Pre-service teachers, collaborative apprenticeship, and the development of higher-order thinking and teaching skills

What are the key components of an abstract on this question? I am going to write up the elements of my thinking so far on my proposal. This is a part of my researcher’s journal and I am hoping this will help me to develop my thinking.

All comments are welcome!

Motivation: There is significant convergence in the research on the value of historical thinking concepts as a sound teaching methodology in Canadian K-12 classrooms. However, the extent to which historical thinking has been accepted and adopted in the Canadian classroom is poorly understood.

Problem statement: How are ideas regarding historical thinking circulating in the academy passed on to teachers in the field?  Researchers conclude that while historical thinking concepts may be well understood and documented, there is little evidence of a change in teaching practice to incorporate a more skills-based inquiry model in the classroom.

Approach: In this study, a collaborative apprenticeship intervention model incorporating Wikipedia as an online learning program will be used to train pre-service teachers to teach historical thinking skills to their students.  Additionally, a historical thinking skills assessment tool – Teach-HTR (Gestsdóttir, S. M., 2018, 2019, 2021) – will be employed to assess pre-service teachers’ ability to teach historical thinking skills before and after the collaborative apprenticeship intervention.

Conclusions: Any mechanism that enhances the development of these skills early in the professional career of an educator will enhance the capacity of new teachers to move beyond a superficial understanding of how critical thinking and inquiry can be taught in the classroom.

next, more of the plan I would like to follow to explore this topic