Course: Critical Thinking and Reflective Practices” (8611)

Level: B.Ed (2.5 Years)ECE Semester: Autumn, 2022

ASSIGNMENT No. 2

Q.1 How action research is different from applied research? When will action
research be more practical?

In international development cooperation, there is an increasing focus on adaptive

management, intentional and resourced learning, and the use of learning to
improve activity implementation and impact. Programs are being called on to
incorporate operations or action research into their Monitoring, Evaluation and
Learning (MEL) plans. Recognizing that there is a continuum of what can be
considered "research"--from self-discovery with individual action to randomized
control trials--this post is focused on action or applied research which we identify
as having the following characteristics:

 Practical and collectively undertaken

 Locally defined and carried out
 Quick turn-around, low cost
  Designed to address an immediate and specific challenge.
 
How, practically, can this be done? Two examples from USAID supported and
RTI implemented education activities in Uganda are used to illustrate a key finding
from our experience:  including those who are expected to “act” upon findings
to define the issues and carry out the research takes us further towards adapting for
better implantation and outcomes. The first is an action research training for the
Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) carried out by the USAID/Uganda
Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity (LARA), the second is action
research on different modes of teacher training carried out by the USAID/Uganda
School Health and Reading Program (SHRP).

Think about the last research endeavor you were involved with. Who
articulated the research questions? Who carried out the research? Who was
expected to act on findings? Did they? Did anything change as a result?

As a way to increase engagement of MoES and district officials to support

Early Grade Reading, LARA introduced the concept of action research.  In
September, 2018, the team brought together 72 Ministry and district officials
to discuss action research as a way of
 expanding collective learning
 co-creating new knowledge and
 building leadership skills.
 
Officials gained a deeper understanding of how they could use this type of research
to improve implementation and sustainability of the MoES’ Early Grade Reading
program, shift the “status quo” and demystify research. Building on previous
appreciative inquiry work, LARA staff designed the action research to expand
collective learning, co-create new knowledge and build leadership skills.
Participants planned individual and group action research initiatives with the
overall goal of improving educational learning outcomes and reflected on how they
could use action research to improve children’s reading performance. In addition,
participants learned how action research could be used as a tool for quick, interval
learning and understanding what is working within the context of the Ministry and
their districts. Facilitators coached participants to develop action research
proposals that emphasized teamwork, collaboration and critical thinking following
the iterative pattern of reflecting, planning, acting, observing.  

Participants recognized that action research could be undertaken with available

resources and as part of their oversight role. Ministry participants noted that the
action research skills could help them contribute to the current debates within the
MoES around improving the quality of education. At the end of the training,
participants working in district groups and working as individuals, identified action
research topics, developed draft proposals, and shared their proposals with their
colleagues and supervisors for input. Action research plans were carried out by
district staff using their own funds.
Recommendation: Action research can be undertaken with available
resources and as part of oversight role
Action research is simple, workable, and hands-on and up to the point.  It
helps teachers to improve teaching skills and competences” Robert Muwhezi-
Centre Coordinating Tutor, Bishop Brown Coordinating Centre, Kayunga. 
“Action research is participatory realistic and dependable in fostering
effective and efficient teaching & learning in schools”.  Alice Doya- District
Education Officer, Kayunga.
 
 The School Health and Reading Program (SHRP) had been training teachers in the
program’s Early Grade Reading (EGR) methods since early 2013. At the
program’s peak in 2016, SHRP trained over 8,000 teachers over a 2-week period.
As of 2018, all in-service teacher training (initial and refresher) had been large-
scale, residential trainings at the teacher training colleges. These central trainings
are expensive and, given the observed level of proficiency in teaching EGR in
classrooms, perhaps not as effective as they could be. In May, 2018, SHRP piloted
smaller scale teacher refresher training as a viable, cheaper (and more sustainable)
alternative. 

