Teacher Development for Developing Critical Thinking of Students at Hua Hin School under Prachuap Khiri Khan Secondary Education Service Area Office

Abstract

Developing students to be critical thinkers should start from developing teachers to have academic leadership. In organizing teaching and learning activities, students should be trained to have critical thinking, which teachers in schools must be trained in skills to develop students’ critical thinking skills. The research on teacher development for developing critical thinking of students at Hua Hin School under Prachuap Khiri Khan Secondary Education Service Area Office aimed to develop teachers on critical thinking in teaching and learning management of independent study course by integrating in science course at Hua Hin School under Prachuap Khiri Khan Secondary Education Service Area Office and to study of development results on critical thinking of students at Hua Hin School in independent study course by integrating of science course. The 35 samples used in this study, selected by using purposive sampling method, consisted of 2 teachers of independent study course, 5 teachers of science learning area, and 28 students in Mathayomsuksa 5/1 in Academic Year 2020. The research tool was an exercise of 5 units, including critical questioning, reliable information retrieval, critical conclusion on body of knowledge, critical communication, and social contribution. The data were analyzed by using mean, standard deviation, and t-test.

The research results were as follows:

1) The teacher development result on critical thinking of teaching and learning management of independent study course by integrating in science course at Hua Hin School under Prachuap Khiri Khan Secondary Education Service Area Office through orientation, training and self-training was overall at a high level. When all aspects were individually considered, they could be ranked in descending order of their means as follows: social contribution, critical communication, critical questioning, reliable information retrieval, and critical conclusion on body of knowledge. 2) The development of critical thinking of students at Hua Hin School through independent study course by integrating in science course by organizing teaching and learning activities using exercises of 5 units integrating in learning management in independent study course to prepare science projects revealed that the obtained innovation that could be applied to solve problems in society  consisted of: 1) an automatic lemon sorting machine, 2) a robotic model used for dispensing medicines to patients in hospital, 3) a sugar cane leaf shearing machine using string cutting, 4) a bio-fermented juice recipe made from pineapple, watermelon, and papaya peels, 5) pencil lead affecting hypochlorous, 6) cattail able to absorb bleaching substance, 7) concentration of gibberellin hormone able to inhibit flowering of lemon trees. And, the result was overall at a high level. When all aspects were individually considered, they could be ranked in descending order of their means as follows: critical communication, critical conclusion on body of knowledge, reliable information retrieval, social contribution, and critical questioning. The comparison of the mean of each exercise in 5 units with the specified criteria showed the difference with statistical significance at the .05 level, which was above the set criteria.