ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD

(Department of Education)

Course: Critical Thinking and Reflective Practices

Name: Farrukh Jahan

Semester: Spring, 2022

Code: 8611

Registration No: 0000239838

Level: B.Ed. (1.5 years)

Assignment No: 02
 “ASSIGNMENT NO.2”
“QUESTION NO.1”
How action research is different from applied research?
When will action research be more practical?
“Answer”

Introduction to Action Research:

Kurt Lewin- German-American social psychologist, who is considered to be the

founder of "Action Research", first used this term in 1940's. Since then, the basic
principles of action research are unchanged. (Hidden Curriculum, 2014). Action
Research is the process of finding the solution through problem solving
technique. The expected outcome of the action research, which addresses the
issues, improves the practices. It is done in groups, during the activity is in
progress. The action research is free from the theoretical responses. It is an
investigation of an ongoing process.
Action research is a process of systematic inquiry that seeks to improve social
issues affecting the lives of everyday people. (Barone, 1996). Action research
tends to help the classroom teachers to
improve the educational practices and resolve the educational problemsOfficials
gained a deeper understanding of how they could use this type of research to
improve implementation and sustainability of the MoES’ Early Grade Reading
program, shift the “status quo” and demystify research. Building on previous
appreciative inquiry work, LARA staff designed the action research to
expand collective learning, co-create new knowledge and build leadership skills.
Participants planned individual and group action research initiatives with the
overall goal of improving educational learning outcomes and reflected on how
they could use action research to improve children’s reading performance. In
addition, participants learned how action research could be used as a tool for
quick, interval learning and understanding what is working within the context of
the Ministry and their districts. Facilitators coached participants to develop action
research proposals that emphasized teamwork, collaboration and critical thinking
following the iterative pattern of reflecting, planning,
acting, observing. Collaborative group of colleagues sharing a common concern,
or an entire school faculty positively in the developmental process. These three
different approaches to organize for research serve three compatible, yet distinct,
purposes:
• Building the reflective practitioner
• Making progress on school wide priorities
 • Building professional cultures
Action research is purposeful, solution-oriented exploration that is done in group
or personally by an individual. It is characterized by spiraling cycles of problem
identification, systematic data collection, reflection, analysis, data-driven action
taken, and, finally, problem redefinition. The relation and joining of the terms
"action" and "research" highlights the essential features of this method.
Participants recognized that action research could be undertaken with available
resources and as part of their oversight role. Ministry participants noted that the
action research skills could help them contribute to the current debates within
the MoES around improving the quality of education. At the end of the training,
participants working in district groups and working as individuals, identified
action research topics, developed draft proposals, and shared their proposals with
their colleagues and supervisors for input. Action research plans were carried out
by district staff using their own funds.
Recommendation:
Action research can be undertaken with available resources and as part of
oversight role
Action research is simple, workable, and hands-on and up to the point. It helps
teachers to improve teaching skills and competences” Robert Muwhezi-Centre
Coordinating Tutor, Bishop Brown Coordinating Centre, Kayunga.
“Action research is participatory realistic and dependable in fostering effective
and efficient teaching & learning in schools”. Alice Doya- District Education
Officer, Kayunga.

Practical Research:

When will action research be more practical:

The School Health and Reading Program (SHRP) had been training teachers in
the program’s Early Grade Reading (EGR) methods since early 2013. At the
program’s peak in 2016, SHRP trained over 8,000 teachers over a 2-week period.
As of 2018, all in-service teacher training (initial and refresher) had been large-
scale, residential trainings at the teacher training colleges. These central trainings
are expensive and, given the observed level of proficiency in teaching EGR in
classrooms, perhaps not as effective as they could be. In May, 2018, SHRP
piloted smaller scale teacher refresher training as a viable, cheaper (and more
sustainable) alternative.
This design of action research allows for a more flexible approach.
According to McKernan the practical model of action research trades off some
measurement and control for human interpretation, interactive communication,
deliberation, negotiation and detailed description. "The goal of practical action
researchers is understanding practice and solving immediate problems".
"Practical action research fosters the development of professionalism by
emphasising the part played by personal judgement in decisions to act for the
good of the client". This mode of action research "promotes autonomous,
deliberative action which was given the name of "Praxis"

