Developing Critical Thinking Skills among Prospective Teachers through Teaching Educational Research Course: A Quasi Experimental Approach

The study aims to develop critical thinking skills among prospective teachers. The study was experimental in nature; quasi experimental approach was used to conduct the study. The population of the study was prospective teachers studying at master level. Sample of the study was 73 prospective teachers enrolled in the educational research course in two groups. The first was labeled as the control group, while one was labeled as the experimental group. To assess the critical thinking skills of prospective teachers test was developed by the research using guidelines of Watson and Glaser test. Test was consisted of five dimensions i.e. analyzing, assumptions, deduction, and inference and interpreting information. Cronbach's alpha determined the test's reliability to be 0.80. Intervention was consisted of 10 lessons related to educational research course. The prospective teachers performed well in analyzing, Assumptions, deduction and overall CTS in post-test as compare to pre-test. There was statistically noteworthy the variation between the or before as well as post-test grades of Inference and interpreting. The critical thinking skills are essential element to compete 21st century challenges. Prospective teachers have to face many educational challenges to improve students learning, it is necessary that they should be prepared with CTS either to infuse through separate curriculum or embed with existing curriculum.

The commognitive perspective of teaching skills of prospective mathematics teachers in microteaching subjects

This study aims to describe the teaching skills of prospective mathematics education teachers in micro-teaching subjects from a commognitive perspective. This type of research is qualitative research. The research subjects consisted of 15 students of the 2015 Mathematics Education Study Program class, which were taking micro-teaching courses. The instrument used in this study was a rubric sheet—an assessment of prospective teachers' teaching skills. Data analysis techniques used are data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion collection. The results showed that: Prospective mathematics education teachers in preliminary activities often use the word usage component, visual mediator, routine and do not use the narrative component. In the core activities of learning mathematics, teacher candidates use four components commognitive, which are the use of words, visual mediators, routine, and narrative. In the selection of mathematics education, teacher candidates only use the word use component. Commognitive provides an overview of mathematical cognitive-communication and content in the learning carried out.

Prospective Teachers, Generic Skills, and Student Community Service Program: A Case Study in the Indonesian Context

Many papers have been published in recent years describing prospective teachers` generic and teaching skills. However, to our best knowledge, little is known about how they acquire and apply these skills in real-life situations outside of the classroom, among communities through student community service program in particular. In other words, because empirical evidence in the literature has failed to recognise the implementation of prospective teachers’ generic skills among communities, the question on this topic remains open. Therefore, our purpose was to explore and describe prospective teachers’ generic skills when taking part in a community service program. This study is qualitative in nature, with a total of 150 students consisting of 100 females (67%) and 50 males (33%) enrolled at the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education in a public university in Indonesia participating by adopting a questionnaire and audio-recorded interviews for data collection. The data collected through questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the information collected through the interviews was evaluated and interpreted using content analysis through coding classification and theme or pattern identification, with the goal of providing thorough descriptive interpretations of social phenomena. The findings reveal that the prospective teachers under investigation strongly agree and agree that community service program has benefited them personally, socially, and professionally, as well as improved their generic skills. They could develop their generic skills while participating in a student community service program. The findings of this study provide clear evidence that generic skills and the development of these skills are deemed important by students enrolled at teacher training and education. Based on the findings, the implications and limitations of this present study with several suggestions for future research are also discussed.

National Webinar on Philosophy and Psychological Review of Thinking Disposition

In addition to the ability to think, students need a thinking disposition to succeed in learning. However, the results of preliminary research indicate that the knowledge of prospective teachers, teachers, and lecturers is still low on thinking dispositions. Therefore, this problem can be solved by conducting a national webinar on dispositions of thinking. Thus, the purpose of this service is to provide participants with an understanding of the philosophical and psychological dispositions of thinking. This service method is in the form of a national webinar, which is a seminar held online. This webinar activity is divided into three stages, namely the material presentation stage, the question and answer stage, and the community service evaluation stage. The results of this community service evaluation show that the percentage of the results of filling out the questionnaire is 81% which means that it is in the very high category. This means that this national webinar activity was very successful in understanding the participants towards a philosophical and psychological review of thinking dispositions. This success is supported by the availability of material, internet signals, and the ability of the presenters to convey the material. Apart from that, there are also inhibiting factors in this seminar activity, namely inadequate material delivery time, signal constraints, and too many presenters.