CRITICAL REFLECTION ON PROFESSIONAL PRACTITIONER INQUIRY

 

 Developed professional questions

This course helped to actively reflect on how to personally and professionally develop from a teaching assistance to an art teacher in an EBD (Emotional Behaviour Difficulties) school. Module 2 took me on a journey which enabled me to inquire into the codes of practice that guide and govern my work place and at the same time reflect on my own ethics and values. My aim is to teach art in EBD schools which will combine two of my passions that of art and of supporting young people who are deemed to be emotionally and behaviourally challenging. 

 

To develop ideas for my professional question I began by evaluating and reflecting back on art programmes offered to students in my school and in EBD schools I have previous worked. This process has led me to create and facilitate an art club in my department for year 11 students who cannot access the art programme offered in my school. This project was inspired by my early attempts to develop ideas for my inquiry. By working with the students I have developed my question further to enquire as to the effectiveness of art programmes offered to students in EBD schools.

http://thulanishuku.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/task-4a.html    

 

 

Ethical considerations

The task of writing about the codes of practice where ethics apply in my work place was both challenging and informative. Every year since I started working in the school we have been given updated version of the school policies and expectation guidelines in our handbooks, of which I have always tended to skim through. These tasks made me realise how easily we can take for granted the importance of understanding the ethics that mould the organisations we work for. Through doing this task I have broadened my knowledge and therefore have a better understanding of the type of organisation I work for, its goals and aspirations. This has reinforced the need to strive in my pursuit to further develop my professional practice to meet the needs of the young people I work with.     http://thulanishuku.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/task-5b.html, http://thulanishuku.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/task-5a_8597.html

 

 In this module I have been introduced to consequentialism theory, which focuses on the greatest happiness for the greatest number. This has emphasized that it is critical that I am conscious of the ethics of being honest in my inquiry: the drive of desire to make a change in the art program in my school should not override the natural outcome. There is the possibility that majority of students in my school and other EBD schools may not be interested in art qualification and/or art as core curriculum subject.  

http://thulanishuku.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/task-5c_3363.html

 

The tools of inquiry

 

Tools of inquiry pilots made the experience of conducting research real and helped me to refine my inquiry question. The opportunity to facilitate a focus group and an interview helped me to evaluate the basic interview skills I possess. Having done this I can focus on areas I need to improve on in order to collect viable data that will allow me to conduct sound research. http://thulanishuku.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/task-6a-focus-group-pilot.html

http://thulanishuku.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/task-6a-interview-pilot_16.html

 

Researching materials for literature reviews was a very usefully and informative exercise that broadened my knowledge on the ideas and theories on EBD education and art education. This process encouraged me to critically reflect on the literature I have come to read in this process. The literature also helped me to gain a more knowledgeable background and comprehension of ideas about how young people diagnosed with EBD respond to learning. This new and deeper understanding is vital as it will influence how I structure my art sessions and my inquiry.       

http://thulanishuku.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/task-6c_4271.html

http://www.delicious.com/thulani_shuku

 

 

 

Task 6d

Here is the URL to the articles I have posted on Delicious.

http://www.delicious.com/thulani_shuku

Task 6c

My inquiry will focus on whether art is more effective as an extra-curricular activity or as a core curriculum subject in Emotional Behaviour Difficulties (EBD) schools and in particular my work place. Art is offered both as a curriculum subject and as an extra-curricular activity, but there has been very little interest from students on choosing art related subject for further education after finishing year 11 in my secondary school. I am very interested to find out how different art programmes in mainstream and other EBD institutes compare to my school. In this task I will review the writing of American art educator and writer Elliot Eisner, the report document from UNNESCO on the World Conference on Arts Education: Road Map for Arts Education and the Guardian article: Arts education defended by star-studded campaign, by Vanessa Thorpe.

From early in Eisner career he found that “most schools were failing to properly appreciate the significance of art, were offering an unnecessarily and seriously unbalanced approach to education”. He recognised the current forms of learning and teaching was inadequate because they lacked artistic modes of thinking (Uhrmacher 2001: 247). Eisner concept is that art is not only driven by emotion (“creative force”), but rather an approach that is developed towards cognitive art and that art has a “unique contribution to make to growing children” (Uhrmacher 2001: 248).  

“He was later to argue that approaches which simply gave children arts materials in the hope that their creativity might flow resulted in programmes 'with little or no structure, limited artistic content, and few meaningful aims' (Eisner 1988)”.