The research was conducted by program staff, as they were monitoring the
teacher training sites (both residential and non-residential). The research was
designed to be undertaken by staff supporting the training venues. The outcome
of the research was to determine if the smaller, Coordinating Centre (CC) /non-
residential training was more effective, or at least as effective, as the larger
trainings in terms of teacher attendance, content coverage and learning,
answering the following questions:
• Are teachers present? Are we training the right teachers?
• Is the training lasting as long and covering the same amount of content?
• Are teachers learning (at least) the same amount as they are in the larger
trainings?

Research was conducted at five coordinating centres(the local, non-residential

sites) and 3 residential training venues. Views of participants, facilitators, SHRP
and MOES officials was also sought on the pros and cons of local, non-
residential compared to residential training vis a vis content coverage, participant
engagement and other issues related to the training. Importantly, the impetus for
this research came from the teacher training technical team, the technical team
worked with program M&E staff to develop data collection instruments and
protocols, and all data were collected by program staff while overseeing teacher
training at no additional costs.
Major findings and recommendations to action:
Findings from this study showed that CC-level, non-residential trainings were an
equally and, potentially, more effective structure for training delivery, and that
the key component to ensuring high quality trainings lies in the content delivery
and individual trainers. In general, CC level training is better for ensuring that
teachers attend and the “right” teachers are trained. Class sizes are smaller and
teachers may be learning more (they do not appear to be learning any less). Fears
about CC level training (that teachers would not attend, content would not get
covered, teachers would not learn as much) were not supported by the data (See
Graphic below depicting teacher’s attendance.
 “QUESTION NO.2”
Using Gibbs model, write a reflection report of an
interaction between a student who failed in exam and a
parent.
“Answer”

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give

structure to learning from experiences. It offers a framework for examining
experiences, and given its cyclic nature lends itself particularly well to
repeated experiences, allowing you to learn and plan from things that either
went well or didn’t go well. It covers 6 stages:
• Description of the experience
• Feelings and thoughts about the experience
• Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad
• Analysis to make sense of the situation
• Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done
differently
• Action plan for how you would deal with similar situations in the
future, or general changes you might find appropriate.

Below is further information on:

• The model – each stage is given a fuller description, guiding
questions to ask yourself and an example of how this might look
in a reflection
• Different depths of reflection – an example of reflecting more
briefly using this model

This is just one model of reflection. Test it out and see how it works for you.
If you find that only a few of the questions are helpful for you, focus on
those. However, by thinking about each stage you are more likely to engage
critically with your learning experience.
The model:
A circular diagram showing the 6 stages of Gibbs' Reflective cycle

Gibbs' reflective cycle:

This model is a good way to work through an experience. This can be either
a stand-alone experience or a situation you go through frequently, for
example meetings with a team you have to collaborate with. Gibbs originally
advocated its use in repeated situations, but the stages and principles apply
equally well for single experiences too. If done with a stand-alone
experience, the action plan may become more general and look at how you
can apply your conclusions in the future.

For each of the stages of the model a number of helpful questions are
outlined below. You don’t have to answer all of them but they can guide you
about what sort of things make sense to include in that stage. You might have
other prompts that work better for you.

