I believe my practitioner inquiry
has been shaped and moulded alongside my ongoing development as a professional
during Module 2. It would be difficult for me to deny that I struggled with
many of the concepts during the first module and is extremely refreshing to be
able to say with some confidence that I have not only understood the work more
readily, but also genuinely enjoyed the process this time around. One of the
first concepts that I had to mentally tackle, was the notion of ‘inquiry’
itself; as it being a way to learn whilst ‘doing,’ examining my professional
role, and not merely a study set out to prove/disprove theories. With reference
to skills learned in Module 1, the ‘inter disciplinary’ nature of my inquiry
has taken into account my experiences and observations to date in a teaching
role, in addition to experiences I received whilst studying at school.
As valuable as ‘peer review’ is
to academic literature, I have found a level of assurance in working within SIG’s
during this period. These have been an unexpected additional avenue through
which to expand my knowledge alongside more ‘operational’ procedures occurring at
work. Co-operating with these networks has meant that bi-directional guidance
offered by myself and others improved knowledge within the network during all
of our inquiry planning. I refer to the included links in order to highlight my
changing thoughts on ethical considerations and how these were aided/solved through
my engagement with my networks.
Inquiry tools that I was
originally intent on using were discounted after trialling them with members of
my professional networks. I had originally wished to use questionnaires,
perceiving them to be a quick and effective method. Upon receiving completed responses
however, found that I would prefer a more face-to-face approach so that I may
follow up on certain answers if desired- choosing detail over volume of
response. For obvious reasons, it would have been impossible to undertake a
trial observation using SIG members, but our interaction meant I was able to
receive and challenge their comments/suggestions regarding efficacy.
When
contemplating my original set of inquiry questions and comparing them to those
I have carried through, it would seem the majority of them remain unchanged. I
have removed one question regarding teacher’s sources of inspiration from the
final plan completely. Despite this being of interest to me, after some
consideration I felt that it did not follow a similar thread to the others and lacked
relevance to this inquiry. During the
early stages of my thought processes, a discussion with Adesola highlighted
that a couple of my questions could be considered ‘leading:’ Does gender/age have any influence on
negativity towards drama? The way this was worded implied my pre-existing judgement
from past experience. Consequently I came to the realisation that there wasn’t
the need for my inquiry to be so outcome orientated. By changing the above
question/s to; “How do you feel drama is accepted by students in a school
setting?” I now understand the reasons for leaving the questions far more
open-ended and less influential.
Not only am I confident that I
have the basis of a strong inquiry to take through to the next module, but of
equal importance is the experience I have gained from reflecting on workplace
events and learning from these experiences in order to continue improving my
practice.
