Student perspective on the importance of developing critical thinking and collaboration skills for prospective teacher students

Abstract

Critical thinking and collaboration skills are fundamental skills that must be owned by teachers in the 21st- century. Critical thinking skills make teachers more sensitive and critical of the teaching and learning process so the teachers can continue to improve the quality of their learning. Improving the learning process will be maximized if a teacher collaborates with other teachers to design improvements in the teaching and learning process. The development of critical thinking and collaboration skills will be maximized if they realize the importance of having these skills. The purpose of this paper is to outline the opinions of prospective teacher students about how important the development of critical thinking and collaboration skills for prospective teacher- students. The method of this research was descriptive and literature study. Data retrieval was carried out through questionnaires that were given to 224 prospective teacher students at Universitas Negeri Malang. The questionnaire was filled out by 63 postgraduate and 161 undergraduate students. The purpose of the questionnaire was to find out the opinions of prospective teacher students about how important the development of critical thinking and collaboration skills is. Analysis of the data was carried out using qualitative analysis techniques. The results of the questionnaire showed that all prospective teacher-students agree that the development of critical thinking and collaboration skills is important, especially for prospective teacher-students. These results indicate the need for developing critical thinking and collaboration skills for prospective teacher-students through various models/methods/strategies in learning.