Description:
Here you have a chance to describe the situation in detail. The main points
to include here concern what happened. Your feelings and conclusions will
come later.
Feelings:
Feelings give you the opportunity to explore any thoughts or feelings that
you were having at the time of the event in isolation from the other
components. In order to achieve this, it is important that you do not include
any further description and do not try to evaluate them. An important
component in this section is that you expand to tell how the thoughts and
feelings that you were having have impacted on the event.
You are bound to have feelings about what happened. You may have felt
anxious, especially if what happened was new to you. The important thing
is to show how you managed to do what was expected of you despite your
anxiety. Try to describe/explain your feelings. Whenever we are involved in
particular situation, after narrating it the next step is to ask ourselves about
the feeling. This particular stage is the analytical stage in the Bloom's
Taxonomy. This will help in the development of cognitive abilities,
communication skills and expression of thoughts. This also brings the inside
out.
Evaluation:
The evaluation section gives you the opportunity to explore what was good
about the event and what did not go well. It is important that you try to
consider both the good and the bad, even if the incident seemed totally
negative or positive.Please note, that the previous components of this cycle
all concern what happened, the components that follow relate to making
sense of the incident and how you could improve on the situation if it
happened again.
The third and the higher level job for the you now is to evaluate. What was
good? and what was bad? –these are two umbrella questions. It all depends
what you count as good and what as bad. Your values, ideological
background, context and the environment as well as situation influences your
evaluative judgments. For a conscious effort to evaluate an incident practice
to answer the following questions
Description Stage II:
is where you make sense of the event and should be the largest section of
your reflection. It is useful to take all the issues that you have highlighted
previously in the reflection and consider them separately. It is important in
this section that you consult relevant academic literature to help you make
sense of the incident Conclusion: includes being honest about your
contribution and feelings; you bring them all together so that you can
sensibly conclude from examining the incident and consulting the relevant
literature, how what you did led up to the incident. From this, you should be
able to make a logical alternative about how you can overcome such
situations.
Action plan:
is where taking into account the previous elements of the cycle, you suggest
plan for if this event (or similar) were to happen again. What would you do
differently or keep the same? This is the final section of the cycle and the
end of this particular reflection.
Conclusion:
Human being are the best of all creations on the basis of their thinkin
abilities and choosing the best options out of the available options. The
quality of the option that they choose, tell us the quality of thinking of that
particular person. Now the big question to answer at this stage is What else
could be done? Let’s exercise to write alternative options.
Helpful questions:

What happened?
When and where did it happen?
Who was present?
What did you and the other people do?
What was the outcome of the situation?
Why were you there?
What did you want to happen?
 “QUESTION NO.3”
Take English syllabus of grade four and five. Critically
analyze the continuity of concepts, complexity of concepts
and newness of concepts in both syllabi.
“Answer”

Ralph Tyler and Curriculum Design:

Ralph Tyler was a 20th-century American educator who played a large role in
guiding how curriculum would be developed. He identified the importance of
three key principles in this process: continuity, sequence, and integration. If you
know the TV show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, this may help you remember
the first letters of the terms. Now let's look at how you would apply Tyler's
principles to your U.S. history curriculum.

Continuity:
Teaching curriculum by focusing only on following a textbook is a bit like having
students walk down a narrow hallway. For example, let's say lesson one of your
class covers events from 1865-1870. Your next lesson covers events from 1870-
1875. Using this approach, your students never revisit the events of lesson 1
again. They simply move ahead from event to event as though they're walking
down that narrow hallway. They don't get a good look back at the material until
it's time to study for a test.
Continuity involves revisiting material more than once. This reinforces students'
learning by allowing them to practice skills they learned earlier and to consider
old information in a new way, reinforcing it.
This approach is more like a spiral staircase where a student can look around them
as they make passes around the center. They can see what has come before and
how it relates to what's in front of them now. This idea of curriculum that revisits
learning over time is also referred to as spiral curriculum, per American
psychologist Jerome Bruner.
Continuity is the repetition of important concepts within the curriculum vertical
or over time. For example, if developing critical thinking is important in a
curriculum than this concept will appear throughout the curriculum at a gradual
higher and higher level of complexity
Continuity of learning occurs when learning builds upon prior learning, through
age-appropriate experiences and pedagogy. This is strengthened when early
childhood educators and school teachers understand what and how children learn
in both settings.
The teacher continuously identifies accurate critical content during a lesson or
part of a lesson that portrays a clear progression of information that leads to
deeper understanding of the content. Desired Effect: Students know what content
is important and what is not important

