Monday 13 May 2013

CRITICAL REFLECTION ON PROFESSIONAL INQUIRY

Working through the three parts of this module has provided me with a holistic approach to my inquiry.
  
Developing lines of Professional Inquiry
I started by reflecting on my own working practice to identify questions that could become the basis of my inquiry. I chose to research education, as I intend this course to be a transition into a teaching career.

Adopting a questioning approach, I began by brainstorming ideas (Appendix A).  By reflecting back on the answers I had blogged in task 2d (Appendix B), I was able to re-affirm my desire to use my inquiry to develop my teaching skills.

I joined the SIG’s of other dance teachers on the BAPP course (
Appendix C ) and was immediately introduced to a plethora of knowledge and information from experienced teachers, who offered advice and support. Although, I initially found the experience of transferring ideas and questions onto paper difficult, the support and advice from my SIG community ensured I soon felt confident in systematically organising my thoughts and putting them onto paper. I began to share and discuss relevant articles via Google docs (Appendix D). 

Having been introduced to an academy where pupils had not encountered dance classes before, I quickly decided that I wanted to inspire and motivate pupils to dance. I struggled with the broad scope of this inquiry at first, but luckily a solution soon made itself apparent. After reflecting on a particularly challenging lesson, I identified a group of disruptive boys as the "primary" barrier to success in my lesson. I began to wonder how best to get them fully engaged with the learning. Having discussed this with my SIG community, ideas began to flow and my inquiry began to take shape.


Professional Ethics
Considering ethics for my inquiry, I first analysed my own personal ethical codes to which I adhere  (Appendix E). Having then looked at the Reader, I was made aware of regulations and codes which affected my practice (Appendix F). I began to explore ethical theories and question my own ethical decisions (Appendix G.) Armed with my new found knowledge, I structured a plan outlining how I would ensure my inquiry was conducted ethically. I shared and discussed this with my SIG community (Appendix H).

Tools of Professional Inquiry
The final stage was a trialling exercise designed to pilot tools for data collection (Appendix I).  I piloted a survey (Appendix J), an observation (Appendix K) and a questionnaire (Appendix L). I evaluated the effectiveness of each and decided that interviewing and questioning would be the most appropriate to my inquiry.
I explored the literature related to my inquiry and found a wealth of techniques and approaches that I could apply to my inquiry (Appendix M , Appendix N and Appendix O).  Setting up a ‘Delicious’ account allowed me to bookmark articles of interest for later reference.(Appendix P).

Summary
I have systematically worked through the tasks, critically analysed research articles, explored ethics and data collection tools and arrived at a proposal for my inquiry.
Personally, the module has taken my academic learning to a new level, heightened my problem-solving skills and developed me into a more autonomous practitioner.

Appendices

No comments:

Post a Comment