The research was conducted by program staff, as they were monitoring the teacher
training sites (both residential and non-residential). The research was designed to
be undertaken by staff supporting the training venues. The outcome of the research
was to determine if the smaller, Coordinating Centre (CC) /non-residential training
was more effective, or at least as effective, as the larger trainings in terms of
teacher attendance, content coverage and learning, answering the following
questions:  

 Are teachers present?  Are we training the right teachers?

 Is the training lasting as long and covering the same amount of content?
 Are teachers learning (at least) the same amount as they are in the larger
trainings?
 
Research was conducted at five coordinating centres (the local, non-residential
sites) and 3 residential training venues. Views of participants, facilitators, SHRP
and MOES officials was also sought on the pros and cons of local, non-residential
compared to residential training vis a vis content coverage, participant engagement
and other issues related to the training. Importantly, the impetus for this research
came from the teacher training technical team, the technical team worked with
program M&E staff to develop data collection instruments and protocols, and all
data were collected by program staff while overseeing teacher training at no
additional costs.

Major findings and recommendations to action: Findings from this study

showed that CC-level, non-residential trainings were an equally and, potentially,
more effective structure for training delivery, and that the key component to
ensuring high quality trainings lies in the content delivery and individual trainers.
In general, CC level training is better for ensuring that teachers attend and the
“right” teachers are trained.  Class sizes are smaller and teachers may be learning
more (they do not appear to be learning any less). Fears about CC level training
(that teachers would not attend, content would not get covered, teachers would not
learn as much) were not supported by the data (See Graphic below depicting
teacher’s attendance).

Q.2 Using Gibbs model, write a reflection report of an interaction between a

student who failed in exam and a parent.

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give structure
to learning from experiences.  It offers a framework for examining experiences,
and given its cyclic nature lends itself particularly well to repeated experiences,
allowing you to learn and plan from things that either went well or didn’t go well.
It covers 6 stages:
  Description of the experience
 Feelings and thoughts about the experience
 Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad
 Analysis to make sense of the situation
 Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done
differently
 Action plan for how you would deal with similar situations in the future, or
general changes you might find appropriate.

Below is further information on:

 The model – each stage is given a fuller description, guiding questions to ask
yourself and an example of how this might look in a reflection
 Different depths of reflection – an example of reflecting more briefly using
this model

This is just one model of reflection. Test it out and see how it works for you. If you
find that only a few of the questions are helpful for you, focus on those. However,
by thinking about each stage you are more likely to engage critically with your
learning experience.

The model
A circular diagram showing the 6 stages of Gibbs' Reflective cycle

Gibbs' reflective cycle

This model is a good way to work through an experience. This can be either a
stand-alone experience or a situation you go through frequently, for example
meetings with a team you have to collaborate with. Gibbs originally advocated its
use in repeated situations, but the stages and principles apply equally well for
single experiences too. If done with a stand-alone experience, the action plan may
become more general and look at how you can apply your conclusions in the
future.

For each of the stages of the model a number of helpful questions are outlined
below. You don’t have to answer all of them but they can guide you about what
sort of things make sense to include in that stage. You might have other prompts
that work better for you.

Description
Here you have a chance to describe the situation in detail. The main points to
include here concern what happened. Your feelings and conclusions will come
later.

Helpful questions:

What happened?
When and where did it happen?
Who was present?
What did you and the other people do?
What was the outcome of the situation?
Why were you there?
What did you want to happen?

Q.3 Take English syllabus of grade four and five. Critically analyze the
continuity of concepts, complexity of concepts and newness of concepts in
both syllabi.

Ralph Tyler and Curriculum Design

Ralph Tyler was a 20th-century American educator who played a large role in
guiding how curriculum would be developed. He identified the importance of three
key principles in this process: continuity, sequence, and integration. If you know
the TV show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, this may help you remember the first
letters of the terms. Now let's look at how you would apply Tyler's principles to
your U.S. history curriculum.