Sequence:
The historical events in your textbook don't go in a spiral, so how are you
supposed to order the information in your curriculum? The answer lies in the
principles of sequence, or how material is organized when presenting it to
students. The goal of a good sequence? The information you present today should
build on information that you presented yesterday.
Chronological order is one valid way of organizing the information. The problem
with only focusing on chronological order is that you may miss out on other ways
of organizing the material. Here's an alternative approach that uses different ways
of sequencing to improve continuity. You decide to organize your curriculum by
time period (chronologically) and by complexity. For example, you plan to first
cover the key events of Reconstruction. Then, you cover the time period again
from the perspective of how the lives of everyday people were affected by these
events. When you discuss Civil Rights in the 1960s, you circle back again to
revisit how the Reconstruction era period related to civil rights of black
Americans into the late 20th century, an even more complex topic.
There are also other options for organizing your curriculum. You could also focus
first on giving an overview, prior to diving into specifics. You broadly describe
the key eras within the timeframe of 1865 to the present. Then you could go back
to dig into each era in more depth.

“QUESTION NO.4”
Identify five activities from your daily life which demand
critical thinking.
“Answer”
Critical Thinking:
While making your academic assignments or thesis, you are required to do some
research and analyze various things, or for making a career decision or any other
decision you are required to think of all pros and cons of that decision. Well, the
most important thing that helps us to effectively take these decisions is what we
call critical thinking. Critical thinking is very important in both personal and
professional life. The process of critical thinking involves the analysis of the
various facts and figures in a particular situation before straightaway acting on
that situation. Critical thinking demands keen observation, creativity, problem-
solving skills, which helps the individual to thoroughly evaluate the gathered
information and then use this available information as a guide to making accurate
decisions. From doing academic works or regular activities to solving various
large scale problems, critical thinking is required in everyday life. In this article,
we will learn about some real-life examples where critical thinking plays an
important role.
Critical Thinking Examples in Real Life:
1. Critical Thinking in Problem Solving:
Suppose your manager asks you to find an effective solution to a problem that is
affecting the business. What would be your first step? Like most people, you may
also start looking for potential solutions to deal with that situation. Well, one
requires the use of critical thinking here. Before looking for the solution one needs
to take a step back and try to understand the cause of the problem first. One
should ask for the opinions of the other people that how does this particular
problem impact them and the overall business. If you arrive at a solution, you
should not only just rely on one solution, instead, you should always have various
backup plans in case the first solution does not work as expected. Most people
feel that they are great at problem-solving, but if one is not following all these
above discussed steps before making a final judgement, he/she is not a critical
thinker. Critical thinking allows people to find the best possible solution to any
problem. Critical thinking is an important factor of problem-solving skills,
one needs to look at any situation from multiple perspectives because in some
cases, your decisions not only impact you but also the people in your surrounding.
2. Critical Thinking in Analysing Risks:
Risk assessment is another important factor, which requires the use of critical
thinking. Risk assessment is required in various sectors, from
children analysing the impact of eating junk food on their health to large
businesses in analysing the impact of certain policies on the growth of the
company. Let us understand the implication of critical thinking in analysing the
risks with some examples.
▪ While constructing a building, the engineers need to evaluate all the potential
risks or hazards that could occur on the construction site to make sure that the
workers can do their work safely. If the engineers or the project managers do
not use critical thinking for analysing the potential risks, the chance of injuries
or deaths of the workers is high, which may negatively impact the workforce
and the reputation of the project managers.

Before implementing certain rules or regulations, the government has to

understand the various aspects such as the impact on people and the economy of
the country due to that decisions. Decisions that may seem easier on paper may
be a lot more difficult to implement in the real world and may lead to bad
consequences if critical thinking is not used.

