Practitioner enquiry

As the holidays beckon, I have been thinking about practitioner enquiry and how to support teacher to develop an ‘enquiry of stance’ mindset. I have sources research articles and a few books to help delve deeper into practitioner enquiry and improve my understanding. I am interested in the history of practitioner enquiry i.e. where and when did this concept emerge? I am also wondering about the costs and benefits of practitioner enquiry. Having undertaken research in my own classroom I know that it can have a massive impact on both the teachers learning and pupils learning, but how do we support and promote this professional learning activity with teachers? Here are some thought on practitioner enquiry as I continue to critically think through how GTCS can support teachers as part of professional learning in practitioner enquiry.

The purpose of any professional leaning activity should be related to increasing skills, knowledge or practice of the teachers but must also be linked to improved outcomes for learners. Practitioner enquiry should lead to deep transformative learning which significantly informs and influences professionals’ understanding, practice and impact on pupil experiences.

Practitioner enquiry is a key aspect in the professional learning of a teacher in Scotland and is embedded in the Standards. The Recent BERA study (2014 p6) discusses the need for teachers to be “equipped to engage in enquiry oriented practice” and have the “capacity, motivation, confidence and opportunity to do so”. By engaging in practitioner enquiry Brookfield feels this empowers teacher as “we become much less willing to give away our histories” (1995 p187) and take responsibility and pride of our own professional learning. When teachers become engage in practitioner enquiry and engage with research literature they benefit by becoming more confident in their own practice.

GTCS support practitioner access literature via an investment in EBSCO Educational Resource. EBSCO is an on-line resource providing registrants with access to a collection of over 1,700 journals, a selection of eBooks, and additional research resources in the field of education and a range of ebooks. There is also a Research Engagement Group (REG) which has been set up to help support, promote and facilitate critical engagement with research, as we know that teachers are 'research rich but time poor' and therefore appropriate resources to support engagement is critical. We are also in the processes of setting up a Teacher Network group to support the work of the REG.

Practitioner enquiry is given many names in literature, Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009 p39) use the term practitioner inquiry as “a conceptual and linguistic umbrella term” for action research, participatory research, teacher research, self-study, the scholarship teacher and using practice as site for research. Although each enquiry method has their own important differences all have similar underlying principles as Cochran-Smith and Lytle put it they “share as sense of the practitioner knower and agent for educational and social change”.

Cochran-Smith and Lytle coined the term ‘inquiry as stance’ in the late 1990’s and have expanded on its meaning between then and now. ‘Inquiry as stance’, “positions the role of practitioner and practitioner knowledge as central to the goal of transforming teaching, learning, leading and schooling” (p119). The ‘inquiry’ part relates to engaging with research and questioning practice to develop a “critical habit of mind” (p120) while the ‘as stance’, “capture[s] the ways we stand, the ways we see and lenses we see through” (p120).

As defined by Menter et al (2011), practitioner enquiry is a ‘finding out’ or an investigation with a rationale and approach that can be explained or defended and then the findings shared so it becomes more than reflection or personal enquiry. Practitioner enquiry is usually undertaken within the practitioners own practice or in collaboration with others. Evaluation and reflective teaching are deeply bound into practitioner enquiry and within collaborative enquiry the group shares a common research question which can then be ‘investigated’ through different lenses to enhance knowledge creation and dissemination within the group and beyond. 

For teachers, regular engagement in practitioner enquiry supports professional growth by challenging or ‘disrupting thinking’ and ‘ingrained habits of mind’. Practitioner enquiry helps to create a space to stop and look again at existing ways of working. It is argued by McLaughlin et al (2004) that teachers who engage in research have ‘better understanding of their practice and ways to improve it’. For some teachers, enquiry may promote levels of critical reflection that are ‘transformative’. However, transformative learning can only occur when individuals have the opportunity and skills to really question and consider their underpinning beliefs, assumptions, values and practices. This goes beyond developing content knowledge and requires a criticality and questioning approach and as such the process of transformative learning can be challenging and 'uncomfortable'. The gains from transformative learning however, could be that it can lead to meaningful changes in practice which impact positively on pupil learning.

Practitioner research can play a major part in making change more systemic and indeed sustainable as practitioners become agents of their own professional learning. Systematic enquiry helps teachers to “‘let go’, unlearn, innovate and re-skill in cycles of professional learning throughout their career in response to changing circumstances” Menter et al (2011 p19).

