Name: Erum Aslam

Roll number: CB661740

Theme: developing critical thinking through project based learning among 5 class students

Subtheme: critical thinking

Name of the school where research was conducted:

Danish public high school sambrial

The overall background of the participants of the project:

Area/school:

Danish public high school is located in Tehsil sambrial and district Sialkot. The medium of
instruction of this school is English and Urdu. There are 40 teachers and 3000 students enrolled
in the school. The school building is so unique. The school has 2 buildings. There are more than
45 rooms that include the Principal office, staff rooms, Clerical Office and classrooms. One
building is foe girls and the other building is for boys from class 6 to 10. Each class has 2 or 3
sections. The school has a large Playground, parking area, a beautiful and well-decorated garden.
The washrooms, water coolers, electricity, and other basic facilities are also available for the
students. The school has Chemistry/Physics/Biology/Computer Labs also there is a huge Library.
That contains a huge volume of books. This school is situated near canal of upper Chenab. The
atmosphere is highly suitable for studies because it’s not in urban area. It is situated semi urban
area; because of airport, dry port and many shopping plazas.

The socio-economic status:

The socioeconomic status is moderate and satisfactory. Students participating in this research
belong to a category whose socio-economic conditions are good. Such families have good means
of earning. They have enough means to manage the expenses of their children’s studies.

The participants belong to middle-class families and high-class families have rich sources for
earning.
Earning trends:

That’s the semi-Urban area most people do government job and many people are linked with
agriculture too because of the villages which are near to the sambrial. . Almost 20% of parents
have a government job, 30% of them are businessmen, 8% are in the teaching profession, 2% are
doctors and 30% of them have private jobs and others are labors. 10% are related to agriculture.

Literacy rate:

The literacy rate is as high as 70%. As this area is developing and is comparatively developed
since last 5 years. People are much educated than last 5 years. There is a trend now to go
different big cities like Lahore, Islamabad and Faisalabad in this area which is healthy and good
to build a high literacy rate of this area. In hope in coming next few years literacy rate of
sambrial will be 100%.

Academic quality:

Danish public high school is a private sector high school established with a key purpose to
improve literacy rate and promote women's education. Danish Public School is one of the
leading educational institutes for young girls and boys. This is affiliated with the Gujranwala
board. Danish public high school provides quality education in a reasonable learning
environment and the talented, experienced and highly qualified teachers pay special attention to
the personal and professional development of students. The school has great discipline and is
very well organized in the teaching curriculum of the federal test board. The school shows 90%
annual results every year and have distinctive results and positions on district level. Hence it has
a very good ratio of passing students every year.

Special Traits of Community:

The community where the school was situated has good hobbies like gardening, plantation, and
playing cricket, football. Students participate in games and then go to a high level. People respect
teachers.

1.Why did you select this specific sub-theme and topic? Relate it to your experience / the
problem in your classroom/institution.
There has been growing interest across the world in ways of developing children’s thinking and
learning skills, as well as developing educational programs that assume that all individuals, not
just the elite, can become competent thinkers. This interest was not only exclusive for schools
and high-school students; in fact, promoting students’ critical thinking has been also an essential
goal of higher education in many universities’ faculties. The learning model is an overview of
the management of learning by teachers to achieve a certain competence. This Provide the
students the opportunity for learning by doing, by creating models that reveal the systemic
structures responsible for real-life problems. Allow the opportunity for students to work together,
researching and sharing knowledge. This gives the opportunity to students to improve their
mental models, by exploring the unintended consequences caused by systems. This encourages
students to perform a critical analysis of the subject of the research, by summarizing the project´s
main findings through a short video. Grant the students the opportunity to reflect together about
their learning, using project walkthroughs.

In the learning model includes designs on what to teach, how to teach and how to how to assess
is performed. Quality learning model can be seen from the quality of learning as stated in the
syllabus, lesson plan and assessment techniques, illustrating the steps of learning to achieve a
certain competence.

What the teacher planned a very influential on the quality of managed learning. In fact as long as
there is a tendency that the teachers do not have time to develop a learning device that is capable
of integrating the issues in real life by planting a character that can improve critical thinking
skills of student in defining the problem, take action to get the findings, take decisions and
evaluate (Duran & Sendag, 2012). Issues in real life are also a sensitive issue and it contains a
moral dilemma, which is supposed to be a valuable learning resource for the character
development of students in school. Thinking skills of student to produce a work contextual.
Project-based learning model has become one of the main learning model as a response of school
to the challenges of the 21st century (Filippatou & Kaldi, 2010; Cakici & Turkmen, 2013).

Findings showed that the experimental group students improved their critical thinking skills
significantly, while the control group students’ critical thinking remained the same.
2. What was your discussion with your colleague/friend / senior teacher or supervisor
regarding the problem? Discussion with colleague/Supervisor:

Project-based learning is a comprehensive approach to classroom teaching and learning that is

designed to engage students in investigation of authentic problems.

First, I discuss with my colleague/Supervisor that Critical Thinking includes remembering,

questioning, forming concepts, planning, reasoning, imagining, solving problems, making
decisions and judgments, and translating thoughts into words. I told them that the link between
inquiry and critical thinking is: “through a combination of hands-on and minds-on learning,
inquiry engages students in a process through which they learn science content best”. Some of
them saw inquiry as being the essence of critical thinking, some stressed the effectiveness of
inquiry teaching in enhancing students’ critical thinking.

