From reading the general teaching for Scotland’s website, to me, an enquiring practitioner is someone who is looking to gain more knowledge and share it with others through collaborative working. I believe enquiring practice is something that can be carried out as an individual or collaboratively.
Benefits of being an enquiring practitioner:
- Allows teachers to look at how they teach more critically and challenges them to find ways in which they can improve.
- When working collaboratively, a benefit is that each person can bring a different viewpoint to whatever is being discussed and can help you look at things in new ways.
- Another benefit is that through being an enquiring practitioner you could help develop the curriculum with your peers.
- Allows to teachers to question practices that they may not have questioned before.
Disadvantages of an enquiring practitioner:
- Stoll claimed that enquiry is “situationally unique” (2003) meaning that what works for one school, may not work in every school.
- when working collaboratively, possible disadvantages include, disagreements, someone not contributing, differences in learning and teaching styles.
In conclusion, as student teachers, I believe that being an enquiring practitioner is going to be crucial for us in order to keep improving and learning. We must not just rely on our lectures for the information we need, we must seek it ourselves.
I liked the way that you’ve broken your post up into sections with the bullet points, this makes it easy to read and digest.
The only thing that I would mention is perhaps a quick proof read before publishing to amend any little mistakes (for example the first bullet point in the benefits section being in italics where the rest is not.)
I would also find it helpful if you could include a link or reference for where you found your information (i.e. the Stoll quote) as this would facilitate my further reading.
I completely agree with your concluding point that it is up to us to take responsibility for our own learning. I think that in this way, university life is preparing us for life-long learning.
Great response as you’ve covered all the main points in details. I like how you’ve separated the benefits and challenges into bullet points making it clear to see the main points you are making.
Also i agree with what you have to say in your concluding paragraph that being an enquiring practitioner is crucial in order for us, as teachers to always improve.