Practitioner enquiry allow teachers the space to engage with research and create their own knowledge which is very pertinent to their students in their situation. Even more powerful yet is being part of an enquiring community, where all data and evidence is given consideration and the reliance on test scores and ‘what works’ is are included but critically reviewed to establish the best path for the establishment at that time to support student learning. When a community becomes an enquiring community it opens up the possibility to challenge assumptions, to articulate values, to make their practice problematic and to form partnerships with academics to engage in theory and research to further enhance the life chances of their students.

Claxton (2002 p15) discussed what students need to be ‘good learners’ which is;

“Being a good real-life learners means knowing what is worth learning, what you are good (and not so good ) at learning, who can help, how to face confusion without getting upset, and what the best learning tool is for the job at hand”

The same can be said for any learner, teachers who engage in practitioner enquiry will find themselves in the position of a learner and will have to as Claxton (2002) discusses have to have a strategic overview of their learning, plan and organise their learning, be flexible, make meaning of their learning, have self-knowledge and self-awareness and be effective at revising strategies. All of this takes time and need multiple opportunities to gain maximum learning but small incremental changes in practice, akin to marginal gains theory (http://marginallearninggains.com/about), should be supported, recognised and celebrated.

Bibliography

Brookfield, S.D. (1995) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Claxton, G. (2002) Building Learning Power. Bristol: TLO Limited

Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) Inquiry as a Stance: Practitioner Research for the Next Generation Teacher College Press, New York

Menter, I Elliott, D Hulme, M. Lewin, J Lowden K. (2011) A Guide to Practitioner research in Education. SAGE publishing

Thoughts about STEM

In the last few weeks I have been thinking a lot about STEM and its impact. This has come around from a few things such as a meeting with the Royal Society of Edinburgh and GTCS’s Martin Osler (@MartinOsler) presenting the Partnership of the Year Award Sponsored by GTCS, which won this year by Dalziel High School and Amec Foster Wheeler for a five year project encouraging pupils into STEM subject. There has also been some coverage in press and I think I am missing teaching science (I am the only one who gets excited when I open the Chemistry of Christmas, today it was acetic acid (C₂H₄O), cool stuff).  So I had a look at the Education Source - EBSCO and pulled off three articles which all discuss different aspects of STEM subjects.

Let’s start with the bad press. In the last while there have been some disturbing notions about STEM subjects and some opinions are most unhelpful. For example, the twitter frenzy #distractinglysexy that was created after Jeremy Hunts comments about female scientists, see below;

Tim Hunt, an English biochemist who admitted that he has a reputation for being a “chauvinist”, said to the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, South Korea: “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls … three things happen when they are in the lab … You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry.”

Source: The Guardian (June 10^th 2015)

Unfortunately you don’t have to look far to find similar misguided campaign’s, for example, IBM’s ‘Hack a Hairdryer’ campaign, which has recently come in for criticism both in the media and on twitter and due to the negative media attention, IBM have pulled this campaign.  The aim of the campaign was sound, in that it was to "reengineer misperceptions about women in tech, and to focus on what really matters in science”, however the way this was then marketed was not as ‘sound’.

I would love to have been in that meeting,

“OK chaps, we have to engage more females in engineering, any ideas?”

“Well, what can we use that all women relate to?”

“I’ve got it! They all love playing with their hair so what about hairdryers?”

What a great opportunity missed.

Criticism in the press;

“IBM's "hack a hairdryer" campaign suddenly attracted a barrage of criticism by Twitter users who called it patronising and sexist”

(BBC website 7^th December 2015)

And on twitter;

There are also concerns that the implementation of CfE has narrowed the curriculum and had led to a fall in the uptake of STEM subject by 4% in 2015, reported in Holyrood, here.

There are good news stories as well, this week we see an astronaut from Britain launching to the International Space Station where he will spend six months carrying out experiments and research. This weekend sees the end of the 21^st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (#COP21) with a ‘historic’ climate change agreement being agreed to by around 200 countries. Aberdeen Council lead the way to support primary teachers move from feeling ‘trepidation’ to ‘science champions’ by investing in staff capabilities, reported in Holyrood, here. There is also lots of good resources and support through STEMNET and the learned Societies such as the Institute of Physics, Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Society of Biology.

