This study aimed to investigate how teachers integrated the development of students' / critical thinking skills into their teaching during the three major phases of their teaching, namely, their planning practices, interactive practices, and reflective practices and to evaluate the influence of their instruction as felt by students in fourth grade Turkish course. The study was conducted as a comparative case study in which three teachers from three different primary schools participated. Data were collected through classroom observations, interviews with teachers and their students, logs written by students and documents. The findings of the study indicated that, in the planning stage, factors such as autonomy, methodological stance and relevance played a role on the level of teachers' / incorporation of critical thinking into the process. In the lessons, their classroom climate and management, perception of their realm of influence, their approach to challenge and tendency to create a common frame of reference were found to have an effect on the ways their students were involved in critical thinking processes. Furthermore, metacognitive skills and critical reading skills, together with others, were addressed by teachers in different ways. In their reflection, the way they referred to the strengths and weaknesses of their lessons and the way they evaluated their students' / learning as well as their discrimination of thinking concepts and the ways they dealt with assumptions underlying students' / reasoning involved elements revealing their approach to critical thinking. Among students, some interactive patterns, curiosity and interest constituted the factors that motivated students to think critically.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12609395/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 February 2008 |
| Creators | Turkmen Dagli, Melek |
| Contributors | Yildirim, Ali |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Ph.D. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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