In the financial sector, the authorities have to assess the influence of the current
or the newly implemented policies on the clients. This requires various skills of
critical thinking such as creativity to imagine the various scenarios that may arise,
analysis of different laws and policies, and evaluating the responses of the
existing clients to formulate better policies. If the banks or the insurance
companies do not use critical thinking, this may result in huge losses.

3. Critical Thinking in Data Analysis:

Whether analysing the performance of the children in the schools
or analysing the business growth of a multi-national company, the skill of data
analysis is very crucial. In today’s era, almost every sector demands experts that
can accurately evaluate the available data or information and draw out effective
conclusions from it. With the rise in technology, the various tasks of the data
analysis such as finding profit and loss, creating balance sheets, and issuing
invoices are done with the help of various software, but it does not mean that
human skill is not required. Various kinds of software can just convert a large
amount of data into some simpler and readable format, but it is the critical
thinking of the humans that is required to effectively interpret the data and apply
the obtained insight for the benefits. The data analysis can even help us to
estimate the future trends and potential risks of taking any decisions.

4. Critical Thinking in Hiring Employees:

The ability to objectively view any situation without getting influenced by your
personal beliefs or thoughts is one of the important characteristics of critical
thinking. In business, the hiring managers require critical thinking to evaluate a
large number of resume’s to choose the suitable candidates for the required
position. Critical thinking here enables the hiring managers not to hire a candidate
on the basis of various factors like gender, age, religion or country, these factors
may influence the hiring managers unconsciously. The hiring manager may tend
to choose the candidate on his/her subjective beliefs if he/she does not use critical
thinking. Hence, critical thinking can help HR’s to hire the best employees that
may eventually lead to the growth of the company.
5. Promoting the Teamwork:
In a team, every individual is unique and has his/her different ideas to tackle the
proposed problem. It is the responsibility of the team leader to understand the
perspective of each member and encourage them to work collectively to solve the
common problem. You may find the opinion of the other members of your team
as ineffective, but instead of straightway denying their opinions one should
logically analyse their suggestions and try to put your point of view regarding the
problem in an effective and calm manner. If the team leader does not use critical
thinking, instead, he/she boost his/her opinions on others, the team is sure to
collapse.

6. Critical Thinking in Self-Evaluation:

Critical thinking plays a major role in self-evaluation. The knowledge of critical
thinking skills allows you to accurately analyse your performance by controlling
various subjective biases. People should always evaluate their reactions towards
any situation and the way they think, this may help them to get a deep insight
into their thought processes, hence improving their thinking abilities to take
accurate decisions. Self-evaluation is very important in professional life too.
Suppose your manager has set a new target for the company. Every employee is
thus required to analysehis/her contribution to the company and try to accomplish
the set target. If you know your contribution to the company, it will help you
to analyseyour performance, and you can try to improve your performance in the
areas where you lag.

“QUESTION NO.5”
Describe principles of building communities of knowledge
and practice
“Answer”

Communities of Practice:

Communities of Practice as a concept is relatively new in the NHS, but as a

learning approach is more recognized in the corporate world. You might
recognize the term ‘Learning Network’ which is used more frequently for the
same type of approach.

“Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion

for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”
There are three key Characteristics of CoPs:

1. The Domain of Interest – where there is shared competence between peers,

in relation to a specific practice. This is not about strategy or other
people’s work, it is about the granularity of the CoPmember’s work. Members
are passionate about the issue, they come together because they care about it.
2. The Community – with members who help each other in service to their
domain of interest, though sharing knowledge and experience. The key here is
 repeated interaction and supportive learning relationships. There is depth to
these interactions that includes reflective skills.
3. The Practice – practice in this context means creating meaning (why we do
this work together), creating coherence (how we do our work together), and
for learning (what works and why – and how do new members learn about our
work). Practice is the application of knowledge, and in this process this
practice is shared, i.e. all members are developing their shared approach
Critically therefore CoP member instigate and join a CoP because:

1. They care about the domain

2. They have shared competence and practice
3. They want to learn together how to develop their practice (at a detailed
competence level).
Communities or Practice are knowledge seeking, both from the tacit knowledge
within the members , and as all learning networks, by seeking out knowledge
about their shared domain and practice. (looking for best practice, published
evidence).

