Applied Practice in Context

Reflect on how you have changed your practice during your Postgraduate DCL journey. 32 weeks ago, I really had no idea what I was in for. But I love to learn, and I love my job, and it turns out this demanding yet pertinent course was the perfect fit for me. During week 1 of this journey, I identified 3 personal learning goals: to increase meaningful collaboration in my classes, to enhance my use of digital technologies and to grow as a leader.  This week I am using Osterman & Kottkamp's (2015) Cycle of Experimental Learning model to evaluate the change in my practice over this 32 week journey. Stage 1: Problem identification It's easy now to look back and see that my previous attempts at teacher inquiry had seriously lacked depth, or perhaps it was my understanding of the inquiry cycle that was lacking. Each week I was inspired and overwhelmed by new theories and initiatives, which seemed to raise more questions than they answered. I could see early on tha...

Activity 7 : Evaluate how your Inquiry impacts on future Inquiry/practice. I will use Rolf's Model of Reflection,  Finlay (2009),   for this weeks reflective blog post. What is the observed impact after the ‘Take Action’ phase? Now that I have reached the Check Phase of the Inquiry Spiral, I need to consider the impact of my Hybrid Program (see Badenhorst & East, 2015) against my prior expectations. During the Planning phase, I identified the potential impact to my key stakeholders - my Year 9 students - being increased engagement and development of 21st century skills including agency and self management. My evidence gathered overwhelmingly points to a high level of engagement across the class. The differentiated nature of their individualised online program has lead to a sense of accomplishment in most students, as they attain their own learning goals. Students have valued being able to work at their own pace and to have choice over their learning activi...

Activity 6:  Create a reflective entry to describe the data you have collected so far and how you are analysing it. Step 1: Description of my data Right at the beginning of the Take Action phase of the Spiral of Inquiry, I used Microsoft Forms to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. I chose Forms because it is quick and easy to use and provides automatic data analysis of fixed-choice questions. I could also use open questions to gauge my students' perceived engagement in their learning, which is the crux of my inquiry. Despite my inquiry being focused on engagement, I also gathered student grades, task completion rates and accuracy rates from the previous year, which were all available to me through Education Perfect. Although it will be interesting to compare this baseline data to the end of unit results, not all of my Year 9 students were at our school (in the Intermediate school), or completed the Year 8 French programme, so this data has limited use.  This...