i) The importance of forming good questions
I like the point made by Collingwood about the relationship between propositions and questions:
Whether a given proposition is true or false, significant or meaningless, depends on what question it was meant to answer; and any one who wishes to know whether a given proposition is true or false, significant or meaningless, must first find out what question is was meant to answer. (Collingwood, 1991, p. 39)
The questions we ask about our practice can be influential in what we do. For me, a good question for improving practice is, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’ I found myself asking this question in the first lesson I taught in 1967. During this lesson I found myself feeling that I was not helping the pupils to improve their learning as well as I could. The question flowed with a life-affirming energy to do better. It flowed with the values and understandings of scientific enquiry and knowledge I brought into my work as a teacher of science.
Some 41 years after asking this question and asking, researching and answering it continuously in my research programme, I am still finding it a good question. It is at the heart of my focus on seeing what I can do to understand better how to enable the responses of educators to their pupils and students to be included in explanations of educational influence in learning. I am thinking of an educational influence that supports individuals to create their own living educational theories of their lives and learning as they seek to improve their practice.
ii) Using action reflection cycles in improving practice
From the ground of a good question such as, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’ I found my imagination worked spontaneously in generating ideas about how I might improve my practice. I consciously chose one possibility to act on and formed an action plan. I acted and evaluated the effectiveness of my actions. In 1967 I followed this action reflection cycle intuitively as I began my work in education and only made it explicit later (Whitehead, 1976).
Making it explicit helped me to see the importance of strengthening the data I collected to make a judgment on the effectiveness of my actions and understandings. Making it explicit also helped me to understand just how important it is, for the creation of valid explanations of educational influences in learning, to submit one’s own interpretations to a validation group to receive the benefit of the mutual, rational controls of the inter‑subjective criticism of others (Popper, 1975, p. 44).
iii) Using action reflection cycles in clarifying and evolving the energy‑flowing and values-laden explanatory principles in generating knowledge about improving educational influences in learning.
In the process of expressing concerns when values are not being lived as fully as they could be, imagining possible improvements, choosing a possibility to act on, acting and gathering data and evaluating the influence of actions, the energy flowing values used to distinguish what counts as an improvement are clarified and evolved. Clarifying these values is a necessary condition for judging whether improvements in learning are occurring. For example, at one time in my classrooms I felt that I was imposing too much structure on the lessons so that there was insufficient freedom to enable my pupils to engage in any enquiry learning that involved them forming their own questions. It was only by clarifying my understanding of enquiry learning and showing the development from a highly structured classroom to one that included the possibility of enquiry learning that I could clearly communicate what I meant by an improvement in learning (Whitehead, 1976).
iv) Using responses from validation groups to enhance the imagined possibilities for improving educational influences in learning and for improving the gathering of data to make a judgment on the effectiveness of the actions.
One of the best illustrations of this use of a validation group is in Martin Forrest’s (1984) MA dissertation. As a tutor working in the continuing professional development of teachers Forrest supported teachers to help their pupils to improve their learning. Forrest researched his educational influence with a teacher in helping some primary aged children to think historically with objects from a Museum service. Another teacher working with similar age pupils from a different school did not believe this thinking to be possible. For his first validation meeting Forrest made claims to have influenced the practice of the first teacher but with insufficient evidence to convince the validation group of the validity of his claims. The validation group explained that they would need to see more conclusive evidence of his influence in the learning of a teacher and the pupils, than he provided in his initial narrative.
At a validation group some months later, Forrest produced video evidence in his explanation of his influence showing that the second teacher, on being shown a video-tape of what the first teacher was doing with her pupils, had tried the work with the historical artefacts. She found to her surprise that the pupils could think historically about the objects in a way that she initially had not thought to be possible. Forrest had documented his work with the second teacher. He had video-evidence from the classroom showing the pupils working with the artefacts and developing their historical thinking. His analysis with the video-data convinced the group of the validity of his claims to know his educational influences in the learning of the teacher and pupils.
Forrest shows how the primacy of practice and of improving practice is not separated from the generation of knowledge. Here is how a living theory methodology can assist in the generation of knowledge.
