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This course introduces teacher-learners to various landscapes of practitioner inquiry, including diverse dispositions, worldviews, paradigmatic assumptions, and approaches affiliated with this methodological approach. Working collaboratively, teacher-learners will situate themselves personally, professionally, theoretically and methodologically, locating their inquiry practice within communities of scholarship. The course aims to acquaint participants with a broad spectrum of ethical considerations, issues, and methods, with an eye toward being able to thoughtfully draw from theories, practices, and perspectives in developing their own inquiry projects to be conducted in the following term.

Building on the philosophical and methodological foundations developed in the previous semester, this course supports teacher-learners in engaging in ethical inquiry practices within their specific professional contexts. Participants will undertake an inquiry project during the term, engaging in spirals of action and reflection, to extend, enrich and theorize professional practice. As a community of inquirers, we will critically and creatively investigate our practice as teachers, re-imagine teaching and learning relationships, and reconfigure lives in schools.

The goal of this course is to support teacher-inquirers in explicating, synthesizing, interpreting, and evaluating their key learnings in the Master of Educational Practice Program. Through dialogue, writing, and arts-based practices, we will explore what we have learned through conducting our inquiries, engaging with theory, exploring our own autobiographies, and examining critical moments in our journey(ies). We will work towards crystalizing our learning and deepening our understanding of our practice as educators. This inquiry project will form the basis of the ‘comprehensive examination’ to follow.

Although formally referred to as the ‘Comprehensive Examination,’ this is not an ‘exam’ as such, but a summative presentation by each teacher-learner of their now-extended understandings of the relationship between theory, practice, and teacher-inquiry. There will be two components: (1) teacher-learners will write a paper summarizing their inquiry projects, their understandings, and their further questions; and, (2) they will present their work to a community of inquirers consisting of cohort colleagues and instructors.