He questioned the strength of art programmes offered to students and whether art was presented to students for art sake and as light subject with no real purpose. He argued that the skills learnt in art by students are very much transferable to other subjects and student’s social and cultural life will also benefit from schools providing a well structured art programme (“cognitive art”).   

In his Artistry theory he writes about educators needing to be more creative rather than ‘one moulded clocklike character of the assembly line’ and he believed that the field of education has much to learn from the arts about the practice of education.

“Viewing education work as an expression of artistry allows us to look beyond the technical and to develop more creative and appropriate responses to the situations that educators and learners encounter”. 

Smith, M. K. (2005) 'Elliot W. Eisner, connoisseurship, criticism and the art of education', the encyclopaedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/eisner.htm.

In 2006 UNESCO held a World Conference on Arts Education, titled “Road Map for Arts Education”. The resulting document states that the conference, “aims to explore the role of Arts Education in meeting the need for creativity and cultural awareness in the 21st Century, and places emphasis on the strategies required to introduce or promote Arts Education in the learning environment”.

UNESCO recognised the importance that art education has in all aspect of education. Their document seeks to promote a common understanding to all stakeholders of the essential role that art education plays in improving the overall quality of education. The document is meant to act as a reference point that outlines concrete changes and steps required to produce or promote art education in both formal and informal settings and to establish a solid framework for future decisions and actions.

The “Road Map” aim is to bring together delegations from different countries to establish a “vision and develop a consensus” on how important art education is to building on the following: “creative and culturally aware society; encourage collaboration reflection and action; and garner the necessary financial and human resources to ensure the more complete integration of Arts Education into education systems and schools”.

The conference objective was to address questions that remain to be central issues that affect the approach of arts practitioners, teachers, students and policy makers. The Road Map seeks to attempt a comprehensive response to the following questions and to emphasises that creative and cultural development should be a basic function of education;

“Is Arts Education taught for appreciation alone or should it be seen as a means to enhance learning in other subjects?”

“Should art be taught as a discipline for its own sake or for the body of knowledge, skills and values to be derived from it (or both)?”

“Is Arts Education for a gifted few in selected disciplines or is Arts Education for all?”  

http://www.unesco.org/pv_obj_cache/pv_obj_id_3B467F3E109115E1931A1403AEB5E2F6C6630300/filename/Arts_Edu_RoadMap_en.pdf

The Guardian article ‘Arts education defended by star-studded campaign’, documents the actions of various famous people including artists, teachers, parents, theatre directors, writers and performers. Together they formed an alliance against government plans “to concentrate the British schools' curriculum on a core of "traditional" subjects”. They signed a document, put together by the Cultural Learning Alliance, to show the government that the participation of a broad mix of cultural experience from a young age improves attainment of students. The report claims that: “taking part in arts activities, can demonstrably increase children's cognitive skills”. Professor Mick Waters, a curriculum expert and member of the alliance, claims that providing children with the opportunity to visit galleries and museums is invaluable.

The National Association of Schoolmasters and the Union of Woman Teachers outlined their concerns in a survey, which suggest that, “one in eight schools is planning to reduce the provision of arts, drama and music. The poll of 2,500 teachers revealed that 13% had already cut those subjects”.

This curriculum move is blamed on the impact of the government’s English Baccalaureate (Ebacc), that requires students to gain good GCSEs in two sciences, a language, English, maths and in either history or geography. These requirements will push schools away from arts subject and pay more attention on reaching the target set by the Ebacc.

The alliance provides evidence that students who take part in art subjects have a high employability. Students from low-income families are three times likely to obtain a degree if they have previously taken art subjects.  Partaking in art subjects increase students’ transferable skills by about 10% to 17% and based on previous research show the student’s cognitive skills could be increased by 16% and 19%.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/05/arts-education-defended-by-campaign

Taks 6b

Interview

Not only does an interview provide a very effective way of collecting data it also provides a great opportunity for self-assessment, which is particularly useful at this stage in my inquiry. Writing the questions and listening to the responses expands your knowledge as a researcher. The responses are instance and interviewing a person who has experience in the subject or situation can provide the researcher with insightful and new information. The face-to-face aspect of the interview allows the interviewer to view the emotional reaction of the person being interview. This really bringing the subject to life and allows the researcher to determent if the person being interviewed is giving a genuine responds.

I found it difficult to keep my interviewee on subject at times and felt that I could be viewed as impolite whilst steering them back. In face-to–face interviews it is important to ensure that the interviewee knows that you are grateful that they are there and that you value their responses.

