Hello Dan and Pip,

Thanks for your response, Dan - and for your very interesting question.  I (albeit rather late in my working life!) - wrote this essay as part of an HE qualification in Learning and Teaching - mainly because, though for many years being involved in the education of professionals, I have not done so in an HE research-based context, and had not engaged in dialogues with others around the academic side of learning and teaching.  Registering for this qualification gave me the opportunity to do so. 

The essay was intended to be a 'small scale evaluation study of my teaching'.  Although it was suggested that it be undertaken within an action research context, the idea was that you give the students the opportunity to evaluate your teaching, and then demonstrate how you use the findings to modify what you do.  There seemed to be an assumption that the evaluation was a ‘one off’ event – examples of what might be considered included:

  1. ‘Start’ ‘stop’ ‘continue’ – an open-ended form with three sections on it which students can complete
  2. The learning objectives questionnaire (see appendix)
  3. Asking students to write a letter to the next cohort of students about how they might best learn from the way you teach.

I felt this was a very unsatisfactory way of evaluating a programme - and in seeing myself as developing what I do as 'living theory', I wrote the essay I did.  But the initiating reason for the essay was to evaluate a programme, hence (although we were encouraged to use an AR framework to structure our reflection and changes in practice), it was not seen as 'research' as such, and hence it was not necessary to go to the ethics committee. 

However, given my 'mission' includes encouraging practitioners in all kinds of contexts to see themselves as 'knowledge creators', I think the question of what goes to an ethics committee and when is a relevant one, and may become increasingly so.  Perhaps because I am so new in the university, I do not have an answer at the moment, but I do think it is a question I need to address quite urgently.   I am currently working with 20 managers and practitioners from day nurseries working in collaborative inquiry into how they might improve their practice.  My role is to facilitate their learning and development - so in that sense, I am still in a 'teaching and learning' role; and as part of that,  I am 'teaching' all group members about action research: living theory; and encouraging them to engage in a living theory approach to how they might 'improve their practice'.  I also make it clear that I am engaging in a similar inquiry process in relation to how I work with them; so we recognise and acknowledge our different roles and responsibilities, but I am very clear that we have equal significance in being co-researchers and co-subjects. 

So this is more than reflective practice - because they are being asked not just to reflect on their experience and learning', but also to account for their learning, and to provide evidence for any claims to knowledge that might emerge from their practice.  In fact, a hoped-for outcome from those who are interested / committed enough to do so would be to create an outcome similar to the essay that I wrote - or at least similar 'ingredients' - i.e. clarity about their values, how they put their values into practice, the issue that they were motivated to inquire into, what they did and what the outcomes were, with evidence to support that the outcomes were as claimed to be, etc.....  Hopefully, there will be all kinds of imaginative ways of providing 'evidence' of claims to knowledge, including multi-media representation as Jack encourages; but also I think feedback from others is one of the most valuable forms, if you can create ways of encouraging honest and detailed feedback (which is what I was trying to do with my group of students).  So from early on in the inquiry, I am encouraging these group members to look at how they can gain such feedback.

It is the role of 'evidence' and the relationship between theory and practice that differentiates reflective practice from living theory, I think.  Someone can be a good reflective practitioner, without feeling they have to engage with or contribute to a development of theory - without, indeed, seeing themselves as researchers / knowledge creators - whereas (certainly as I interpret it) living theory is a research method in that it seeks to add to an existing body of knowledge, providing evidence of claims to knowledge in the process.  But if that 'research' is integrated into someone's daily practice - in a sense, is their practice, then the issue in terms of when is ethical permission required, becomes far more uncertain.  I have not sought permission to 'live my life as enquiry' - however, I know that if I plan (going to the opposite extreme) to put videos on youtube, permission will need to be sought.  But given our university does have an ethics committee that requires all research projects to be brought before it, I have not quite answered the question about when I need to bring either my own enquiries, or those of the practitioners whose enquiries I am facilitating, before the ethics committee.  I think the way it has been agreed in Pip's department is a very pragmatic one, and seems a reasonable compromise. 

Other people's views on this would be very welcome.

Best wishes,

Joan



On 13 June 2010 08:17, Pip Bruce Ferguson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi Dan and Joan

This is a very good question that you ask, Dan. When I ran an action research course in my role as staff developer at a local polytechnic some years back, my participants had the same type of question. "Does the work that we'd normally engage in as reflective practitioners now have to get ethics approval, because we're doing it formally in a course that's called 'action research'?" The institution, to resolve the need to avoid having the ethics committee getting bogged down in lots of small, practitioner-based research projects, decided the issue by requiring staff to submit their proposal to their Head of Department, who in turn decided whether it was sufficiently different to 'normal practice' to require ethics approval.

I'll be interested to hear what Joan says. Meanwhile, Joan, I have forwarded your essay to a nursing lecturer who's just completed the first reflective task of a course called Postgraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching, as I know she will find it really valuable to know that the kinds of questions she investigated in her task are being replicated elsewhere in the world. Are you okay about her citing this work in her next task, if she finds it relevant? Thanks so much for the sharing.

Warm regards

Pip Bruce Ferguson (teaching developer, New Zealand)

On 13/06/2010 3:04 a.m., Dan Woodrow wrote:
Hello Joan,
I enjoyed reading your essay and I was so impressed with the thoughtful student comments.  You must feel proud of their adoption of a teaching and learning approach that was probably very foreign to them.  I look forward to reading the article one day.

The research you have done reminds me of our own nursing program curriculum where we actively promote a community of learning and later a community of practice for our students.  I am always excited when our teachers and learners co-construct the curriculum and come from a place of unknowing.  There seems to be so much more learning which occurs on the part of the student and the teacher.

As I am new to Living Theory (which I think I might live through may daily reflective practice as a practitioner and teacher) could you help me understand the separation between program evaluation and evaluative research.
For instance did your institutional ethics committee consider a research proposal or would this be considered program evaluation

Thanks again for the article which reinforces my own beliefs about teaching and learning.

----- Original Message -----
From: Joan Walton <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, June 11, 2010 4:58 am
Subject: Re: living theory research
To: [log in to unmask]

> Hi Juin Ee,
>
> I have not long completed an essay on  taking a living
> theory approach to my
> teaching of  a group of second year undergraduate
> students.  I sent it off
> list to Brendan and Geisha, but as there seem to be a number of
> people with
> similar queries, you and others may also find it useful.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Joan
>



--
Dr Joan Walton
Faculty of Education
Liverpool Hope University
Hope Park
Liverpool
L16 9JD

Phone: 0151 291 2115
Email: [log in to unmask]