Developing holistic practice through reflection, action and theorising

Abstract

This article outlines how I, as a primary teacher engaging with a self-study action research process, have come to a deeper understanding of my practice. It explains how I have also come to an understanding of why I work in the way I do; of how this understanding influences my work, and the significance of this new understanding. My work as a teacher frequently includes doing collaborative digital projects with my class. As I engaged in research on my practice, I initially experienced difficulties problematising this work. I struggled to achieve clarity not only with engaging in critical thinking but also with articulating my educational values. I found Mellor's idea about 'the struggle' helpful as he explains how 'the struggle' is at the heart of the research process. My new understanding around these collaborative projects emerged in terms of holistic practice; clarifying my ontological values and learning to think critically. I am now generating an educational theory from my practice as I see my work as a process for developing spiritual and holistic approaches to learning and teaching. I conclude by outlining what I perceive to be the significance of my work and its potential implications for education. IntroductionIn this paper, I will outline the process of the self-study research I undertook on my work as a teacher. The paper examines how, through reflection on and thinking critically about my work, I gained new insight and understanding of my practice and developed a new epistemology of practice. Initially, I set out to examine the value of the inclusion of digital technology in my work as a primary school teacher, but as I began to engage more deeply with the process of self-study I realised that the focus of my research had less to do with digital technology itself and more to do with an ability to think critically and to clarify what my educational values were. I will conclude by examining the influence my research had on my own work practices, on the practice of colleagues and its potential influence on policy.

Can Holistic Education Solve the World’s Problems: A Systematic Literature Review

“…It was found that the selected studies were predominantly conducted in Europe [47][48][49], the East [46,47,50,51], and North America [14,45,52], and this fact supports Lee et al's statement:…”

“…The context of research on holistic education varies across Europe: studies from Ireland and the UK describe teacher-initiated holistic education projects, while Finland, on the other hand, has a historically rooted tradition of holistic education as a public education policy. Glenn [48] presented a paper including a self-assessment of a teacher who wanted to explore the possibility of incorporating digital technologies into primary school teaching and eventually discovered the principles of holistic education and began to use them to shape her practice. Renshaw and Wood [49] described another example of a holistic teacher initiative project, the updated Key Stage 3 curriculum for 11-14-year-olds in England, introduced in 2007, which led to significant content changes in many subjects.…”

“…However, based on these studies, no generalised conclusions can be drawn about the benefits of holistic education, as the results were not compared to those of traditional education systems. Moreover, we found that empirical research on holistic education has mainly been con-ducted at the primary education level [14,45,47,48]. Few studies were found at other levels of education: pre-school [46]; basic education [49]; higher education [51,52]; and short-term tertiary teacher training [50].…”

Students' Perception of the Methodological Effectiveness of Italian Courses at the Italian Cultural Institute in Osaka

“…According to Dörnyei (2014), the holistic nature of research takes shape from a single exploratory perspective and practice which, starting from the survey questions, takes into consideration a combination of various factors such as the emotional and cognitive aspect of the informant. The manifestation of these two components represents the built idea the student has regarding the learning experience, which guides their behaviour and evaluation (Glenn, 2011). Hence, these two components should be considered in the light of the entire case study.…”

Unlicensed EFL Teachers Co-constructing Knowledge and Transforming Curriculum Through Collaborative-Reflective Inquiry

“…These theoretical contributions focusing on "the importance of collaboration in changing teacher practice have led to its widespread acceptance as an essential component of any effort aimed at (re)shaping teaching practices" (Brownell, Adams, Sindelar, Waldron, & Vanhover, 2006, p. 170 Collaborative-Reflective Teaching Glenn (2011) defined reflection as an act of thinking that follows a series of steps such as doubting, inquiring, and searching for information that would solve the doubt. That doubt is formulated on the basis of an action performed by someone and how it is performed.…”