An enquiring practitioner is someone who works collaboratively with others. This includes them bringing their own thoughts and ideas to the table to achieve a goal they share with the other group members. As a student teacher, co-operative working can include working alongside other teachers, support teachers or even parents in order to improve education. This can be done through team teaching, staff meetings, parent’s evenings, school events etc.
Benefits of being an enquiring practitioner
An important benefit of collaborative working includes the fact that everyone’s knowledge varies and what individuals could bring into group discussions may be something others aren’t aware of. This is helpful as the group members are learning from one another. As for being a student teacher, this is a great benefit as it will help me learn interesting ways of teaching different subjects or even different behaviour management methods. Another advantage of being an enquiring practitioner is that the more knowledgeable members can help fill in the gaps of others understanding. If someone is struggling with an area, someone who has a better understanding will be able to step in and help explain it to them. As a student, having a peer explain can sometimes be more effective than the explanation giving by a lecturer. I personally feel more comfortable being able to discuss areas I don’t understand with other class members as it’s comforting knowing when others are in the same position as me.
Disadvantages of being an enquiring practitioner
There are many disadvantages to co-operative working. One of these disadvantages is if members are not contributing to the work load. This can be very frustrating and will impact on the group as whole including falling behind on work load. Another big issue within groups can also be know-all behaviour from different members. This can lead to the individual not listening to others opinions or making others feel like they do not have a value within the group. This attitude can lead to the individual dominating the group as they believe they know better than everyone else and therefor might scare others from speaking up against them.
I loved reading your post Sam! I thought you answered the question really thoroughly, making it clear with your sub-headers exactly what aspect of the question you were addressing and when. I feel that you explained the definition of an enquiring practitioner well, specifically when you describe exactly when it can be put into practice. I would love to hear a little more about your own experiences as an enquiring practitioner- have you had much experience of the advantages and disadvantages in practice?
Thanks Eilidh. Your feedback has really helped and I will look into adding what you suggested into the post.
Great post Sam! You give a good rundown of what Practitioner Enquiry actually is and give excellent examples of how it can be done in a school environment. You also effectively list some of the disadvantages to it, which is something that I haven’t seen yet. I should look into finding some challenges to it myself!