Aura  Balbi

Authors

Aura Balbi Universidad Católica Andrés Bello

Abstract

Today's society requires citizens who are aware and critical of the complex and uncertain reality that characterizes the 21st century, committed to the transformations that this reality demands. For this reason, educational processes must be oriented to the development of competencies that guarantee their relevance, one of the most important being critical thinking, which contemplates, among other skills and attitudes, critically analyzing different situations, presenting arguments, listening to the approaches of others to confront different points of view, and based on the particular context, make decisions that allow coordinating actions to improve the quality of life. The foregoing requires emphasizing the training processes in the educational subsystems, especially in the university, the development of this competence so that in the future they can transfer it in their professional practice and citizen participation. The objective of this research was to formulate didactic guidelines that facilitate the development of critical thinking in young people during their university training, within the framework of academic autonomy. To carry out this work, guiding principles formulated in previous research (Balbi, 2017) were taken as a reference, as well as the consultation of documents related to the subject, which allowed to configure a training process oriented to the development of critical thinking. Among the guidelines are proposed the analysis of contextualized problems linked to their personal, professional and social reality, making use of cognitive processes, cooperative work, dialogue, argumentation, permanent self-reflection and research from practice, both from the professional work as well as the socio-historical context, to be able to build with other solutions that satisfy the fundamental needs and improve the quality of life of all citizens.

Keywords: critical thinking, didactic guidelines, pedagogical practice.