Initial Cognitive Development That Supports The Critical Thinker’s Formation In The University Context

Abstract

The content of this text is a product of the research entitled Implementation of a didactic program based on the LASRED model and hybrid learning, aimed at developing critical thinking skills in students of the Corporación Universitaria del Caribe, has the phases of diagnosis, design, implementation and evaluation of a didactic strategy aimed at intervening the reality found. Following this process, a diagnosis was made with the first semester students of 2023, finding heterogeneity in the sociodemographic and cultural factors, with certain homogeneity in the global performances below the national average, shown in the Saber 11 test, specifically in areas as important as Critical Reading, Quantitative Reasoning and Natural Sciences. According to the analysis carried out, students entering the Institution should not only be attended to in cognitive and cognitive leveling processes, but the socioemotional dimension should also be addressed, considering the origin of the students and the historical events they have lived through their communities that have strongly marked their visions and expectations. This demands an adjustment in the meso- and micro-curricular sections of the institutional educational project, attending to the psychological restoration processes demanded by the identified weakness and promoting a dialogue of knowledge among the different courses that are part of the university's academic programs, reflecting on the learning outcomes, seeking to improve interdisciplinary integration, use emerging technological resources to facilitate learning and train teachers in the pedagogical approach, didactic strategies required and in the evaluation demanded by the formation of a critical thinker, without the need to create new courses, only attending to the generic and transversal nature of critical thinking.