Fostering Critical Thinking Skills through a Teacher-centered “Infusion Approach” in Elementary School Science

—Through Class Development that Makes Use of the Naïve Conceptions of Children in the 5th Grade unit on “Pendulum Movement”—

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to devise a teaching method that incorporates immersion-like elements into a teacher-centered “infusion approach” in elementary school science, and to verify its effect through practice. In order to achieve this goal, in the fifth-grade of elementary school science unit on “Pendulum Movement” (13 hours in total), we present and explain the six critical thinking skills in science to children, and then the teacher continuously teaches those skills using the devised “Thinking Sheet” (a teacher-centered “infusion approach”). In addition, we developed lessons that made use of the naïve conceptions of children (an immersion-like element). The results of feedback obtained using a questionnaire and the students’ “Thinking Sheets” verified that the devised teaching method indeed contributed to the successful development of “inquisitive thinking”, “rational thinking”, “self-reflective thinking”, “goal-oriented thinking”, and “skeptical thinking” among the six aspects of critical thinking skills explicitly taught to the children.