Critical Reflection on Professional Practitioner Inquiry

Developing Lines of Professional Inquiry

At the beginning of this module I already had an indication of the direction that I wanted to go in with my Practitioner Inquiry. Behaviour management within a practical drama space had become an interest of mine particularly after beginning my new role as a cover supervisor. Being in a classroom as well as practical learning environment highlighted clear differences between the two that I wanted to explore further, particularly whether or not the practical learning environment was a cause for accelerated behavioural issues. (Appendix A http://jnorden.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/initial-questions-and-what-i-hope-to.html ). The development of a SIG was a process that I feel I did not engage in greatly amongst members of my course, mainly due to workloads elsewhere preventing me from regular engagement. However, I am confident in the SIG that I feel I always have as a diverse network, my colleagues. After discussing my ideas for inquiry with a senior colleague I was able to develop my questions a little further to make it more inclusive to traditional classroom teachers and also help me understand my reasoning for following this line of inquiry (Appendix B http://jnorden.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/task-4c-development-of-questions-after.html )

Professional Ethics

I knew that to approach my inquiry I needed a confident knowledge of existing policies within my school. I was confident in my existing knowledge and personal judgement but it was useful for me to look into where I can find these policies (Appendix C http://www.holyfamily.waltham.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/HFCS-Equalities-Act-statement.pdf ) (Appendix D http://www.holyfamily.waltham.sch.uk/information/policies/22a_privacy_notices11-2/ ). The study into ethics reignited my prior knowledge of philosophers and their beliefs on using ethics to establish an ordered society. It was of great interest to me to translate these ethics to my everyday practice (Appendix E   http://jnorden.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/task5c-reader-5-professional-ethics.html ). The course reader for this section also provided vital framework from The British Educational Research Association that helped me outline how I would consider ethical dimensions within my inquiry (Appendix F Reader 5, Professional Ethics, WBS 3630,Page 18) (Appendix G http://jnorden.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/task-5d-ethicaldimensions-of-inquiry.html )

Tools of Professional Inquiry

My understanding of tools for professional inquiry was strengthened greatly through discussion with a number of my peers on BAPP at a campus session. We examined the strengths and weaknesses of some commonly used data gathering tools (Appendix I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7hOS0M8Lpo ) from this I was able to solidify my understanding of these tools (Appendix J http://jnorden.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/task-6b-positives-negatives-of.html ) as well as begin thinking how I could utilise these within my practitioner inquiry. On reflection I was able to find that I am using these tools on a regular basis and that I am in a fortunate position in terms of access to them.

Over the course of this process I found that access to literature that looks at combining traditional classroom behaviour management within a practical learning environment is not easy to come by. However, this video I found particularly interesting due to the teacher and his reasoning behind certain decisions that he makes (Appendix K  http://www.creativeeducation.co.uk/videos/watch-video.aspx?id=3568 )