Principles of Communities of Practice:

The basic principles for communities of practice are:

1. Participation – everyone in the community has a voice, can be heard and can
contribute to the practice. Difference explored.
2. Commitment to practice – to uncovering what the work it, why we do it,
how its done, and to reciprocity with others wanting to learn.
3. Understanding boundaries and scale – what works here and does it change as
the scale changes for instance if the boundary to the community changes.
4. Reflection using evidence-based conversations as a core practice in itself.
5. Creativity as a source of energy for practice – using imagination, permission
to explore, finding new ways of exploring work.
So Communities of Practice are networks of members committed to learning how
to do the best they can in their domain of interest creating relationships for
learning and development, and clarifying what information needs to be generated
and shared across the community.

The CoP Process:

Communities of Practice like all networks need nurturing. There is usually

someone who takes the lead in setting one up – because they care about the issue
enough. They invite colleagues to learn together. There are two types of
convening that take place:
1. The lead member in the CoP who takes the role of a network leader – being a
good host, bringing members together, making sure the conversations are
adding value to everyone, helping members work well together. Here the
network leader facilitates the CoP process
2. A facilitator. Where there are a number of CoPstaking place, these might
happen in the same space, in which case a facilitator can be helpful in
supporting the process of the learning conversation – bringing in an element
of reflection and review, and helping the CoP sustain the principles of
shared learning and the focus on practice.

Once established CoPs are often self-organising.

The learning conversations take an inquiry approach – working together to

deepen the members understanding of practice, seeking out the best evidence to
help them improve their practice (in relation to their domain of interest).

They interact regularly. Once the first meeting or two has taken
place CoPs usually ‘take off’ with members talking online as well as face to
face. CoP members often go visit each other’s place of work to deepen their
understanding of practice; they might set up a knowledge sharing platform
(Trello, Slack) or a space to chat together e.g. a What’s App group or Linked In
Group, so they can talk between meeting up. They will be sharing resources (e.g.
protocols; articles).

The Success of CoPs:

One of the key principles in terms of the success of CoPs is: ‘You own what you
create’

As with all networks CoPs will thrive if:

• There is clear shared purpose and identity

• They are creative and innovative
• They meet member needs
• They are supported by adapted leadership
• They have strong relationships and ties
• They generate helpful outputs
Critical to this at the outset of a CoP is to determine how to track impact – what
are members learning, how are they applying that and what difference is it
making. In effect members need to be able to answer the question ‘So What’?
Convening:

Convening CoPs isn’t difficult, the biggest issue for the NHS is that this is an
unfamiliar conversational learning process in an NHS dominated by hierarchy
and project management. The convenor needs the following:

1. Knowledge
• The difference between CoPs and other group learning processes (e.g. Action
Learning Sets) or group project delivery processes (Task and Finish groups)
• What a CoP entails, the design and trajectory of CoPs
• How to lead a network approach to learning
2. Skills
• Reflective and Reflexive Practice
• Facilitating groups to hold onto the key principles of a CoP for instance how to
support CoP groups as they form to ensure everyone participates. These are
basic organisational development and group facilitation skills, but the work
here is knowing which of this broader set of skills apply to CoPs.
• Securing impact – how to gather data on and demonstrate CoP impact
The best way to learn about convening CoPs is to:

1. Secure a good understanding of the process (read all about it, talk to people
who have done it)
2. Start the work of convening a CoP and review your practice as a convenor