Monthly Archives: October 2015

What is practitioner enquiry?

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Menter et al (2011) defines practitioner enquiry as a “‘finding out’ or an investigation with a rationale and approach that can be explained or defended.” It is the process of constantly continuing research and building on your knowledge. This is then shared through collaborative enquiry where a group shares they’re findings from their research with each other.

Working together collaboratively is very useful as it enhancing teachers knowledge for themselves and learning about different ways of working that they might not have thought about and then to pass onto pupils. However, there are some disadvantages. For example, not everyone might enjoy working in groups and sharing ideas and therefore may not participate as fully as expected, some members may be put of by other confident members of the group and therefore become less motivated.

In becoming a teacher, I understand that I will need to engage in practitioner enquiry and be prepared to work in groups and share my ideas . This seems as though it could be challenging at times but I think it is a very useful way of learning.

The benefits of active learning and co-operative working

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To me, active learning is a skill we should all be working on to improve. It is one thing taking notes in lectures but for me, and I’m sure many others would agree, the information doesn’t always go into my head and stay there by the time the lecture has finished.

An effective way to make sure you have understood the content from the lecture would be to read over and write your notes out again soon after the lecture. Copying out the notes again puts information into your head easier as you don’t have the distractions of the lecturer speaking and from your peers. For me, I find it helpful to rewrite my notes in coloured pens or make mind maps and flashcards. Seeing information in a different format sometimes helps.

Co-operative learning for me is working together and helping each other out. Sharing ideas and hearing other people’s ideas and opinions is a really helpful way to collect information and to expand on what you already know. As well as active learning, I think it is really important for us as future teachers to develop our understanding of co-operative learning so that we can then pass on our knowledge and encourage our pupils to learn in a similar way.