خلاصة:
Abstract Recent interest in teaching thinking has lead different researchers to examine different approaches in education to find effective methods and approaches for teaching thinking. Through a qualitative case analysis, this study attempted to identify the effects of the infusion model of teaching thinking implemented through a dialogic approach on a PhD candidate’s critical thinking skills. The study occurred over a semester in a PhD course which aimed at reviewing and discussing language teaching issues critically. A number of interactions and reflective journals produced by the participant during the course was analyzed qualitatively for finding different thinking abilities and elements. A number of thinking abilities and elements proposed by Paul and Nosich (1993) in a higher order thinking assessment model was used for analysis. Analysis of the interactions and reflective journals showed that the number of thinking abilities and elements increased over the course which was indicative of the effectiveness of the infusion model used through a dialogic teaching approach in developing critical thinking skills.
ملخص الجهاز:
Through a qualitative case analysis, this study attempted to identify the effects of the infusion model of teaching thinking implemented through a dialogic approach on a PhD candidate’s critical thinking skills.
Analysis of the interactions and reflective journals showed that the number of thinking abilities and elements increased over the course which was indicative of the effectiveness of the infusion model used through a dialogic teaching approach in developing critical thinking skills.
Keywords: Critical thinking; dialogic teaching; infusion model; interactions; reflective journal Introduction Dialogic teaching is a reciprocal teaching in which both learners and teachers contribute collectively which results in learners’ understanding, thinking, and knowledge construction (Alexander, 2005; Mercer & Littleton, 2007).
Furthermore, considering the Iranian EFL context, Hajhosseiny (2012) investigated the effect of two dialogic teaching methods including group discussion and Socratic dialogue on university students’ critical thinking and showed that dialogic teaching methods improved the participants’ understanding and some social skills such as interacting with each other, participating in group discussions, and taking responsibility.
Moreover, dialogic approaches for teaching thinking have been considered effective means to develop critical thinking (Hajhosseiny, 2012; Lip man, 1997; Moon, 2008; Paul& Elder, 2004).
The researcher analyzed the class discussions and the reflective journals produced by the participant qualitatively in order to find elements of critical thinking elicited from the model of assessing thinking proposed by Paul and Nosich (1993) to show the effects of teaching thinking through an infusion model on the participant’s thinking skills.