A few interesting points from the reader.

A few interesting points from the reader.

I need to re-read the reader and try to absorb more, but there was a lot of interesting stuff in order to get your mind thinking about a possible inquiry. One thing in which I think is important is what Judi Marshall said, it needs to be a ‘self reflective inquiry’ that has intent and a purpose.  There is no point doing an inquiry, which has no purpose, it is a waste of time. The idea of calling upon knowledge I already have through experience and exploring it further to gain more evidence like (kahn and O’Rourke 2004) said sounds re-assuring to me, with this idea we already have a strong base and we need to build on it. Judi Marshall also suggests thinking about what issues, themes, events or dilemmas you have come across within your work so that maybe a good place to start and use the reflective practice that we used in module one to identify possible contenders. With regards to the reflective practice ‘Double-loop learning’ has now been introduced in this reader, which I couldn’t get my head around at 1st, but I managed to find a good video online to explain it, so this could be a helpful tool to use. Follow the link below.

https://youtu.be/KI0-qESaSJw

https://youtu.be/KI0-qESaSJw

So I read the getting stared guide from (Blaxter, Tight and Hughes, 2001) and it was really helpful in gaining some focus by doing spider diagrams with regards to my interests and issues, giving tips to help prepare us for what lies ahead. A few tips that I liked were- think about how you can make your enquiry benefit you, think of a topic that you think you would like to base your enquiry on and keep breaking it down so you have a smaller manageable topic that you can realistically achieve good results with, don’t bite off more than you can chew. I think that that is important, you have to be fair to yourself.  

 

 The reader talks about WBL and I personally think is a great way to learn and gather information because you are actually immersed in learning all of the time, relating things you have recently read to real life situations and discussing thoughts and ideas with peers, it is real hands on learning, like the reader says it is a ‘field of study’ rather than a ‘mode of study’ which I think is effective especially when doing the inquiry because you are almost living the inquiry (if you know what I mean?!? I do ha ha).

 Something that had never really crossed my mind before was the term ‘transdisciplinary’. Gibbons (2008) says that the boundaries of different disciplines cross in the work place and you do have to be good at other things, for example you maybe a great dancer but useless at teaching therefore you won’t be a good dance teacher. The food and beverage manger on my ship has to know her stuff about that but she also has to be good at management and finances. The Nurses onboard have to be good at nursing but also have to do record keeping, customer service and so much more than just nursing. I am an entertainer onboard but should we go to general emergency I am in charge of 400 passengers, I suddenly have to be good at crowd management, keeping people calm, coordinating all these people so our plan of action runs smoothly and everyone gets to their survival crafts safely.  I think in any job you need to employ this idea in order to be good.

Raelin (2008) talks about an interesting point regarding capability over competence. I have 1st hand experience over this. I am a professional dancer, I have trained for 16 years, I have advanced 2 Ballet, Tap and Modern in which I obtained honours, I got an A in my Cecchetti Ballet teaching exam, I have worked in the industry as a professional dancer, however I can’t teach dance in a non vocational college, because I do not have a degree, I have been told first hand that they basically would not entertain anyone without a degree, so because of that my application goes straight in the bin. Given my training and experience I believe that I have the capability to teach in a non vocational college and could improve my skills as a teacher if I was given the opportunity, but due to my lack of professional qualification, (in which the education system recognize) I get overlooked in favour of someone who is deemed to be “Competent”. This could be a good idea for an inquiry.

Research is going to be a huge part of this inquiry and I am excited. Obviously academic literature is going to be a big one so I need to take that in to consideration when choosing a topic, If I pick something that is under researched by true academics I could come unstuck. I am really looking forward to collecting my primary research though, (I may not be saying this in a few weeks time) but I just think it will be really interesting. There are lots of types of research and I guess you have to try them all and see which works well for you. I feel the journey is about to begin.