Prospective Primary Teachers’ Perceptions About Their Ability to Use and Teach Thinking Skills

Abstract

Cognitive acceleration programs have been successful in promoting reasoning skills in school students and in changing the pedagogy of the teachers implementing them. For this reason, this study explored if using such approach with a different population—prospective primary teachers—produced changes in relation to their perceptions about their ability to use and teach thinking. The results suggest that, from the participants’ points of view, the course helped them to improve not only their ability to think but also their awareness about their own thinking. However, a single cognitive acceleration in mathematics education (CAME) course was not sufficient to improve their confidence about teaching thinking.