Teachers have made several attempts to develop an understanding and habits of critical thinking
by providing authentic experiences and projects which encourage problem solving skills such as
conducting assessments of cognitive, affective and psychomotor, and provide bonuses for each
learning activity undertaken student. Critical thinking was one of the higher order thinking skills
and problem solving in everyday life because it involves logical thinking, interpret, analyze and
evaluate information for use in decision making reliable (Chukwuyenum, 2013). There are five
components of critical thinking skills in mastering the learning material (Clulow & Brace-
Govan, 2001), namely: (1) elementary clarification, (2) in-depth clarification, (3 ) judgement, (4)
inference, and (5) strategies. Research on project-based learning with the intention of improving
the skills of critical thinking has been done, but in general the learning models often do not
appear syntax learning that infuses the character of the students. Researchers interested in
developing a project based model of science learning with the planting of character, with the
hope of improving the critical thinking skills of student. Characters that allegedly can improve
critical thinking skills of students who are integrated in the syntax of project-based learning
model is the character of hard work, creativity, curiosity, respect and reading achievement.

Finally, I told them that this instructional method aims for students to perform analysis,
interpretation, and argumentation skills. Analysis skill refers to the ability to visualize, articulate,
conceptualize or solve problems by making decisions that are sensible given the available
information.

3. What did you find about the problem in the existing literature (books/articles/websites)?

The use of project-based learning model effectively characterized by the fulfillment of the
attitude value (character) of 87.9% as much as 29 student from 33 predicated “Good”. Based on
the data obtained in this study, the average student learning outcomes has increased the
thoroughness of the final value posttest. Mastery was achieved, namely student achieve
minimum completeness criteria (78) for completeness of individuals and 90.91% reaching
criteria for classical completeness. The study of students who meet the minimum completeness
criteria and achievement in the classical mastery learning has proven that learning to use
projectbased learning device characterized by a positive influence that can improve student
learning outcomes and critical thinking skills of student. Results of this research is supported by
research conducted by (Filippatou & Kaldi, 2010) that get results, project-based learning benefits
for students, including those who have difficulty learning. Results of the pretest and posttest
student to use critical thinking skills test questions are designed in accordance component of
critical thinking skills, according Clulow & Brace-Govan (2001), gained an average of 74.61
pretest and posttest average of 83.21. Further calculations using the formula N-Gain, obtained an
average increase of 0.34 which are in moderate criteria, showed an increase in students' critical
thinking skills. The results are consistent with the results of the study Altun (2009) and the
results Celiker & Balim (2012), which shows that the project-based learning may be the rise in
academic achievement of students. Steps in project-based learning can develop the thinking of
student to create original solutions, finding the resources available, presenting search results and
evaluating the findings of its own information (Kubaitko & Vaculova, 2011). The development
of thought of students in the process of constructing a concept or knowledge which causes
students to have meaningful experiences, related to the concept and the learning outcomes they
get. Another reason that led to the increase in critical thinking skills of students is the
presentation of the results of the activities of student. Presentation of activities begins with
observation, discussion, analyze and synthesize concepts, topics or problems in learning.

4. What was the major variables/construct of your project? Give definitions /descriptions
from literature?
Keywords

Critical thinking, communication skills, learning

The Inquiry and Reflection Teaching Method:

The Inquiry and Reflection Teaching Method includes four phases:

Scaffolded inquiry:

Students are involved in “open-ended” questions and experience hypothesizing, investigating,

planning experiments, conducting experiments, observing, analyzing the findings and
concluding.

Reflective assessment:

Students evaluate their own and each other’s research. This process enables them to reason
carefully, so the habits of thought will be involved in their skills.

Argumentation:

Students gather evidence to support the claims they seek to defend and then resolve their dispute
by agreeing that one conclusion is better supported than another.

Generalized Inquiry and Reflection:

The inquiry cycle, in conjunction with reflection, is repeated to help students refine their inquiry
and reflection processes so they can apply to new learning situations and real-world situations.

5. What did you want to achieve in this research project?

Purpose of the study:

The purpose of the study is get know that what would be the impact of critical thinking on the
understanding level of the students and how it improves the ability of the students. It was really
purposed that how this strategy to enhance the thinking level of the students will be effective on
school level.

Research Questions:
we sought answers to the following research questions:

Q1: Does the critical thinking method of teaching affect grade 5 students’ analysis skills?

Q2: Does this method of teaching affect grade 5 students’ interpretation skills?

Q3: Does this strategy of teaching affect grade 5 students’ argumentation skills?

13. List the works you cited in your project (follow the APA manual – 6th Edition).

Saripudin, A., Haryani, S., & Wardani, S. (2015). Characterized Project based learning to improve
critical thinking skill. ICMSE 2015 Proceedings, 6-11.

Blumenfeld, P. C., Soloway, E., Marx, R. W., Krajcik, J. S., Guzdial, M., & Palincsar, A. (1991).
Motivating project-based learning: Sustaining the doing, supporting the learning. Educational
psychologist, 26(3-4), 369-398.

do Amaral, J. A., & Fregni, F. (2021). Maximizing learning in online courses using critical
thinking, project-based learning, and flipped classroom approaches.

Wu, T. T., & Wu, Y. T. (2020). Applying project-based learning and SCAMPER teaching strategies
in engineering education to explore the influence of creativity on cognition, personal
motivation, and personality traits. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 35, 100631.

do Amaral, J. A., & Fregni, F. (2021). Maximizing learning in online courses using critical
thinking, project-based learning, and flipped classroom approaches.

Berlet, G. C. (2014). Critical thinking. Foot & Ankle Specialist, 7(2), 94-94.

Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Teaching critical thinking, Part 1: Are we making critical mistakes?. The
Phi Delta Kappan, 67(3), 194-198.

Schafersman, S. D. (1991). An introduction to critical thinking.