Critical reflection on my inquiry cycle.
Describe:
My inquiry cycle has supported the progression of my knowledge and practice around my inquiry goal, which was to plan and enact a curriculum that is engaging and accessible for children. So that I know when to intervene. At the beginning for this inquiry cycle, I noticed that would intervene into the children’s situations to help resolve them or to resolve them for them. From my annotated bibliography I was able to look at the way that I am intervening into children’s play and conflicts and it provided me with more knowledge around when to intervene and strategies to use to support children with their play rather than intervening straight away. During my work experience, I focused on implementing the new knowledge and strategies into my practice in regards to intervening in children’s play. With using these new strategies and knowledge in my practice I did find it hard sometime as I would forget to try new strategies or end up back at intervening because of various reasons like not having the time to spend with the children to support them in resolving themselves.
Inform:
Throughout this cycle I can see a change in my practice and in my knowledge around intervening in children’s play, I can also see that the support that I have had from the staff members around me have helped me implement my new knowledge and strategies into my practice. I can also see that I am still working on implementing aspects into my practice and need to keep expanding my knowledge of different strategies that I could use within my practice around how I intervene in children’s play. As I do know and have seen within my practice that the strategies do not always work or work for everyone. As Te Whāriki (2017) states that Kaiako needs to be “knowledgeable about and able to try alternative ways to support and progress children’s learning and development” (p.59). From doing this inquiry cycle I can see that it is a huge reflective process which I have found valuable as it has provided me with a different, more broken apart, in-depth and specifically focused on one area. In Our Code Our Standards (2017) it states that teachers will “promoting inclusive practices to support the needs and abilities of all learners” (p. 10). By researching new strategies and implementing them with the children it provides me with different ways to support children within their play and the different needs and skills that they each have.
Confront:
I know that I am a person who struggles to identify what I am already doing within my practice and describing and talking about it. But I could see that in the beginning that way that I was intervening especially in children’s conflicts was not always the way that I best wanted to do it. So, I knew that this was an area that I wanted to focus on and get better at intervening in a way I felt more comfortable doing which provided more the children with more way to resolve conflicts themselves rather than me intervening and resolving it for them. Which I did not like doing but I felt that I had to most of the time as it was not getting resolved or the conflict would get worse and I had limited strategies to help support me and the children within these situations. I did know that it was going to a struggle for me as I had to be conscious of what I was doing and had to really draw on the new knowledge and strategies to help me in the situations so that I did not go back to the ways I would intervene.
Reconstruct:
I can see that my practice has changed throughout this cycle but can also see that there is more room for growth about how and when I intervene in children’s play and conflicts. I am going to continue to work on and focus on my inquiry goal and practice as I do feel that I need more time to expand my knowledge and practice. I would also like to focus more on the other part of my inquiry goal plan and enact a curriculum that is accessible to children as I feel that it might help build my practice.
References:
Education Council. (2017). Our code our standards: Code of professional responsibility and standards for the teaching profession: Ngā tikanga matatika ngā paerewa: Ngā tikanga matatika mō te haepapa ngaiotanga me ngā paerewa mō te umanga whakaakoranga. Wellington, New Zealand: Education Council.
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ReplyDeleteHi Robyn, I did try and upload this reflection to turnitin but because of the extension I am over the due date and it will not let me upload it.
ReplyDeletekia ora for this Chelsea. It will be OK.
ReplyDeleteYour third refection honestly acknowledges your struggle here, that you have worked on managing children's conflicts in a different way which is good. However, all of your postings are very general in nature - I am still left wondering which specific strategies you tried, what worked, what didn't, how this specifically links to the literature in your bibliography and (again specifically) what you are actually doing that is different and what you plan to do in the future. The more specific you are in what you write about in reflections, the more useful is your reflection, because it acts as a sort of rehearsal for what you might do differently in future.
Robyn