Continuity

Teaching curriculum by focusing only on following a textbook is a bit like having

students walk down a narrow hallway. For example, let's say lesson one of your
class covers events from 1865-1870. Your next lesson covers events from 1870-
1875. Using this approach, your students never revisit the events of lesson 1 again.
They simply move ahead from event to event as though they're walking down that
narrow hallway. They don't get a good look back at the material until it's time to
study for a test.

Continuity involves revisiting material more than once. This reinforces students'

learning by allowing them to practice skills they learned earlier and to consider old
information in a new way, reinforcing it.
This approach is more like a spiral staircase where a student can look around them
as they make passes around the center. They can see what has come before and
how it relates to what's in front of them now. This idea of curriculum that revisits
learning over time is also referred to as spiral curriculum, per American
psychologist Jerome Bruner.

Sequence

The historical events in your textbook don't go in a spiral, so how are you supposed
to order the information in your curriculum? The answer lies in the principles
of sequence, or how material is organized when presenting it to students. The goal
of a good sequence? The information you present today should build on
information that you presented yesterday.

Chronological order is one valid way of organizing the information. The problem
with only focusing on chronological order is that you may miss out on other ways
of organizing the material. Here's an alternative approach that uses different ways
of sequencing to improve continuity. You decide to organize your curriculum by
time period (chronologically) and by complexity. For example, you plan to first
cover the key events of Reconstruction. Then, you cover the time period again
from the perspective of how the lives of everyday people were affected by these
events. When you discuss Civil Rights in the 1960s, you circle back again to revisit
how the Reconstruction era period related to civil rights of black Americans into
the late 20th century, an even more complex topic.

There are also other options for organizing your curriculum. You could also focus
first on giving an overview, prior to diving into specifics. You broadly describe the
key eras within the timeframe of 1865 to the present. Then you could go back to
dig into each era in more depth.
Q.4 Identify five activities from your daily life which demand critical
thinking.

Critical Thinking
While making your academic assignments or thesis, you are required to do some
research and analyze various things, or for making a career decision or any other
decision you are required to think of all pros and cons of that decision. Well, the
most important thing that helps us to effectively take these decisions is what we
call critical thinking. Critical thinking is very important in both personal and
professional life. The process of critical thinking involves the analysis of the
various facts and figures in a particular situation before straightaway acting on that
situation. Critical thinking demands keen observation, creativity, problem-solving
skills, which helps the individual to thoroughly evaluate the gathered information
and then use this available information as a guide to making accurate decisions.
From doing academic works or regular activities to solving various large scale
problems, critical thinking is required in everyday life. In this article, we will learn
about some real-life examples where critical thinking plays an important role.

Critical Thinking Examples in Real Life

1. Critical Thinking in Problem Solving
Suppose your manager asks you to find an effective solution to a problem that is
affecting the business. What would be your first step? Like most people, you may
also start looking for potential solutions to deal with that situation. Well, one
requires the use of critical thinking here. Before looking for the solution one needs
to take a step back and try to understand the cause of the problem first. One should
ask for the opinions of the other people that how does this particular problem
impact them and the overall business. If you arrive at a solution, you should not
only just rely on one solution, instead, you should always have various backup
plans in case the first solution does not work as expected. Most people feel that
they are great at problem-solving, but if one is not following all these above
discussed steps before making a final judgement, he/she is not a critical thinker.
Critical thinking allows people to find the best possible solution to any problem.
Critical thinking is an important factor of problem-solving skills, one needs to look
at any situation from multiple perspectives because in some cases, your decisions
not only impact you but also the people in your surrounding.

2. Critical Thinking in Analysing Risks

Risk assessment is another important factor, which requires the use of critical
thinking. Risk assessment is required in various sectors, from children analysing
the impact of eating junk food on their health to large businesses in analysing the
impact of certain policies on the growth of the company. Let us understand the
implication of critical thinking in analysing the risks with some examples.

 While constructing a building, the engineers need to evaluate all the potential
risks or hazards that could occur on the construction site to make sure that the
workers can do their work safely. If the engineers or the project managers do
not use critical thinking for analysing the potential risks, the chance of injuries
or deaths of the workers is high, which may negatively impact the workforce
and the reputation of the project managers.