Even with all of these supports and resources we are still not meeting the demand from industry for students with a focus on STEM subjects. STEM subjects are still seen as the way forward to keep the global workforce sustainable and economically viable in an ever changing and digitising world. In a recent Telegraph article (8-12-15), here, they discussed how mothers who were not fond of STEM subjects, for whatever reason, are also passing on this “preconceptions about science to their own daughters”. From my experience of parents evening, I can say I have witnessed this so many times. Parents coming into the science lab and starting the conversation with “I was never any good at science so I don’t think she/he will be either”, I always love that conversation! In the article by Wenger et all (2014, p37), they cite Toglia (2013) who discuss the “socio-economic status, their parents expectations, jobs and educational level and the influence of respective advice centres” as all factors which influence girls in continuing with STEM subjects. So the perception of themselves as learners and social influences could have a more direct effect on girls choosing or not choosing STEM subjects.

The way children learn through play also impacts on their learning through out there lives. Girls tend to keep their play within the confines of ‘game’ whereas boys tend to go outwith. I saw this with my own children when they played with Lego, my boy would build something then break it apart and make random things, which all had a purpose - usually destruction! Whereas my daughter always built what was on the box and was satisfied when it was finished. This leads me to wonder then if there is something in the way learning is constructed into already existing schema (Piaget, 1975) that supports different thinkers, whether boys or girls, as Wenger et al (2014, p39) states “STEM subjects demand high levels of abstract thinking from students because of the models and formulas the respective information is condensed in”. Wenger et al (2014) goes on to discuss the need for more ‘independent learning opportunities’ so girls can build mental models, self-esteem and view of themselves as being ‘good’ at STEM subjects.

Another aspect that influences whether students’ progress into STEM subjects is the ‘edutainment’. In science subjects in early years, through primary and into the first stages of secondary there has been a focus on making science ‘fun’ to engage students. While I do like this aspect, it can only best serve the STEM subjects if this is underpinned by scientific rigour and followed up with a discussion around ‘what do our results tell us?’ rather than ‘just for fun’. As Pittinsky & Diamante (2015, p 47) state “At first glance, it looks like the problem begins when the fun stops”.

Teachers also have a huge role to play. In a cluttered education system with various pathway options and subjects jostling for attention, it can be hard for students to make decisions about the best subjects to take. Teachers need to be ‘gender free’ with advice and it is worrying to read in a Telegraph article, cited above, “Too often, I hear stories of teachers and career advisers telling girls that science is not for them”. So maybe we have to re-culture teacher’s knowledge and expectations for all students. Within the STEM subjects we need to start working more collaboratively, instead of the subject silo’s, and in co-operation with each other to promote a STEM mindset as Morrison and Bartlett (2009) cited by Pittinsky & Diamante (2015) state we will have moved to a time when “the STEM subjects are to be seen as a collective curriculum, where their content can become integrated or fused as one subject”.

Studying STEM subjects for all students can stir curiosity and enhance creativity, innovation and support positive learning experiences. Coupled with non-gender specific advice and continuing to increase the awareness of the pathways and careers offered by studying STEM subject – not that I am biased!

References

Pittinsky, T.L.&  Diamante, N (2015) Going beyond fun in STEM: Kappan magazine.org p47- 51

Retrieved 15-12-07 p

Roberts, A. (2013) STEM is here, Now what? Technology and engineering teacher p22- 27

Wegner, C. Strehlke, F. Weber, F. (2014) Investigating the differences between girls and boys regarding the factors of frustration, boredom an insecurity they experience during science lessons:

Themes in Science and Technology Education, 7(1), pp 35-45

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-35027902

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/10/nobel-scientist-tim-hunt-female-scientists-cause-trouble-for-men-in-labs

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11848342/Barbie-and-Lego-Sexist-toys-put-girls-off-science.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/11288761/Just-one-percent-of-parents-want-their-daughters-to-be-engineers.html

https://www.holyrood.com/articles/feature/stem-striving-excellence

Useful websites

http://www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/timpeake

http://www.iop.org

http://www.rsc.org/

http://www.rsb.org.uk/

Playtime and time to play

'We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.'

(George Bernard Shaw, 1856--1950)

This week has had me thinking about play and the usefulness of play in social and academic development. I tuned into the #Scoteduchat this week which hosted questions around nursery primary transition but I think the thing that I was most take with was the use of play.

