"On Fire" or "Lacking the Spark": Four Types of Self-Directed Critical Thinking of Preservice Teachers

• In Event: 14.034 - Teachers: Sources of Resistance, Sources of Support?

Abstract

Understanding the critical thought process of preservice teachers in an urban teaching environment is essential for the establishment of a social justice oriented teacher education curriculum. Utilizing artifacts taken from a preservice teacher education program, specifically monthly critically reflective teaching journals, four distinct thinking patterns emerged from this qualitative study. Student thought processes fell into one of four developmental categories of critical thinking: already critically oriented, improving criticality throughout the semester, starting critical and then falling off, and wholly uncritical thought. Findings from this study can help continue to inform gaps in literature regarding the ability to engage preservice teachers with issues of race, power, poverty and inequity inherent in society that all influence public schooling, especially within urban areas.

Authors

• Monica A. Medina, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• Erik James Shaver, Indiana University - IUPUI