I recorded my interviewee’s responses by hand. As I did not want to misinterpret or misquote it was a very time consuming process. In fact, I was so concerned that I conveyed her answers correctly and in the tone at which they were meant, that I sent the answers back to her once I have typed them up. Although this was good for clarity, it is not practical on a larger scale and not all participants would be prepared to do this. I will, therefore, record the interview with sound equipment and play back the responses in my own time.

Focus Group

Focus group is an excellent tool because it gives the researcher an opportunity to listen to a whole group of people debating and giving different points of view on a subject.

I managed to organise a group of people that have the same role as me in my workplace. I chose this group as they are not associated with the arts, so they would offer me more varied responds.

What I liked about the tool is that more participants provide responses, through discussions, that are more varied and in-depth that in a single participant interview.

The focus group pilot provided the experience of how to overcome and anticipate possible obstacle that may affect my inquiry. One obstacle that I came across was to find a suitable time and place for everyone to attend my focus group.  It was difficult to arrange a time that was suitable for all participants, which resulted in me having to cancel a number of prior sessions. I must allow for extra time for this in my future planning.

The last interview I conducted was almost four years ago. I couldn’t remember how to use my Dictaphone at the start of the focus group, so used my phone instead. This taught me to prepare equipment in advance, so as not to waste valuable time learning how to operate and retrieve data.

 

Survey and Q

A survey is a useful tool to collect data, but it is essential to design the questions in a way that the participants find easy to answer and for them not be too time consuming.

In order to obtain broad and representative responses, it is important to survey a wide range of people. To achieve this I will need to make contact with other organisation to find relevant group of people to add credibility to my research.

For my questionnaire pilot, I sent a web-based trial to people in my contacts list to view. This resulted in only one person responding, this gave me no comparative data to work.

This experience has emphasised the important of not relying on one method of distributing questionnaires for my enquiry. 

    

Observation

During my observation pilot I found it very tempting to guide the students during abstract painting. This task was intended to see how they responded to art sessions that don’t focus too much on teaching basic painting and drawing techniques, but to allow them to produce work that is solely based on their feelings and emotions. This experience provided me with a good insight on how the students work and cope without too much guidance.

This process reminded that we use observation on a daily bases in our workplace. We observe the student’s behaviour, how they react in different situations and read their body language in order to work out their mood and how we should approach them.  This tool is about being able to read situations and accurately record what we see.

I think the limitations and dangers of observation as a tool, is that people can behave differently when they know that they are been observe - this is especially true of young people. Therefore, recordings can be misleading, providing inaccurate conclusions.

   

Task 6a Pilot observation

 

I have been observing the students I work with in my art sessions, with the intention of (1) establishing how well they respond to being taught drawing and painting techniques and (2) how they respond to art sessions that take on a more therapeutic teaching approach.  

 

In some sessions I have been teaching students more traditional drawing and portrait painting techniques.  In other sessions I have been teaching abstract painting as a therapeutic approach experiment.

This is not to say that abstract painting is not a technical way of painting but there is more freedom in producing the work.

 

Most of the students I work with have had very little experience of art lessons both in the school and in their prior education.  

This is due to a number of factors, ranging from poor attendance to destructive behaviour which has kept them out of a normal classroom setting.

 

Since I started working with the students I have been mainly concentrating on teaching them basic painting and drawing techniques.

Some of the students have picked the techniques up reasonably well and others have struggled.

I decided to combine drawing and painting in the sessions because the students consider painting more fun and drawing to be hard work.

 

This observation is intended to give me insight for my enquiry, as to how students with learning difficulties respond to processing technical aspect of drawing and painting.

As motioned above some responded well in parts, but needed a lot of guidance and struggled to remember and process information.

For example I demonstrated to them a number of times how to mix primary colours to create brown and purple, but despite my repetition, they constantly needed reminding.

 

The students found painting portraits the easiest of tasks, I think, because they had images to work from. They were proud of the end result and saw improvements as they created more paintings. 

 

The students really struggled with abstract painting.

Despite finding it difficult to follow instructions in the basic techniques sessions, they still needed guidance, which is something I was hesitant to give in this instance.

As an artist I found the abstract painting to be very strong, complex and interesting.

The student’s body language and the feedback they gave me in response to the abstract painting session, was that they were less proud and impressed by what they produced.          