Each of these has led to me to thinking about how important play is in both social and academic development but also about how parenting and interaction through play is vital to childhood development and how this fits into the Scottish Attainment Challenge. I had a quick search in Education Source – EBSCO (https://www.gtcs.org.uk/GTCS-login.aspx - log in page) and found a paper by  Kanhadilok & Watts (2014) about Adult play-learning and I also had a quick look at the Education Scotland website for more information on play and came across the Play Strategy for Scotland: the vision.

I am playful and I used play in my secondary classroom with the students, from the more obvious games for learning but also in social interactions which were playful. Playfulness as discussed by Kanhadilok & Watts (2014) as “the predisposition to frame (or reframe) a situation in such a way as to provide oneself (and possible others) with amusement, humour, and/or entertainment”. Playful approaches to learning sit within constructivist theories of learning and can prompt learning especially when learning is driven by curiosity and creativity. Playfulness is a ‘mindset’ and is linked to the ‘pleasure principle’ so if it becomes a chore then it stops being play.

I love the idea of play as a medium for learning and watching children play, you can see creativity and social skills in action. It is interesting though that the research on childhood play is extensive according to Kanhadilok & Watts (2014) “some 3000 psychological research papers focused on children's play” in the last decade but at the same time “only around 40 have addressed play in adults”.

Children love to learn, from the Play Strategy for Scotland: The vision (p15)

“Play allows children to experience and make sense of their world, to challenge themselves, practise skills and manage their emotions, interact with others or enjoy time alone”.

This ties in with Dewey’s thinking around learning involving active discovery rather than the passive remembering of facts and figures. Sugata Mitra famous experiment Hole in the Wall (HIW) experiment (1999) gave children free access to a computer embedded within a wall between his office and an Indian slum at Kalkaji, Delhi. This and further experiments have shown that children want to, and love to learn and are not afraid to making mistakes. Some adult have a fear of being wrong and are shamed by being wrong, children are far more like Edison;

“I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”,

Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that “every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts”. So not only is it a ‘right’ but we also tacitly know that play is a ‘good’ thing and the benefits go beyond fun, into aspects of resilience, creativity, problem solving and make significant contributions to children ‘well-being’, a key aspect of the GIRFEC agenda. Through play children interpret their world and negotiate risk taking, challenge and manage themselves and learn co-operative and collaboration, all of these skills are being heralded by employers. Play remains important “throughout infancy, childhood, the teenage years through adolescence, and beyond into adulthood and at all ages, stages and abilities” (p13).

The recent emphasis on outdoor learning has been a step forward and the use of natural materials to support ‘academic learning’ is laudable. Early years practitioners are crucial in developing children who are curious about the world around them and using outdoor play experiences to support children’s development. According to the Play Strategy for Scotland: the vision (p19) “the greatest potential to develop free play in schools is outdoors, before and after school, during break times and, through out-of-school care”, but how to achieve this?

In the current climate where the perception of risk to children playing outdoor is often higher than the reality, this raises issues of children not having opportunities to practice their skills, experiment and to challenge themselves out with the ‘control’ of adults.  The Play Strategy for Scotland: the vision (p21) states that “children and young people who play outdoors more often have better social networks, are more confident and are more involved in their local communities than those who are outside less often” and I agree with this, that children need to time to develop skills through play and being independent which will support them as they grow up.

Play is not just for the little ones but through play in early years children can start to develop neural pathways that support learning. It was fortuitous that just as I am finishing writing this post that the EIS have put out a press release commenting on Professor Siraj’s Review of Early Learning and Childcare, Larry Flanagan is quoted to have said;

"It is welcome that the Scottish Government has acknowledged the essential nature of teacher involvement in the nursery sector, while restating its own commitment to ensuring that all children in nurseries have access to a teacher."

So play is important and should be nurtured as “play is the universal language of childhood” and beyond, so who wants to go jump in some puddles!

References

Aubrey, K. & Riley, A. (2016) Understanding and using educational theories: Sage publishing

Kanhadilok, P. & Watts,M.(2014) Adult play-learning: Observing informal family education at a science museum: Studies in the Education of Adults, Vol. 46, Issue 1

Review Of Early Learning & Childcare: EIS Comment

http://www.eis.org.uk/public.asp?id=3185&dbase=2

last retrieved 15-12-04

PLAY STRATEGY FOR SCOTLAND: OUR VISION: Scotland's first national play strategy. (2013)

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00425722.pdf

last retrieved 15-12-04