Critical thinking skills are one of the four skills needed in the 21st century. Critical thinking skills are so important that they need to be taught and included in the school curriculum. This research aims to: (1) describe the critical thinking skills of junior high school students in solving mathematical problems and (2) identify the students' critical thinking components in the analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation sub-skills. This is descriptive research with a qualitative approach. Data was collected through a test and interviews, triangulation accomplished by comparing between test and interviews. This research involved 24 subjects comprising 9 male students and 15 female students. The test used in this research consisted of 6 problems representing 6 sub-skills of critical thinking skills. The results of data collection were analyzed through data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. The research results showed that:(1) the critical thinking skills of junior high school students were in a low category;(2) the evaluation, analysis, and self-regulation sub-skills became the lowest critical thinking sub-skills mastered by the students compared to other critical thinking sub-skills.

In order to help students develop their critical thinking skills, teachers need to model the critical thinking skills and dispositions in front of their students. Unfortunately, very rare studies investigating prospective teachers' readiness in critical thinking dispositions are available in the field of mathematics education. This study was intended to investigate the level of critical thinking disposition of prospective mathematics teachers. Using vase study methods, three studies were done in Malang.Three levels of critical thinkers were identified from these case studies namely: non-critical thinker, emergent critical thinker, developing critical thinker. Majority of prospective mathematics teachers' critical thinking dispositions are at the non-critical thinker level. Only a few of them are at the emergent critical thinker, and very rare at the developing critical thinker level. It can be concluded that prospective mathematics teachers are not critical thinker yet. Teacher education institutions need to reform their curriculum and instructional practices to improve their students critical thinking skills and dispositions. Keywords: Critical Thinking, Disposition, Mathematics, Prospective Teachers AbstrakDalam rangka membantu siswa mengembangkan kemampuan berpikir kritis, para guru perlu memodelkan kemampuan dan disposisi berpikir kritis tersebut di hadapan siswanya. Akan tetapi, sedikit peneliti yang menyeliidi tingkat kemampuan berpikir kritis calon guru matematika. Penelitian ini dimaksudkan untuk menyelidiki tingkat kemampuan berpikir kritis calon guru matematika. Menggunakan metode studi kasus, tiga studi kasus telah dilaksanakan di Malang.Tiga tingkat kemampuan berpikir kritis teridentifikasi dari studi kasus ini, yaitu: non-critical thinker, emergent critical thinker, dan developing critical thinker. Mayoritas calon guru matematika masih berada di tingkat non-critical thniker.Hanya sebagian kecil yang berada pada level emerging critical thinker, dan sangat jarang yang berada pada level developing critical thinker. Dapat disimpulkan bahwa calon guru matematika masih belum merupakan pemikir kritis. Lembaga pendidikan guru perlu mereformasi kurikulum dan praktik pembelajaran mereka untuk meningkatkan kemampuan dan disposisi berpikir kritis siswanya.

<p style="text-align: justify;">This study aims to analyze students’ creative thinking skills in answering the problem-solving questions. This study employs qualitative design, involving 110 fifth graders in Malang Municipality and Regency as the subjects. The obtained data were analyzed using the descriptive-explorative approach. The findings reveal that the high-achievers in Mathematics showed good skills in the aspects of fluency and flexibility, but were still struggling in the novelty aspect.  The average-achievers showed good skills in flexibility aspects but were lacking in the fluency and novelty aspects. They showed an understanding of Mathematics problems but found it difficult to decide the solving strategies, and thus their answers were lacking in structure and less systematic. When solving a problem, the calculation made seemed rushing, was less careful, and frequented with trial and error strategy. The low-achievers showed difficulties in understanding the problems. Their answers were not systematic, not well-structured, and not detailed. This indicates that the low-achievers had not shown creative thinking skills in fluency, flexibility, and novelty aspects.</p>

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This study aims to analyze how students of Mathematic Education study program in one of tertiary education providers in Salatiga Regency, Indonesia, creates open-ended problems via semi- structured problem posing. A qualitative descriptive method was employed to study a population of research subjects that had been selected through a stratified random sampling based on their academic ability level. As many as 30 students were categorized into Upper Level Academic ability (AA), Average Level Academic Skill (AS), and Lower Level Academic Skill (AB). Three students from each category: AA, AS, AB, were randomly selected as the research subjects. Their creative thinking skills were measured by the number of problems, strategies, and variations of open-ended problems and its solutions that had been created by students as representations of creative thinking aspects: fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. Results show that AB students had under developed creative thinking skills, while AS students began to develop their creative thinking skills, and AA students demonstrated their developed creative thinking skills.