Critical Reflection on Professional Practitioner Inquiry

                                Critical reflection on Professional Practitioner Inquiry

In the last few months I have explored three areas (module 2) which will help me with module 3 (the actual inquiry). I have also explored these areas within my professional practice. 

Developing Lines of Professional Inquiry

In the developments of the lines of professional inquiry, I wrote out a set of questions that I thought related to what I wanted to inquire about. I wrote out 3 lots of questions and the third set of questions really spoke the beginning of my inquiry plan into motion (Appendix A). The inquiry I wanted to find out was ‘To study the performance teachings with Razzamataz & other performance schools for children’. I created an SIG (special interest group) on Facebook (Appendix B), but found that there no conversations. I then joined LinkedIn, but nothing arose from this (Appendix C). I found that speaking with those outside of my university network was more effective to my inquiry plan.

I found that reading the material in Dench, Judi 2010 ‘Judi Dench and Furthermore’ was helpful with the developments of my plan. It showed her experiences with her performance education, finding work, and how she feels about directing to being a professional. In order for me to be able to have a factual inquiry, I realised that I can’t do things on half measures. I have to look at both sides to the curriculum at Sylvia Young and I have to look at the different class groups at Razzamataz.

Having looked at both the business side and the curriculum, I realised that my inquiry would be too broad and I would need to be more specific. I chose to do the curricular side only because it was more important and I had more of a mystery to explore.

Professional Ethics

With the ethics of both schools I found that I knew more about the Razzamataz ethics and code of conduct than I did for Sylvia Young (Appendix D). The ethics were different for each school, and the ethics were what the principals or the founders of the schools wrote, so they could be right and/or wrong. After reading a friend’s critical reflection (Appendix E) I realised that I had to read the data protection act because I am going to interview people and such, so I needed to know what I can do and what I cannot do.

Tools of Inquiry

In order to figure out what tools I should use, I formulated a pilot survey, and a pilot interview. I found that in the tools above I would only need one, the interview. (See Appendix A) I did my first interview already (See Appendix A). The second is yet to be done. I used ‘Survey Monkey’ for my survey (which is not needed), and I will be speaking to my colleagues and to Sylvia Young for my focus group.

This inquiry will develop my knowledge in my professional practice and preparation for my future career in teaching.