L.stanhouse reflective practioner
- 1. By shah nawaz unar 02-11-2017
- 2. Introduction Born in 1926 Stenhouse was a British Educational Theorist who was credited to reshaping the curriculum What is his theory? Lawrence Stenhouse (1975) produced one of the best- known explorations of a process model of curriculum theory and practice. After teaching for a number of years, Stenhouse worked at Durham University in the mid-1950s before moving to Jordanhill College in Glasgow. Then, in 1967, Stenhouse became Director of the Humanities Curriculum Project (HCP), which Elliott and Norris consider his ‘greatest achievement’
- 3. Stenhouse theory He defined curriculum tentatively: "A curriculum is an attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice." A curriculum, like the recipe for a dish, is first seen as a possibility, then the subject of experiment. The recipe offered publicly is in a sense a report on the experiment. Similarly, a curriculum should be grounded in practice. It is an attempt to describe the work observed in classrooms. Finally, within limits, a recipe can be varied according to taste - so can a curriculum.
- 4. Stenhouse theory Stenhouse likens curriculum to a recipe in cookery...... Stenhouse process theory promotes: • More student choice. • Looks at curriculum not as a physical thing but as the interaction of lecturers, students and knowledge. • Content and means are developed as teachers and students work together. • There is a clear focus on learning, rather than teaching – lecturers and students as partners in meaning-making. • Curriculum as an active rather than technical exercise.
- 5. Stenhouse and research It was in Stenhouse’s work with the Humanities Curriculum Project (1967-72) that he first started to question the role of academic research in improving education. Questioning the power relationship that put teachers in a position of authority over students let to a questioning of the power structure that placed academic researchers, who were influencing the ways teachers taught and students learned, in a position of authority over teachers and schools. Stenhouse believed that studying, developing, and experimenting with curricula was the task of teachers, not academic researchers. How does this demonstrate in today's practice? * Group discussions * Evaluation of our lessons * Promoting Independent Learners * Team meetings * Self-assessment and peer assessment
- 6. Stenhouse and research Lawrence Stenhouse, for those who don’t know, based his thinking on an epistemological thesis that emphasised the provisionality of knowledge and research. He believed, however, that this thesis had implications for teaching in so far as a curriculum is itself an object of enquiry that is tested in the classroom and seminar by both teachers and students. A curriculum is nothing more than a series of hypotheses that can be refined but never perfected.
- 7. Stenhouse and research Consequently, Stenhouse stressed that education is a matter of process rather than the achievement of prescribed objectives: the aim of education is itself enshrined in the process of enquiry. Moreover - and this is crucial - he never believed that enquiry could only be conducted by the most able. He held strongly to the view that young people of all abilities and backgrounds could be encouraged to think of their learning in terms of enquiry. Behind Stenhouse’s educational theory was a firm and generous democratic conviction that was thoroughly optimistic about what human beings could achieve. Moreover, he viewed this achievement not as the mere fulfilling of individual potential but as sharing in and participating in a democratic culture. What is striking about Stenhouse the person, however, is that he found the energy and purpose to try and make these ideas actually happen in the classroom. He was an intellectual all right, but one with strong pragmatic abilities as well.
- 8. Stenhouse on reflective practice In England we have a rich history of practitioner enquiry, embodied in the notion of teacher-as-researcher, accredited to Stenhouse (1975) and indicated in more recent discussions of practitioner enquiry (Menter et al. 2011; BERA-RSA, 2014; Leat et al. 2014). “As a starting point I shall define research as 'systematic inquiry made public'. Like all such definitions this is too simple. However, it alerts you to my point of view and puts research in a particular perspective, and I hope this will serve to relate my argument to your own posi ti on”. (stenhouse,1975)
- 9. Stenhouse on educational research “Inquiry is a teleological pattern of action whose purpose is satisfaction, and it is related psychologically to curiosity, a disposition to explore the environment in order to assess its potential for yielding satisfactions”. “Whon I address the problem of the application of research to education, I conceive it in terms of research lodged within the broad tradition of scholarship which I have just sketched. And, of course, the crucial issue in education, as in other applied fields, is that of the relationship of scholarship and research to action”. (stenhouse, 1975)
- 10. Conclusion Research can be adequately applied to education only when it develops theory which can be tested by teachers in classrooms. Research guides action by generating action research (or at least the adoption of action as a systematic mode of inquiry). Action research in education rests upon the designirr of procedures in schools which meet both action criteria and research criterion, that is, experiments which can he justified both on the grounds of what they teach teachers and researchers and on the grounds of what they teach pupils. A systematic structure of such procedures 1 call a hypothetical curriculum. Such a curriculum is the appropriate experimental procedure through which research is applied by testing, refining, and generating theory in the laboratory of the classroom.