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.
I loved reading your post Alice! I thought you answered the question really well, successfully addressing each aspect individually. I particularly liked how you considered how you might feel about being an enquiring practitioner when you yourself become a teacher. Perhaps I would suggest that you double check your spelling before posting, there was a few wee mistakes but really nothing too major! I would imagine reading it over once more when you’ve finished writing would fix this straight away! 🙂
This is a good post and has a great definition of what an enquiring practitioner means. It also effectively shows your understand through out. I believe it would be good if you added more pros and cons into the post as i’d like to read about what you think. Also have you thought about giving more detail about how collaborative working could be used within a school and how you as a student will use it?