Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Explores the landscapes of practitioner inquiry, including its histories, affiliated paradigms and approaches, as well as ethical considerations.

COURSE DETAILS:

The goals of this course are to:

·       Develop an inquiry plan that reflects your interests and passions and that will guide your practice in Semester 2 (when  you carry out your inquiry) (see below for more information on the inquiry plan);
·      Continue to support participants to develop academic reading and writing skills foundational to university study;
·      Develop a grounding in practitioner inquiry within the landscape of educational research;
·      Critically reflect on the social, political and educational contexts of inquiry and how these shape research methods and ethics;
·      Critically reflect on positionality and power in the research process by engaging with decolonizing and critical theories of education;
·      Create a generative community of learners in spite of the constraints and limits of crisis remote learning in the time of pandemic, and be alive to changes and shifts we may need to make during the course to support this community and individual participants.

An inquiry plan in the vein of practitioner research asks you to focus upon an area in your own educational practice that you wish to explore, deepen and/or question. Such a plan has several interlocking components and each of these will be a focus of your work in the course:  
o   A topic, problem or issue to explore;
o   A rationale and background to the issue that is anchored in current contexts and your practice setting;
o   Theories and thinkers that frame and extend the issue you are exploring (this is your literature review)
o   A plan for data collection and analysis;
o   Attention to ethics and research relationships Woven into these components are the philosophical and ethical stances we take in the inquiry process. For example, what are our assumptions about our students, our schools and our role as educators? What contexts for education policy and the culture of schooling shape our practice? How do these contexts and assumptions, along with our social and professional positionalities, shape inquiry? What ethical issues should we consider and build into our research questions and methods?  

The course is designed to support course participants to develop a strong inquiry plan within practitioner inquiry approaches, and to cultivate a community within the cohort that supports vigorous discussion, collaborative learning and engagement with epistemological and ethical issues that are always part of inquiry and educational practice. We will also create a supportive environment to develop writing skills, as we learn new ways to read and write academically within the vein of practitioner inquiry.

Working together: course organization, workload and expectations

Course organization

The course draws upon adult learning principles to build a community of inquiry within the cohort, and to promote cultures of inquiry within your educational settings (during and after COVID). We will use CANVAS to post readings and resources and to make the best of our online meetings (probably using Zoom or another videoconferencing platform TBA) for short lecture and discussion-based activities.   Some activities will require participation in asynchronous small group and pair activities in CANVAS (e.g. peer review of writing projects, discussions of readings, and other activities designed to push your inquiry plans along). We may create affinity groups so that cohort participants exploring similar topics can share resources and ideas and participate in online, asynchronous sharing of resources. We will strive to create a learning environment that is responsive to emerging interests and new ideas and that welcomes and supports diversity, collaborative learning and risk-taking as well as the obvious constraints and stresses that arise from pandemic learning. Your ideas, suggestions and initiatives to create this learning environment as we move through the course are very welcome.  

Workload

Course participants can expect to read and discuss 2-3 articles/chapters per week. In addition to the assigned readings, there may be short activities; it is also expected that you read into your inquiry interests and engage in online activities such as peer review, discussion and the sharing of activities/assignments. For example, if your study is related to the incorporation of digital technologies for learning into your teaching practice, you will be reading about digital technologies in education alongside the course readings. You can expect to spend approx. 8 hours a week on course work.  

Expectations

It is expected that in keeping with study at the graduate level all cohort members will:  
·      Attend online classes
·      Complete the course readings, activities and assignments, and participate in online discussions in a timely and thoughtful way;
·      Develop and share drafts of inquiry plans and participate in peer review;
·      Support the learning of others;
·      Be committed to rigour and risk taking;
·      Communicate with the course instructor as soon as possible regarding issues that affect your course learning and participation;
·      Be informed of academic honesty and integrity practices as outlined later in this syllabus.  

Evaluation (due dates to be confirmed on first day of course). The course assignments are designed to follow the trajectory of the development of an inquiry plan so that all components contribute to the final product, due at the end of the course. No assignment is high stakes, in order to promote your commitment to ongoing academic development and growth.  
1. Draft Inquiry plan (25%) 4-6 pages double-spaced excluding references  
a) The focus of your inquiry and your goals
b) What brings you to this inquiry? (tensions, problems, wonderings)
c)  Guiding questions
d)  Your research context
e)   Your stance and positionality; the social position and values you bring to the inquiry and how these matter.

2. Inquiry draft 2: (25)% 6-9 pages. Double-spaced, excluding title page, abstract, references, footnotes, and appendices). Attempts to work within APA citation format.   Revise the sections in Draft 1 according to instructor and peer feedback; Add a literature review that locates your literature in up to 6 theories, thinkers and/or related studies.    

3. Inquiry draft 3. (25)% 10-12 pages. Double-spaced, excluding title page, abstract, references, footnotes, and appendices) and consistent with APA format.   Revise the sections in Draft 2 and include up to 3 more studies or resources to inform your literature review; Include a methods section where you describe how you will carry out your study (data generation methods).  

Final proposal: 25% 15 pages maximum excluding references.  (double spaced, excluding title page, abstract, references, footnotes, and appendices) and consistent with APA format.   In this final draft of your proposal please revise and amplify your proposal draft, responding to previous feedback and demonstrating attention to writing skills. This is an elaboration and finer articulation of the earlier drafts of your proposal that also includes a plan for data analysis, ethical considerations and a timeline, including possible limitations and roadblocks and how you will address them. The goal is to create a plan that is well-written, do-able, takes account of your educational context and your stance and positionality as an educator, takes into account existing work in your field and the ethical implications of your inquiry.  

Inquiry Journal (ongoing). Ungraded but crucial to your inquiry An inquiry journal is a place where researchers record observations, reflections, questions, ideas, quotes, resources, diagrams, feelings, poems and inspiration…. Inquiry journals can take any format (hand written, electronic, audio-video, hybrids) but should  be organized in some way that is useful to you and intelligible to others. Your inquiry journal will become a key method of inquiry as your study unfolds, and we will spend time developing a journaling practice in the course. I will invite you to post excerpts from your inquiry journal from time to time (responses to readings, discussion questions, and so on) in our canvas space.    

Grading Education 718 is a graded course; however, our focus will be on formative rather than summative assessment; in other words, we will focus on producing high quality work through peer and instructor feedback and revision, hence the assignments are designed to improve upon existing drafts; I do not assign grades to papers but will include them in the Canvas online Grade book. If I am concerned about your progress in the course, I will let you know and suggest strategies to meet the course expectations; this is a mutual responsibility. The grade definitions described below, which are typical for advanced learners in graduate programs, will be used to guide assessment.

Academic honesty   All members of the University community share the responsibility for the academic standards and reputation of SFU. Academic honesty is a condition of continued membership in the university community. Please review the Policy at: http://www.sfu.ca/content/sfu/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html More information can be found on the Student Learning Commons website: http://learningcommons.sfu.ca/strategies/academic-integrity “Simon Fraser University is committed to creating a scholarly community characterized by honesty, civility, diversity, free inquiry, mutual respect, individual safety and freedom from harassment and discrimination.” http://students.sfu.ca/academicintegrity.html

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Required texts (these are available online in the SFU library).  

Babione, C. (2015). Practitioner teacher inquiry and research. New York: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-1-11858873-4 (PB) or e-book version (available online at SFU Library).             

Brookfield, S. D. (2017). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca