The Headache of Timetabling...

So with the Inquiry plan set in place my next tricky obstacle has been setting up the peer observations. Due to circumstance and the time of year in relation to public exams this hasn't been a simple task in the slightest. Also as I will be focusing on one specific year 9 class, it is harder to organise due to them having less timetabled drama lessons and organising cover for teachers who will observe in particular times.

Thankfully I have had a number of supportive colleagues who have been extremely flexibile in order to make this possible. However this has made slight changes to my initial schedule of how I would use my time within this Inquiry.

Below is the observation cycle in a tabled format:

 

 

Date	Week	Period	Observed Member of Staff	Staff Member Observing	Subject & Class	Cover Required?
Friday 8th March	1	5	Participant A	Participant B	Year 9 Drama	N
Tuesday 19th March	1	1	Participant B	Participant A	Year 9 History	Y
Thursday 21st March	1	2	Participant A	Participant B	Year 9 History	Y
Friday 22nd March	1	5	Participant B	Participant A	Year 9 Drama	N

This does make a number of changes to my schedule, to show this I have ammended that aspect of my plan as seen below:

Activity	When It Will Happen
Observation 1 (History Teacher takes Drama lesson)	Friday 8th March
Observation 2 (Drama Teacher takes History lesson)	Tuesday 19th March
Observation 3 (Drama Teacher observes History lesson)	Thursday 21st March
Observation 4 (History teacher observes Drama Lesson)	Friday 22nd March
Interviews with Participants	Week Beginning Monday 25th March
Contact with advisor to discuss findings	Week Beginning Monday 25th March
Transcribing of Interviews	Week Beginning Monday 1st April
Analysis of Interviews	Week Beginning Monday 8th April
Collation of evidence to be fully completed and ready to present	Week beginning Monday 15th April

Does this seem realistic?

Evaluation of Inquiry Proposal:
Following my advisor feedback from Alan I have taken some time to consider my proposal and how it may need to be adapted to aid the completion of this module. After going through my proposal in detail I decided the best way in which to present this as a blog would be to use the subheadings that I had used in my written proposal and speak about how I have adapted (or in some cases not adapted) these aspects.

Changing Spaces: A Comparative Study of Behaviour in Drama Spaces and the Classroom
Context: This remains as is. The importance of my Inquiry has not changed nor have I changed the basis of what I am looking at.

Who Will It Benefit: Again this has not changed at all as my line of Inquiry remains the same and I have every confidence of who this can benefit.

Questions & Objectives: My first real adaptation comes with my method of questioning; more specifically I have scrapped an initial method of questioning. To begin with I was intending to do a generic questionnaire for curriculum leaders mainly centred on their initial perceptions of behavioural issues within a practical learning environment. However, I have opted to not do this after following advice to narrow down the amount of Inquiry tools that I use. I will talk more of this later.

Existing Literature: This is an aspect I have found difficult due to not finding a great deal of detailed literature surrounding my topic area. Although there are a great deal of books looking at classroom management very few look specifically at the relationship between practical learning environments and the traditional classroom. This is an aspect I would appreciate help with if there are any suggestions for further reading.

Inquiry Tools: Believe it or not, I submitted a proposal saying that I would be using all four of the Inquiry tools throughout this module. Despite being able to see merit in each of these I have been advised to narrow this field in order to give myself less of a headache when analysing. This is more than logical advice so having considered this I have decided the following:

- Questionnaire/Survey: This idea will not be followed up on as I feel the initial data gathered will not be essential in the process further down the line. Combining this with the question of reliability means there is great potential for this to be a very time consuming activity that is not necessarily pivotal to my findings.

- Focus group: Despite having a focus group looking at behaviour management currently at my disposal, this again would be a method that would prove difficult as meetings are fairly infrequent and adding more sessions to help this would ultimately require a large number of staff to be very flexible with their own time.

- Observation: This will be a key feature of my Inquiry. I feel that often when trying to establish useful theories or work-based ideas often the best approach is a practical one as it gets you to the core of what needs to be looked at. In this instance, I will be taken two members of teaching staff, a drama teacher and classroom based teacher (History) to take part within a peer observation cycle over the course of four lessons. In the first two, each teacher will observe the other teaching in an unfamiliar environment. So the drama teacher will teach the history lesson and vice versa. Then for the final two lessons they will observe each other teaching their own lessons in their own environment. The purpose of this will be to see if being taken out of familiar teaching environments helps teachers to be made aware of their perceptions of the differing environment in terms of how behaviour is managed. By seeing the specialist teacher in their preferred environment, the non specialist may then develop a useful array of techniques to boost confidence within their teaching with the intention of making them more confident in adapting their learning environment in their own subject area. Long term this can aid students by providing more varied lessons to enhance their experience and enjoyment of perceived ‘classroom subjects’.

- Interview: In order to gage how successful the observational process has been I will need to interview the two participant teachers to gather accounts of their experiences as well as their attitudes to how this type of Inquiry could benefit the teaching within the school as a whole. Although this will be time consuming in terms of transcribing I feel this is a necessary component for my Inquiry

Approach To Analysis:

Observation: Use of an adapted lesson pro forma to record findings for the observing teacher.

Interview: Transcription of interview to be made in order to draw analysis

Ethics: I now have full permission from my school and the two participant teachers. Also as a means of sharing good practice within the school I will be delivering a twilight training session for all interested staff towards the end of May. This will be to share my findings and discuss how this may be able to have a positive impact on teaching across all curriculum areas.

Resources: The only impact that has occurred so far in terms of resources has been a changing to the scheduled timetable of observations due to availability and timetabling issues with the participating staff. I will speak in more detail of this in an upcoming blog.

That just about concludes my adaptations. The timetabling I will speak about in another blog. What do you think? Any literature suggestions would be welcome as I am beginning to feel I am exhausting all leads…