Reflective thinking in education: How and why?
We believe that for Romanian school, critical thinking should become one of the key skills and competencies that it is important to centre the training process. Technological, relational changes, but especially the easy way to access large amount of informational content, have led to the new emerging needs that almost require the development of this type of skill, including educators. Dewey, then Schon, and later other social scientists have long pointed out this. They emphasised that reflection can lead to an increase in the quality of the educational act by focusing not only on the content of learning but also on the process of training. Self-reflection should be the indispensable ingredient in the bag of any educator.
This workshop aims to achieve: a brief introduction to reflexive thinking; to raise awareness of the importance and need for reflexive thinking, as soft skills, to make a brief application of a critical thinking training method. We hope that our approach has the advantage that can be useful to both teachers and students.
FACILITATORS
Dr Venera-Mihaela Cojocariu is Professor at Teacher Training Department and the Head of the Department of Professional Counselling at Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacau. She has written a number publications on current issues relating to teachers training.
Dr Gabriel Mares teaches at the Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacau. His research interests encompass special education and organisational learning. Gabriel has published a number of works within this area.
Dr Liliana Mata is Associate Professor at Teacher Training Department at Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacau. She is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Innovation in Psychology, Education and Didactics (JIPED) and has authored and co-authored a number of publications about teacher education.