Many congratulations to teachers Ms Lorraine O’Loughlin and Ms Máire O’Brien from Coláiste Mhuire, Askeaton on the launch of their excellent teaching resource DCT, Developing Critical Thinking. Minister for Education & Skills Ms Jan O’Sullivan launched the resource on December 18th in the Limerick Education Centre. Great credit is due to Máire and Lorraine who have worked tirelessly over the past two years, including evenings and holiday times to produce a 6 module framework designed to aid post primary teachers to explore Critical Thinking with their students.
The DCT framework scaffolds the soft skills of Critical Thinking by supporting students in their thought processes for reasoning, making inferences and synthesising information. The DCT approach focuses on working in an open and democratic partnership with students while motivating them to take more responsibility for their own learning. It encourages student centred learning and active student participation. Critical Thinking skills need to be deeply embedded and taught to students at all levels of their educational development if we want to have thinking organisations and a thinking society.
This project has been an innovative and altruistic endeavour by both Máire and Lorraine. It provided many opportunities within Coláiste Mhuire and with the other schools in Limerick & Clare Education & Training Board to engage in collaborative, professional dialogue. A network of Critical Friends was set up across the 18 LCETB schools. The resources for DCT were trialled by teachers of the LCETB for eight weeks and Máire and Lorraine received vital feedback.
Máire and Lorraine would like to extend their sincerest thanks to everyone in Coláiste Mhuire, LEC & LCETB who contributed to the publication of this resource.
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