Teaching Critical Thinking Skills to Fourth and Fifth Graders through Teacher-Led Small-Group Discussions

Teachers led nine critical thinking discussions with a group composed of six members of their class. The "prelesson" was taught immediately prior to two inservice workshops for the teachers, and it provided baseline data against which to evaluate changes in teacher and pupil behavior following the workshops. Analyses of the audiotape recordings revealed that, compared to the prelesson, teachers talked significantly less during the discussions, and pupils spoke significantly more. Furthermore, after the prelesson, pupils offered evidence for their opinions of conclusions significantly more often than they simply advanced conclusions, substantiated or not. Although the amount of teacher talk declined dramatically, there is no accompanying shift in the categories of talk they used to stimulate children's critical thinking. Implications of the findings for classroom critical thinking and suggestions for continuing research are discussed.