Abstract:

It is unquestionable that educational institutions play a relevant role in the development of any society. Schools are expected to contribute to the integral formation of individuals, and to prepare them for the personal, professional, social, and economic challenges that the constantly and rapidly changing world demands. This education involves building knowledge and developing dispositions, values, capacities, and skills, not only so that individuals have a holistic understanding of the world, but also so that they know when and how to act in all the different situations that they will encounter throughout their lives.

By being aware of the necessity of knowing how to think and how to act critically from an early age, it was made relevant to highlight critical thinking in initial teacher training, more precisely in the Curricular Unit “Initiation to Professional Practice 3”, which was attended by 3rd year Basic Education students in a Polytechnic Institute in the North of Portugal, in the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 academic years.

This emphasis was achieved through appropriate strategies and methodologies considered to be able to promote:
(1) the development of critical competences of our students, who will ultimately become future education professionals;
(2) their sensitivity to the decisive role they will play in their future students’ paths; and
(3) their empowerment as promoters of critical thinking.

It was the first time that students and teachers worked in this Curricular Unit – therefore, and from a methodological point of view, this was a clear exploratory experience.

Based on provided resources and guidelines, and after carrying out several training sessions with children between the ages of three and 10, in this experience the future teachers were suggested to identify different educational contexts and practices and were proposed to make an analysis, an evaluation and a reflection of various parameters.

The data was mainly collected through written records made by the students and through conversations between them, in groups, and between the students and the teachers, all of which took place in class, where the completion of the proposed tasks was monitored.

From the analysis of the collected data, one should highlight the mobilization of all cognitive processes by the students when they were solving the aforementioned tasks. From the students’ and the teachers’ perspectives, these teaching and learning situations (which require a realistic, comparative, evaluative and reflective analysis based on the educational action and on its essential structure) proved to be fundamental. The students have valued the opportunity to get to know different contexts, as well as various educational resources and model practices which can be adopted in their future professional activity. The teaching team, which recognizes the importance of training selective, assertive, and thoughtful professionals, considers that the Curricular Internship Units provide a reflective work on diverse aspects, which directly and indirectly relate to educational action and to the sharing of exemplary, inspiring, challenging, innovative and context-appropriate educational practices and resources.

Keywords:

Critical Thinking, Initial Teacher Education, Educational Practices.