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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
(Sharikova, 2007). In the context of developing critical thinking,
it is crucial to establish assumptions, consider their accuracy,
take note of them from different perspectives, and, finally, make
decisions based on convincing evidence (Castellano et al., 2017).
Critical thinking is closely related to creative thinking, which is
characterized by creativity and originality. The result of this
thinking is a product that is valuable, new, useful, usable, and
original (Žák, 2004). According to Tóthová (2006, p. 15), „there
are several definitions of creative thinking that are based on
different theoretical concepts (Gestalt, psychoanalytic,
behavioral psychology), are differently oriented (e.g.
personality, abilities, intellectual activity, process, product or
more abstract questions concerning the share of conscious and
unconscious regulation, convergent and divergent thinking in the
creative process, etc.), and usually take into account only some
aspects or address only part of the problems related to the
definition of this concept.“ A creative person focuses his
activities on goals that have not been known so far. To achieve
these goals, it is necessary to master things that have already
been discovered and dealt by someone else. Adequate education
and good knowledge of the issue are essential in the creative
process (Tuma, 2001).
Kosturková (2016) points out that the school’s vision should be
to teach pupils to orient themselves in life, and by using the
principles of critical thinking in education, the school prepares
pupils more effectively for the future. People need critical and
creative thinking to understand issues, solve problems, and make
appropriate decisions. The school’s duty should also be to
prepare students to participate in society as citizens, where the
ability to think critically and creatively can help significantly.
3 Activational Teaching Methods
In order to improve the quality of education in the Slovak
Republic, there are constant efforts to change education, such as
the new state curriculum, which changes the situation only
partially. The shortcomings in education and the related poor
results of our pupils have been pointed out for a long time, and
in today's education it is not enough to teach traditionally, but
innovative methods, approaches and learning behaviours are
needed. This issue in the context of the new curriculum has
begun to be abundant, especially in terms of improving the
quality of education and streamlining the results. However, real
and effective change requires the coherence of several elements.
In today’s schools, the traditional form of the educational
process is dominant: a lesson based on the frontal work with
pupils, explanation, interpretation, and speaking of the teacher.
Following on practice, the application of changes at the level of
educational forms and methods is perceived as unique and
demanding. Although teachers are informed about new methods
from different sources, many times they choose a more proven
and widespread method of teaching. A suitable and well-known
group is expected to be activational methods, the wide spectrum
of which allows precise selection for the needs of particular
educational process according to the learning content, and pupil
and teacher characteristics. It is important that teachers abandon
traditional methods of education and apply more creative
methods to enhance creativity and creative thinking, critical
thinking, pupils’ independence, their ability to cooperate and,
last but not least, the development of self-reflection and self-
evaluation. Despite the fact that literature offers a number of
methods, forms and concepts of teaching that many teachers
know and even put some of them in use, there are still many
teachers who do not use these methods for the benefit of pupils.
There is a need for a qualitative change from reproductive
cognition created and acquired through cognition, remembering,
and basic understanding, to active and productive cognition that
is new to an individual, created through analysis, synthesis,
evaluation, creative and reflective thinking (Grofčíková,
Kozárová, 2017).
We understand the methods and strategies of the educational
process as a system of coordinated teaching activities of a
teacher and learning activities of a pupil towards achieving the
set educational objectives. The development of critical and
creative thinking can be achieved by methods that involve pupils
in active thinking, pupils must be encouraged to introduce their
own opinions, to rationally choose from two competent ideas, to
cooperate with others, to discuss responsibly about specific
issues, to respect different opinions and realize how experience
can influence people’s attitudes and perceptions (Grecmanová,
2000). Activational methods are defined by Fenyvesiová (2013)
as didactic procedures leading the teaching, so that educational
goals are achieved primarily based on the pupils’ own learning
activity. In this way of education, there is a change in the role of
pupils from passive recipients to active participants in the
educational process in terms of individual cognitive processes
(in particular, active processes of acquisition, updating,
processing, evaluation, and generalization or application of new
knowledge). Activational methods are most often divided into
(Kotrba, Lacina, 2011):
problem-based learning (heuristic method, black box
method, confrontation method, paradox method, self-
compilation task, working with text, free writing, mental
mapping, written work, predictive task, etc.);
didactic games;
methods of group teaching and cooperative learning;
discussion (dialogue) methods (brainstorming,
brainwriting, Method 653, rounds, carousel, snowballing,
visitors, goldfish bow technique, lecture discussion, chain
discussion, discussion based on a thesis, discussion based
on a presented paper, Hobo method, Philips 66, consensus
method, targeted question method, Gordon method, debate,
etc.);
situational methods (case methods);
staging methods (role plays, dramatization);
special methods (project teaching, responsiveness exercise,
icebreakers, research methods, etc.).
Literature offers a number of activatonal and innovative methods
with
only Čapek (2015) describing about 500 teaching methods
and strategies in his publication. We will not describe them all in
detail, but name just a few of them, which have been mentioned
more and more recently. Concepts such as projective, group,
cooperative and problem-based teaching and methods, such as
Socratic method, questioning method, case study, staging
method, mental mapping, discussion, etc. are suitable for
developing critical thinking.
3.1 Philosophy for Children Program
Very well-known, but in practice little used in Slovakia, is the
so-called Philosophy for Children program that was designed to
respond to the inadequacy of schoolwork in developing the
thinking of children, pupils, and students. The Philosophy for
Children program (hereinafter “P4C”) includes a number of
activating methods that develop critical thinking, such as literary
stories, discussion, role-playing, dramatization, drawing and
many more. Critical thinking is included in the objectives of this
program, which is actively implemented in different variations in
the educational practice of many countries around the world. The
advantage of the program is that it includes a variety of methods,
topics and activities that can be applied flexibly. Lipman (2003),
the founder of the program, emphasizes the impact of the
community in which we read, listen, talk, write, and justify.
These skills are developed through the practical implementation
of the philosophy absent from the Slovak education curriculum.
A problem-solving group in the P4C program using collective
effort is called a seeking community. Members of the seeking
community are given space for independent and free thinking,
reflecting on the opinions of others and, at the same time, for the
revision of their own opinions.
The P4C program uses typical literary stories designed by the
founder of the program Lipman with his colleagues. A
philosophical literary story is used as a method providing space
to reflect on many issues of life. It is an incentive from which the
participants of the seeking community derive questions for joint
review. In the educational process, it is essential to include
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