts (Savich, 2009), limit capacity to think historically (Harris & Girard, 2014) and prohibit teacher-student interactions (Anderson, 2008) which in-turn compromise the quality and innovativeness of History education (Sebbowa, 2016). Such pedagogical constraints among others are reported to be the norm in the vast majority of large class sizes in Sub-Saharan Africa at the primary and secondary levels (Nakabugo, Opolot-Okurut, Ssebunga, Maani, & Byamugisha, 2008;O'Sullivan, 2006) and at higher education in universities (Bollag, 2003;Bunoti, 2011;Tibarimbasa, 2010).…”

Critical Thinking within the Current Framework of ESP Curriculum in Technical Universities of Russia

“…The second level, high order thinking skills or HOTS consists of the skills to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate, is regarded as more complex cognitive ability and includes critical thinking. (Duron, et al, 2006;Savich, 2008). However, even though critical thinking has been valued in various disciplines, and assessments to evaluate critical thinking skills have also developed (ex.…”

Improving Students’ Critical Thinking Skills through Multimedia Based Economic Learning (Research and development on Ten Grade Students of Senior High Schools in Kuningan, West Java)

“…Many factors affect the low ability of critical thinking of students; one of them is the role of teachers in learning that provides monotonous learning and less motivation. Whereas the role of teachers is very important in helping students in improving the ability to think critically [1][2][3][4]. In addition, teachers can use learning media in the form of ICT, where ICT is an important element in the learning process [5,6].…”