 

 

Task 6a Survey and Questionnaire Pilot

I decided to use closed questions to collect data for my questionnaires because in the past I discovered that most people found it easier and quicker to respond to this method. I have created two different types of questionnaires. The first one is targeted at adults working in education and the arts and parents/carers. The second questionnaire is tailed towards students. It is easy to understand and therefore not difficult for them to state their answers.

During my enquiry I will use both face to face and Email or web –based questionnaires. Using these different ways of conducting the surveys will allow me to collect data from a number of different people. I am aware that some people might not have access to the internet, this is especially true of the parents and students that I work with.

However, for this pilot I have uploaded the questionnaire for adults on Survey Monkey in order for me to gain, possibly fewer, but instant responses. I have also attached a copy of the questionnaire for students on this blog.               

http://www.surveymonkey.com/MySurvey_EditorFull.aspx?sm=MWXjNd2rGnFAC5C9k4oF9kB1pwuyGnXnQX%2b8DAEbU0g%3d

1.    Gender (please circle)

     Male or Female

2.    Please state your year group or if you attending college full-time please state the level of your course.

________________

 

3.    Please state the course you would like to attend after leaving secondary school or if you are attending college full-time, please state your current course.

___________________________________________

 

4.    Have you considered art as a possible course to study in college or as a career?

Yes or No

5.    Do you think that art in school has the same value as Maths, English and Science?

Yes or No

6.    Can art improve the social, learning and emotional development of students who struggle with behaviour and learning in school?

Yes or No

7.    In school did you look forward to and enjoy art lessons when you had to produce material for course work?

Yes or No

8.    Did you enjoy doing art as part of your English lessons, Science lessons and Therapy sessions?

Yes or No

9.     Do you have any friends, family friends or relatives that study or work as an artist? For example animation designer, painter, graphic designer or sculptor. 

Yes or No

10.  Do you think that is art lessons are important in schools?

Yes or No

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Task 6a Focus Group Pilot

I designed a number of questions to guide me during the session, but because of time limitations, I knew that it was going to be difficult to ask them all. 

Despite the restricted time I gained good experience of facilitating a focus group, focusing on the key questions that would give me enough feedback for my enquiry.

I selected four colleagues in my department who have direct contact and support both the students and parents we work with in the school. 

The group was made up of colleagues who don’t have any involvement in the arts. 

I thought that by choosing these colleagues I could gain insight from those who may have a different perspective on the subject from artists or teachers.  

I started by asking the group if they thought that art is more effective and useful as a learning tool or a therapeutic instrument and less effective as a taught subject in EBD schools. 

I was interested to hear that all four participants had a different response to the question, which seemed to correlate to the length of time they had been working in EBD schools. 

Those with more experience thought that art was underused as a tool and undervalued as a subject. 

The only person in the group without children, and with the shortest experience, put the least value on art being a subject taught in EBD schools.

No one was over powering, which made the group easy to control and allowed them to effectively converse about the experiences they were having and have had with students that they support.

I asked the group if they knew of any students from EBD Schools that have gone on to study any art related course in college. 

Out of all four, only one colleague knew a student who had a statement (official document of a learning difficulty), that went on to study art in further education and, interestingly, it was in a mainstream school. 

One participant told us about a student from an EBD School that was excellent in art, but was not encouraged to take it further. They went on to study catering in college which they now regret.

I found the focus group a useful tool because it was easy for the participants to open up and express their thoughts about the subject. 

From this experience I have learnt that it can be difficult to find a suitable location and allocate a time that suits multiple participants. 

I must be sensitive about people’s time and availability and considerate in choice of location in order to maximise participation in my future focus groups.

Here is a list of questions that I designed to guide my focus group:

Pilot Focus Group

1.     Is art more affective and useful as a learning tool or a therapeutic instrument and less effective as a taught subject in EBD schools?

2.     Does existing art programme encourage students in EBD schools to take an interest in art after they finish secondary school?

3.     Does the social background of students and parents affect their attitudes towards art?

4.     Can art enhance the social, academic and emotional development of students with learning and emotional difficulties (EBD)?

5.     What challenges do art teachers face in encouraging both the parents and school heads of departments of the importance of having good art programme in EBD schools?

6.      Would parents be less likely to encourage their children in EBD schools to choose art in further education, if the students have demonstrated ability to be a good art student?

7.     Are the students in mainstream schools more likely to choose art in further education than the students in EBD schools?

8.      Do you think that parents with students in EBD School view art as an extracurricular activity and not a possible subject that can lead to a viable career?

9.     Do you think that the art programmes in EBD schools should be discontinued or reduced because of lack of funding due to the planned government cuts?