The Enquiring Practitioner

CaptureA Practitioner Enquiry can be described as “an investigation with a rationale or approach which can be explained or defended” (Menter et al 2011)

To me, an enquiring practitioner is someone who deliberately goes out of their way become more knowledgeable, whether that be for a project or about the their profession in general. It is now viewed that teaching should be a learning experience for the teacher as well as the children, and I strongly believe that teachers who make the effort to continue to teach themselves, make the best teachers and role models for children.

Benefits of being an enquiring practitioner are that they can investigate new strategies, which leads to a positive impact on the children in their class, and to the school as a whole, as staff can collaborate on these strategies, highlighting the importance of cooperation and team work across the school. This leads teachers to feel empowered and in total control over what they are teaching.

However, this may lead some teachers to feeling uncomfortable, especially traditional teachers who are used to an approach involving less self enquiry.

In spite of this, I believe that, both student teachers and fully registered teachers, should enagage with the idea of an enquiring practitioner as it ultimately provides a better education for the children we are teaching, which is really the main objective of any teacher.

http://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-update/practitioner-enquiry/critical-considerations.aspx#challenges – cited 29/10/15

7 thoughts on “The Enquiring Practitioner

  1. In this post you have covered everything we were asked to, well done. It is evident that you have done research on this and this builds upon your understanding of an enquiring practitioner. You have given a well detailed description of your understanding of an enquiring practitioner and I like how you have related it to pupils and other teachers – showing your understanding even further. I think the use of the quote at the start is a great opener and gives a description of what your post is about. I also think that linking your view of an enquiring practitioner to why you feel it is important shows your understanding even more.

    One thing I suggest for an improvement is to include more disadvantages. Another suggestion I would make is to show more of why you believe that it means to you as a student – however I do understand that reflection isn’t everyone’s “cup of tea”.

    Adele
    xx

    Reply
    1. Post author

      Thank you Adele, I take on board your feedback and will try to implement these when writing further pieces.

      Emma
      xxx

      Reply
  2. Your writing clearly states what it means to be an enquiring practitioner and you have shown you have a good understanding of this through your explanation. You have given details of some of the benefits and challenges of becoming an enquiring practitioner. I really like your style of writing and I feel this appeals to the reader. I think your statement about making it a better education for children is very powerful and this stands out in your writing.
    Maybe you could add more of the challenges of becoming an enquiring practitioner as this would balance up with the positive aspects. Maybe you could include how this will effect you throughout university and on placement as this would grasp your readers attention of why this matters to you.

    Reply
    1. Post author

      Thank you Jade, I understand what I should have done to improve my piece. I will take this on board for writing future pieces.

      Reply
  3. This is a really good piece of writing Emma. It clearly shows that you have researched further in to what an “enquiring practitioner” is. You make several good points one of my favourites being that an enquiring practitioner makes a good role model to the children – I strongly agree with this statement. You have clearly identified what you believe to be the most important challenges and benefits. As it has been mentioned above, more challenges would have enhanced this piece but I’m sure you realise this now and will incorporate this advice in your future writing. After-all we were asked to give a brief summary of what we believe it means to be an enquiring practitioner and so I feel you’ve done this very well! Good work 🙂

    Reply
    1. Post author

      Thank you Lisa 😀 Hopefully in “non-brief” tasks I can write more about the subject, and delve deeper into everything that it means to me 🙂

      Reply
  4. This is a well written piece that gives a good description of your view on what an enquiring practitioner is. It is clear that you have done wider research on this topic and you have made several good points on the benefits that being an enquiring practitioner has. I also like how you have linked these benefits to being a teacher and how they can improve your teaching skills.
    The only improvements I have is that you could reflect more on how being an enquiring practitioner could affect you as a student teacher and give more examples of the disadvantages.
    Well done 🙂

    Reply

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