The Development of a Learning Management Training Program to Promote Critical Thinking for Primary School Students

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to 1) develop a learning management training program to promote critical thinking for primary school students and 2) investigate the effectiveness of the training program. The target groups were 28 school administrators and teachers of Ban Sam Yod School Banwangyai School, during the second semester of the academic year 2019, using a purposive sampling technique. The instruments used for this research were 1) training program for enhancing critical thinking, 2) pretest and posttest, 3) lesson plan evaluation, 4) teaching ability evaluation, and 5) opinion evaluation toward training program’s activities. The mean, standard deviation, content analysis, and t-test were used to analyze data. The research findings were as follows:
1. The developed training program for enhancing critical thinking (ASSUFE Model) consisted of five elements included 1) principles of the training program, 2) objectives for enhancing teachers’ ability to create a lesson plan to promote students’ critical thinking and study teaching ability, 3) the 6 procedures of curriculum development were included 3.1) analyze needs, 3.2) set objectives, 3.3) select content and activities, 3.4) use curriculum, 3.5) follow up and 3.6) evaluate, 4) evaluation of teachers’ lesson plan and teaching ability and 5) conditions of using the training program that; teachers have knowledge and understanding in the design of learning activities and teaching method techniques to develop critical thinking skills; be open to listening, giving students opportunities and time to think; students have basic thinking skills to promote critical thinking; teaching materials should encourage students to think critically.
2. The effectiveness of the learning management training program to promote critical thinking was as follows: 2.1) the teachers’ knowledge and understanding was significantly higher than before using training the .01 level, 2.2) teachers’ ability to create lesson plan was at the highest level, 2.3) teaching ability was at a high level, and 2.4) the opinion of the teacher toward training program’s activities was at the highest level. Teachers were gained a new teaching method to use in the class and applied processes and theories in teaching as well.