2017 Volume 58 Issue 1 Pages 27-40
This study aims to develop a teaching method to promote critical thinking through interactions with others in lower secondary school science and to verify its effect from classroom practice. To achieve this purpose, a teaching method of “Critical Facilitation” was devised whereby a facilitator was assigned a role of pointing critical indications to the others in order to promote critical thinking when the group members discussed their hypothesis. To verify the effects of the method, a class of forty-one second-grade lower secondary school students was taught using this method in the unit “Chemical Change”. After having analyzed the students’ questionnaires, worksheets and records of utterance during the process of Critical Facilitation, the results suggest that the devised teaching method by interaction with others had positive effects on promoting critical thinking, scientific reasoning, and critical reflection on hypothesis.