Before implementing certain rules or regulations, the government has to

understand the various aspects such as the impact on people and the economy of
the country due to that decisions. Decisions that may seem easier on paper may be
a lot more difficult to implement in the real world and may lead to bad
consequences if critical thinking is not used.

In the financial sector, the authorities have to assess the influence of the current or
the newly implemented policies on the clients. This requires various skills of
critical thinking such as creativity to imagine the various scenarios that may arise,
analysis of different laws and policies, and evaluating the responses of the existing
clients to formulate better policies. If the banks or the insurance companies do not
use critical thinking, this may result in huge losses.

3. Critical Thinking in Data Analysis

Whether analysing the performance of the children in the schools or analysing the
business growth of a multi-national company, the skill of data analysis is very
crucial. In today’s era, almost every sector demands experts that can accurately
evaluate the available data or information and draw out effective conclusions from
it. With the rise in technology, the various tasks of the data analysis such as finding
profit and loss, creating balance sheets, and issuing invoices are done with the help
of various software, but it does not mean that human skill is not required. Various
kinds of software can just convert a large amount of data into some simpler and
readable format, but it is the critical thinking of the humans that is required to
effectively interpret the data and apply the obtained insight for the benefits. The
data analysis can even help us to estimate the future trends and potential risks of
taking any decisions.
4. Critical Thinking in Hiring Employees
The ability to objectively view any situation without getting influenced by your
personal beliefs or thoughts is one of the important characteristics of critical
thinking. In business, the hiring managers require critical thinking to evaluate a
large number of resume’s to choose the suitable candidates for the required
position. Critical thinking here enables the hiring managers not to hire a candidate
on the basis of various factors like gender, age, religion or country, these factors
may influence the hiring managers unconsciously. The hiring manager may tend to
choose the candidate on his/her subjective beliefs if he/she does not use critical
thinking. Hence, critical thinking can help HR’s to hire the best employees that
may eventually lead to the growth of the company.

5. Promoting the Teamwork

In a team, every individual is unique and has his/her different ideas to tackle the
proposed problem. It is the responsibility of the team leader to understand the
perspective of each member and encourage them to work collectively to solve the
common problem. You may find the opinion of the other members of your team as
ineffective, but instead of straightway denying their opinions one should logically
analyse their suggestions and try to put your point of view regarding the problem
in an effective and calm manner. If the team leader does not use critical thinking,
instead, he/she boost his/her opinions on others, the team is sure to collapse.

6. Critical Thinking in Self-Evaluation

Critical thinking plays a major role in self-evaluation. The knowledge of critical
thinking skills allows you to accurately analyse your performance by controlling
various subjective biases. People should always evaluate their reactions towards
any situation and the way they think, this may help them to get a deep insight into
their thought processes, hence improving their thinking abilities to take accurate
decisions. Self-evaluation is very important in professional life too. Suppose your
manager has set a new target for the company. Every employee is thus required to
analyse his/her contribution to the company and try to accomplish the set target. If
you know your contribution to the company, it will help you to analyse your
performance, and you can try to improve your performance in the areas where you
lag.

Q.5 Describe principles of building communities of knowledge and practice.

Communities of Practice

Communities of Practice as a concept is relatively new in the NHS, but as a

learning approach is more recognized in the corporate world. You might recognize
the term ‘Learning Network’ which is used more frequently for the same type of
approach.

“Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion

for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”
There are three key Characteristics of CoPs:

1. The Domain of Interest – where there is shared competence between peers, in

relation to a specific practice. This is not about strategy or other people’s work,
it is about the granularity of the CoP member’s work. Members are passionate
about the issue, they come together because they care about it.
2. The Community – with members who help each other in service to their
domain of interest, though sharing knowledge and experience. The key here is
repeated interaction and supportive learning relationships. There is depth to
these interactions that includes reflective skills.
3. The Practice – practice in this context means creating meaning (why we do this
work together), creating coherence (how we do our work together), and for
learning (what works and why – and how do new members learn about our
work). Practice is the application of knowledge, and in this process this practice
is shared, i.e. all members are developing their shared approach
Critically therefore CoP member instigate and join a CoP because:

1. They care about the domain

2. They have shared competence and practice
3. They want to learn together how to develop their practice (at a detailed
competence level).
Communities or Practice are knowledge seeking, both from the tacit knowledge
within the members , and as all learning networks, by seeking out knowledge about
their shared domain and practice. (looking for best practice, published evidence).

Principles of Communities of Practice

The basic principles for communities of practice are:

1. Participation – everyone in the community has a voice, can be heard and can
contribute to the practice. Difference explored.
2. Commitment to practice – to uncovering what the work it, why we do it, how
its done, and to reciprocity with others wanting to learn.
3. Understanding boundaries and scale – what works here and does it change as
the scale changes for instance if the boundary to the community changes.
4. Reflection using evidence-based conversations as a core practice in itself.
5. Creativity as a source of energy for practice – using imagination, permission to
explore, finding new ways of exploring work.
So Communities of Practice are networks of members committed to learning how
to do the best they can in their domain of interest creating relationships for learning
and development, and clarifying what information needs to be generated and
shared across the community.

The CoP Process

Communities of Practice like all networks need nurturing. There is usually

someone who takes the lead in setting one up – because they care about the issue
enough. They invite colleagues to learn together. There are two types of convening
that take place:

1. The lead member in the CoP who takes the role of a network leader – being a
good host, bringing members together, making sure the conversations are
adding value to everyone, helping members work well together. Here the
network leader facilitates the CoP process
2. A facilitator. Where there are a number of CoPs taking place, these might
happen in the same space, in which case a facilitator can be helpful in
supporting the process of the learning conversation – bringing in an element of
reflection and review, and helping the CoP sustain the principles of shared
learning and the focus on practice.
Once established CoPs are often self-organising.

The learning conversations take an inquiry approach – working together to deepen

the members understanding of practice, seeking out the best evidence to help them
improve their practice (in relation to their domain of interest).

They interact regularly. Once the first meeting or two has taken place CoPs usually
‘take off’ with members talking online as well as face to face. CoP members often
go visit each other’s place of work to deepen their understanding of practice; they
might set up a knowledge sharing platform (Trello, Slack) or a space to chat
together e.g. a What’s App group or Linked In Group, so they can talk between
meeting up. They will be sharing resources (e.g. protocols; articles).

The Success of CoPs

One of the key principles in terms of the success of CoPs is: ‘You own what you
create’

As with all networks CoPs will thrive if:

 There is clear shared purpose and identity

 They are creative and innovative
 They meet member needs
 They are supported by adapted leadership
 They have strong relationships and ties
 They generate helpful outputs
Critical to this at the outset of a CoP is to determine how to track impact – what are
members learning, how are they applying that and what difference is it making. In
effect members need to be able to answer the question ‘So What’?

Convening

Convening CoPs isn’t difficult, the biggest issue for the NHS is that this is an
unfamiliar conversational learning process in an NHS dominated by hierarchy and
project management. The convenor needs the following:

1. Knowledge
 The difference between CoPs and other group learning processes (e.g. Action
Learning Sets) or group project delivery processes   (Task and Finish groups)
 What a CoP entails, the design and trajectory of CoPs
 How to lead a network approach to learning
2. Skills
 Reflective and Reflexive Practice
 Facilitating groups to hold onto the key principles of a CoP for instance how to
support CoP groups as they form to ensure everyone participates. These are
basic organisational development and group facilitation skills, but the work
here is knowing which of this broader set of skills apply to CoPs.
 Securing impact – how to gather data on and demonstrate CoP impact
The best way to learn about convening CoPs is to:

1. Secure a good understanding of the process (read all about it, talk to people
who have done it)
2. Start the work of convening a CoP and review your practice as a convenor