Cultivating teacher thinking: ideas and practice

This paper aims to develop, through a literature analysis, a portrait of the functioning and practice of teacher thinking at government and university levels. Teacher thinking is defined as habits and strategies or the habit of thinking used to collect information, analyze, understand institution, reflect, solve problems, inform decisions, initiate action, and accumulate practical wisdom. Teachers develop the habit of accumulating practical wisdom to make good decisions for student learning. To cultivate thinking skills, governments can enact teacher professional standards and teacher education curricula. Field experience at the university level should also be designed to involve multiple teaching strategies and a coherent and consistent learning experience in different educational courses, which will help foster thinking habits to accumulate practical wisdom. Portfolio assessment, performance-based assessment, and teacher situational judgment tests can be used to assess teacher candidates’ thinking and cognition regarding teaching and learning.