Learning experiences
What learning experiences did Barbara engage in to address her inquiry question?
Barbara decided that one way to find answers to her question was to enlist the help of a critical friend herself:
“I asked my colleague, Gillian Tasker, to look at a video of my conversation with Fran and to help me to explore my practice as a critical friend. Essentially, I want to learn to be a more effective critical friend by working with a critical friend.”
Together Gillian and Barbara watched the video of Barbara and Fran. Afterwards, Gillian used stimulated recall1
to assist Barbara to reflect on her practice.
Notice how, in her role as a critical friend, Gillian uses evidence and supports and challenges Barbara to:
- articulate her personal theory about the role of a critical friend, particularly in relation to the concept of challenge;
- use her espoused theory to deconstruct what actually happened and to co-construct future practice that better aligns with her beliefs about being a critical friend.
Use the transcript of Video Clip 1 to discuss:
- In what ways does Gillian support and challenge Barbara? What is the evidence for this?
- What tensions does Barbara identify between her beliefs and her practice?
- What else did you notice in the video clip and transcript? What is the evidence for this?
Perpectives
What learning experiences do you and those you work with engage in?
To what extent do you work with colleagues to explore and critique one another’s practice as ISTEs?
Have you experienced a situation when you noticed that your espoused theory differed from your theory-in-use? What enabled you to recognise this and to respond to it?
How can we make sure that we remain open to others’ points of view and to the dissonance that they sometimes engender?
When working with a critical friend, what balance do you prefer them to strike between support and challenge? What balance do you strike when working with colleagues or teachers? How can we both build supportive relationships with others and challenge their assumptions or practice?
Engaging with the literature
Theories of practice (page 106)
Espoused theories and theories-in-use (pages 107–109)
Dissonance (pages 156–158)
Models and theories that support interactive professionalism (pages 133–142)
1 Stimulated recall – a reflective or debriefing session that prompts participants to remember or notice aspects from a previous experience; for example, viewing a video of an earlier interaction can help participants to explore their thoughts, actions, responses, and strategies during the interaction.
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