An Inquiry Into the Cultivation of Teachers’ Critical Thinking in Teacher Education and Teacher Professional Development Projects

Abstract

Teacher education and teacher professional development programs often focus on the reinforcement of explicit knowledge, ignoring the improvement of implicit ability, such as critical thinking ability. There should not only be a course titled ‘How to develop critical thinking’, but critical thinking education should be integrated throughout teacher education or development programs. This paper tries to define a teacher’s critical thinking in pedagogical behaviors from the perspective of the role of being a teacher and clarify the connotation of a teacher’s critical thinking ability in his/her pedagogical work, which encompasses a multitude of essential elements, including thinking carefully, determining wisely and reflecting rationally. Corresponding initiatives are incorporated by means of cultivation of the awareness of critical thinking ability, development of critical thinking skills that permeate all aspects of the curriculum and revision of the syllabus and implementation process of training courses through evaluation and feedback.