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The contribution of Exploratory Practice to Professional Development: Research findings

Susan Dawson IATEFL, April 2014. The contribution of Exploratory Practice to Professional Development: Research findings. ‘a sense of plausibility’ ( Prabhu , 1990). Hiring- Hub.com (2013). Available at: http :// www.hiring-hub.com /blog/make-your-employees-dreams-true/. Outline.

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The contribution of Exploratory Practice to Professional Development: Research findings

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  1. Susan Dawson IATEFL, April 2014 The contribution of Exploratory Practice to Professional Development: Research findings

  2. ‘a sense of plausibility’ (Prabhu, 1990) Hiring-Hub.com (2013). Available at: http://www.hiring-hub.com/blog/make-your-employees-dreams-true/

  3. Outline • Professional Development • The research study • The participants • Initial reasons • Links to the 7 principles • Conclusions

  4. Professional Development I develop

  5. ‘A reclaiming of professional development for teachers, by teachers, recognizes that they have not only a right to direct their own professional development but also a responsibility to develop professionally throughout their careers’ (Johnson, 2006: 250. Italics mine)

  6. What is Exploratory Practice? ‘It is an indefinitely sustainable way for classroom language teachers and learners, while getting on with their learning and teaching, to develop their own understandings of life in the language classroom’. (EP website, 2008)

  7. The Research Study • Why are you interested in Exploratory Practice? ‘[email] can increase reflexivity by providing both the time and space …to construct, reflect upon and learn from …stories of experience’ (James, 2007: 964)

  8. The participants

  9. The analysis: Initial reasons • Intellectual reasons So, part of my interest in Exploratory Practice stems from my trying to resolve how it is different from Action Research. In some ways, this is more of an intellectual pursuit – but it is one that I find engaging. Dave I was intrigued by the differences between EP and AR... and at that time what seemed to sum it up was the starting point of a 'puzzle' for EP, and a 'problem' for AR. Jenny

  10. Similarity of context When Dick Allwright showed pictures of practitioners in Brazil working for understanding, I could immediately envisage that that practice could work well in state schools in my country, Argentina, where resources are scarce and grammar-focused practices are still common. Because this situation in my country worried me, I was open to see if I could find ways of working to improve it, and I found that EP seemed just perfect. Amy Critical pedagogy

  11. Joint beneficiaries I first became interested because I wanted a way to do research that was meaningful to me and my learners. Yvonne

  12. The seven principles The ‘what’ issues 1. Focus on quality of lifeas the fundamental issue. 2. Work tounderstandit, before thinking about solving problems. The ‘who’ issues 3. Involve everybodyas practitioners developing their own understandings. 4. Work to bring people together in a common enterprise. 5. Work cooperatively for mutual development. The ‘how’ issues 6. Make it a continuous enterprise. 7. Minimise the burdenby integrating the work for understanding into normal pedagogic practice. (Allwrightand Hanks,2009: 260. Italics original) QUALITY OF LIFE UNDERSTANDING COLLEGIALITY SUSTAINABILITY

  13. Sustainability

  14. The Flip side of Sustainability Burn-out Formalised One-off business Extra stress Frustration Hunt for the philosopher’s stone http://talentbitsandbytes.com/tag/burnout

  15. Efficiency or Quality of Life? • Quality of work or teaching efficiency ’… more effective language teachers, more efficient ‘delivery systems’ of educational success, by discovering and adopting more efficient techniques.’ (Allwright, 2003: 119) • Quality of life

  16. Efficiency of understanding For example, if something is not working, I try out a multitude of solutions to see if I can improve upon it. This is action research. But if I go down the EP path of simply trying to understand the issue, this might mean that I can work more efficiently. Similarly, if the EP path means trying to understand why the solutions don’t work, it leads to more efficiency. If EP means trying to differentiate between issues that can be improved by action and issues that can’t be improved by action… this also leads to more efficiency. Dave

  17. Understanding 'If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.' Kurt Lewin, 1890 -1947 'To understand is hard. Once one understands, action is easy' Sun YatSen, 1866-1925 Such realization might eventually appear in the form of a few simple words, yet it is often achieved through a complex process of discovery.  Paula

  18. Collegiality “The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your relationships.” Dr. Elias Porter (1914-1987) • break down those teacher-learner barriers • bring teachers closer to their learners • respects teachers' and learners' own decisions

  19. Conclusion The idea of including learners as researchers alongside teachers and 'academics' is a radical and exciting one. Jenny

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