Abstract:

The development of critical thinking is one of the challenges that teachers must currently address, enhancing the student's ability to self-regulate and monitor their behavior. Under this consideration, this type of thinking within the framework of the information and knowledge society is of great value and scope, because it allows human beings to develop a reflective attitude that transcends their reality. In this sense, at the Colegio Distrital León de Greiff, a public educational institution located in Ciudad Bolívar, one of the places with the highest conditions of violence and vulnerability in the city of Bogotá, capital of Colombia, teachers of the transition grade implement various pedagogical strategies with the intention of promoting critical thinking in students, reflecting on their social reality. These resources are implemented based on the bets outlined in the Institutional Educational Project, where the school declares a pedagogical model supported by constructivism and a curricular model operationalized through classroom projects. From this assessment, the research sought to establish the correspondence between the pedagogical strategies proposed and implemented by teachers of the transition grade for the development of critical thinking in students of the León de Greiff District School IED, with the educational dimensions that must be taken to promote the construction of peaceful environments in the Ciudad Bolívar locality. In this order of ideas, the project was framed in the interpretive paradigm, qualitative approach, explanatory scope and action research design. Which led to the use of documentary review, participant observation, in-depth interview and research workshop as information gathering techniques. In this same sense, as the population object of study, the students of the transition grade of the León de Greiff District School were taken into account, taking a convenience sample from a class made up of 20 students. The information collected allowed us to show that the institution has designed a formal curricular proposal to enhance the critical thinking of students, according to their biological cycle. Teachers in the classroom implement pedagogical strategies, such as the problematic question and situated teaching, which promote in students the acquisition of knowledge, the implementation of critical thinking skills, the development of critical and prosocial attitudes. In conclusion, it is possible to point out that there is correspondence between the strategies implemented by teachers to promote critical thinking in students and educational dimensions that must be operationalized to enhance peace education, in school and locality, which allows us to affirm that the training provided in the institution transcends traditional pedagogical practices, responding to the training demands that Colombia demands, to overcome the historical violence that it has experienced since the 20th century.

Keywords:

Critical thinking, peace education, teaching how to think, pedagogical strategies, culture of peace.