The Enquiring Practitioner

Practitioner enquiry is to investigate with a set of reasons which can be explained and justified. The results of these investigations can then be shared amongst colleagues, and therefore practitioner enquiry appears to hold more value than reflection. As a group, the practitioners will develop a common question, then will all research this are from different viewpoints as this improves knowledge creation and understanding.

Practitioner enquiry has many benefits to it, for example, it allows teachers to notably better the quality of their students’ learning experiences by making important changes to the curriculum. Practitioner enquiry also enables teachers to work collaboratively and so they can not only work together to develop the curriculum but also to learn from each other to help develop their own skills and abilities.

However, there are also challenges with practitioner enquiry, such as certain members of the group feeling uncomfortable to speak out or overpowered by another member, and so it is important that everyone’s opinions are respected and that everyone is given an opportunity to speak. Another challenge when implementing practitioner enquiry is that the older generation of teachers may find it difficult to adapt to this new way of thinking, whereas the newer generation will be more familiar with it. The older generation of teachers will not have been trained with this new method and so may find it extremely challenging to change their whole mind-set.

Personally, I feel that as a student teacher I can include practitioner enquiry into my training and therefore will be more accustomed to this way of thinking. This will benefit me as I will not struggle when it comes to working collaboratively with my colleagues and sharing my opinions with them. It will also allow me to take on board the suggestions and ideas of others and therefore could allow me to develop my knowledge and also abilities to help me become a fully qualified teacher.

8 thoughts on “The Enquiring Practitioner

  1. Hi Katie,

    I enjoyed reading your post as you’ve demonstrated a clear understanding of what it means to be an Enquiring Practitioner. You’ve clearly taken the time to put a lot of thought into the benefits and challenges which I agree with. I like how you mentioned the challenges of group work as this is important and wasn’t something I gave much thought to. You appear to have grasped the implications for you as a student teacher in terms of practitioner enquiry very well! 🙂

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  2. Hi Katie! I totally agree with all the points you make here. I agree with you that if we start being enquiring practitioners as students we will find it so much easier when we are out in schools to work with our peers effectively.

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  3. Hello Katie, I feel this is a very good post on what it means to be an enquiring practitioner with a good explanation of the pros and cons of the particular practice. I enjoyed reading your opinion, however I felt that the post was rather long and caused me to loose interest slightly; however I do understand that there’s a lot to say on the matter so I can not fault your post in the slightest. I hope you don’t take offence and I look forward to hearing your views on mine.
    Thank you

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  4. Katie, I really enjoyed reading your post as you can see that you have a clear understanding of what it means to be an enquiring practitioner. The point regarding the older generation finding it difficult to maybe grasp being an enquiring practitioner I found important as this was what I thought could be an implication. There was nothing I could see that I felt needed improved!

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