Saturday, February 1, 2014

Module 2


Hello Everyone

Time to get cracking with Module 2.  Starting to find ideas, methods and planning for my Professional Inquiry after a lovely break.

As in states in Reader 4, Professional Inquiry is an approach to learning that acknowledges the central role of the individual to the process of learning and the
Goal is to explore a topic that will benefit your work and the work of colleagues and fellow professionals.

After reading about work based and organizational knowledge theories of learning in Reader 4 I have realized that some of these theories could be very useful when understanding my professional inquiry.

The first thing that jumped out at me was Peter Senge theories of learning. According to Peter Senge (1990:3) learning organizations are:

“…Organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.”

I felt that this linked into my professional practice as I can relate it to my learning experience when I was studying at dance college as although everyone was striving to be the best they could be, the college as a whole wanted to get the best results out of the whole college as a whole.

Systems Thinking by Peter Senge is all about seeing the Whole rather than parts. It is about the long term, not a quick fix, as this will come back around to haunt you.  Building a shared vision, rather than just having a personal vision, create a shared one. I think this will help me when planning my Inquiry to focus on what I want to achieve from my Inquiry as I know once I start inquiry new ideas and inquiry’s will open up and I don’t want to end up getting lost in a sea of thoughts. 

This brings me on to Senges idea of Personal Mastery, Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively’ (ibid. 7)

http://infed.org/mobi/peter-senge-and-the-learning-organization/

Personal Mastery, people with a high level of personal mastery live in a continual learning mode. It is a process, a life long discipline. It entails developing personal Vision.  Returning to this quote when planning and carrying out my Inquiry will help me remember that I will be continually be finding out more and more, it will be on going and stop me rushing to get to the end result. 

After reading reader 4 I have realized that Professional Inquiry has many links to Work Based Learning.

Work Based learning (WBL) “May Promote self-awareness of such ‘blind spots’ in practice’ (medical education. Jul 2001, vol.35. Issue 7. P709-709.1p.) I feel that my Inquiry will be doing just this. 

WBL has areas of learning (AOLS) I feel that I could use these as a guideline for my Professional Inquiry. See diagram below:




·      Context: The context in which learning occurs.
·      Content: The experience/situation/task
·      Theory: The use of evidence based processes for decision making and problem solving
·      Level descriptors: Accreditation of Prior Experience Learning (APEL) is used to match learning outcome levels. Depends on the degree of knowledge and understanding.
·      Breadth versus depth: In-depth analysis and exploration of progressive learning.
·      Evidence: Proof of learning, valid, authentic, current, sufficient, reliable, Ethical, reports, conversations, emails etc. (This will be useful for my inquiry)
·      Volume descriptors: Satisfying the amount of learning where credits are awarded.


Schön devised a double loop learning system and I feel that using double loop learning will be unavoidable when carrying out my inquiry, this is because I feel I will come across new challenges and ideas and new things that will need me to approach things differently, rather than using Kolb’s single loop learning. Cycle. The double loop learning by Schön will still allow for the same desired outcome, but allowing there to be interventions along the way.


"In single-loop learning, we learn to maintain the field of constancy by learning to design actions that satisfy existing governing values.  In double-loop learning, we learn to change the field of constancy itself." [Argyris and Schön, 1974, p.  19]



 With all this in mind, I feel I am going to have a lot of ideas and methods that will help me with my professional Inquiry. For now I will continue to read through Reader 4 and the extra reading so I can crack on with Task 4a.

Heather X




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