1. MA Education (Teaching Leaders)
KV721 Professional Enquiry
2013/14
Irena Andrews (Programme Leader)
Andy Davies
Keith Turvey
Richard Wallis

2. KV721 Professional Enquiry
Aims
• To introduce the course, the
module and the participants
• To clarify the course structures and
procedures
• To begin to think about ‘m’ level
study

3. Professional development
Professional development… is the
process by which… educators
review, renew and extend their
commitment as change agents to the
moral purposes of teaching; and by
which they acquire and develop the
critical knowledge and skills essential
to good professional thinking, planning
and practice…(UCET 1996,p.1)

4. Teaching Leaders
Impact Initiative
Proposal
Target
Group
Outline of
your
Initiative What you
intend
identified
students to
attain
Which
students
will be the
focus of
your I.I.
Goal
The
improvement
you want your
group to make
Rationale
Targets
School/dept
priorities
Data/trends
Justify
choices
made
Actions
Strategies
Plan

5. Masters Level Enquiry
•
•
•
•
•
•
A critical support for problematising your
issue
The opportunity to explore what others
are saying about this issue or potential
strategies to use
The scope to develop this study into a
full dissertation
Module 1 – Exploring the Literature
Module 2 - Developing the Research
Proposal
Module 3 - The Dissertation

6. MA Education (Teaching Leaders)
Year 1
November
Compulsory
module
40 credits
April
Compulsory module
20 credits
June
1 x Saturday
Professional
Enquiry
1 x Saturday
1000-1600 +
2 x Saturdays
1100-1500
Research Contexts
Education
Conference
1 x Saturday 1000-1600
+
1 x Saturday 1100-1500
120 credits
Post Graduate
Diploma
Progression
point

7. MA Education (Teaching
Leaders) Year 2
Sept
Feb
Compulsory module
KV713 The dissertation
60 credits
On line Tutorial support +
optional Saturday
sessions
June
Education
Conference
Sept
KV713
assessment
KV713
assessment
Nov
Feb
180
Graduation
credits ceremony
Hand in
dissertation
Present paper
Exam
Board
Masters
Award

8. Student handbook
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Located in Student central:
My course MAED - Course info
Contacts
University dates (p79)
Assignment submission and
process
Frequently asked questions
Grading descriptors
Use of references – Harvard

9. Generic aims
To enable students to:
•
develop a thorough understanding of the principles of
research in the context of learning and
development, and competence and originality in the
application of such principles;
•
develop conceptual understanding that enables critical
evaluation of current research and advanced
scholarship in the discipline and evaluation of
methodologies;
•
develop critiques of current research in education
and, where appropriate, to propose new hypotheses;
•
Create opportunities for dissemination of their learning
in the wider professional community in learning and
development and /or beyond formal contexts.

10. Module focus
•
The focus is in enabling TL Fellows to
develop a theoretical and reflective
understanding of a professional
concern, issue or problem and to
equip them with the skills to use a
range of research-based knowledge to
enhance education leadership
practice.
•
What will you need to do to
demonstrate this?
What is meant by masters level study?
•

11. Assessment
Your Impact Initiative will provide the focus for an
assignment that will be in two parts:
i) A 2000 word annotated bibliography focusing on
four readings. This will be developed on your
academic blog.
ii) A 4000 word reflective assignment in which you
explain how your thinking has developed in relation
to your impact initiative. This will be supported by
critical engagement with relevant research, policy
and theory.

12. Different types of knowledge
and tools for thinking
Tools for Thinking
3 kinds of knowledge
•
•
•

Concepts

Perspectives

Metaphors
Research knowledge developed
through systematic investigation of the
social world

Theories

Models
Practice knowledge developed through
taking action in the
social world

Assumptions
Theoretical knowledge developed
through
systematic reflection on
the social world

13. Theory and Practice
Theory is vastly bigger than the province of intellectuals...
Everybody has a set of theories, compounded maybe of fact
and value, history and myth, observation and folklore,
superstition and convention... Those who refuse all theory,
who speak of themselves as plain practical people, and
virtuous in the virtue of having no theory, are in the grip of
theories which manacle them and keep them immobile,
because they have no way of thinking about them and
therefore of taking them off. They aren’t theory free; they are
stupid theorists.’
‘
From Inglis (1984) The Management of Ignorance Oxford: Blackwell