Digital storytelling in teacher education: Developing pre-service teachers’ critical thinking

Abstract

Digital storytelling is a pedagogical strategy that relies on constructing digital artefacts, such as videos, to develop skills like critical thinking. However, clear actions that students need to engage in to develop these skills are often lacking. Therefore, in this qualitative study, we aimed to explore pre-service teachers' perceptions of the relationship between creating a digital story and developing critical thinking. More specifically, we examined pre-service teachers' reported actions and experiences used to build their digital stories, analysing how critical thinking skills were brought into play during this process. The analysis of the interviews showed the actions pre-service teachers take when creating a digital story and how these actions, in turn, promote the development of critical thinking. The results suggest that (a) a wide range of critical thinking skills are at play when constructing a digital story and (b) the most reported skills are those related to planning and design, solving emerging challenges to pursue a critical argument and representing ideas with the use of rhetorical elements. Furthermore, we discuss the implications for pre-service teachers' training. Finally, we address the limitations of this study and provide suggestions for future research.   Implications for practice or policy: Student teachers and teacher trainers can count on a set of actions that will allow them to visualise the development of critical thinking when their students create digital stories. Teacher trainers can benefit from a pedagogical strategy that can facilitate the development of critical thinking in pre-service teachers.