Introduction

This free course, An appreciative approach to inquiry, is 15 hours of study divided into five study ‘sessions’. Each session involves approximately 3 hours of study, although there are ongoing tasks which can be developed beyond the duration of this course, and over time. Whilst you may choose to work through one session per week, you should also feel free to work at a pace that suits you and at times that fit around your daily life and routine. Indeed, if you are using this course alongside an inquiry project, you may choose to complete sections of it over a longer period of time.

The five sessions are linked to ensure a coherent flow through the course as follows:

Session 1: What do we mean by inquiry?

This session will consider the central role that inquiry (also known as practitioner research, scholarship of teaching and learning, or small-scale action research) plays in our educational contexts. It considers assumptions and beliefs about what is involved in inquiry, and supports you in understanding the differences between problem focused forms of inquiry and those which start from an appreciative stance. A series of activities refocuses attention on positive aspects of practice and awareness of what it feels like when we appreciate what is happening in a particular moment.

Session 2: Immersing and appreciating

This session considers the ways in which immersing ourselves in our environment and appreciating its strengths can help us to bring new ways of seeing to our process of inquiry. Through a series of activities it explores the ways in which storytelling can act as a way into appreciative inquiry and demonstrates the value of drawing out a variety of perspectives. Then you will turn to your own practice to begin to identify a focus for your inquiry.

Session 3: Imagining and dreaming

This session will introduce you to the central role of imagining and dreaming within an appreciative approach to inquiry. Using the stories that you began to generate is Session 2, it uses a series of creative writing and image activities to explore how to ‘push outwards’ from positive aspects of practice you have already identified to generate possibilities for new practices and thinking.

Session 4: Innovating and designing

In this session you will consider the limitations of target driven action planning, and consider the importance of improvisatory, responsive action as part of generating change. By writing provocative proposition statements, either individually or as an inquiry group, and then identifying key themes, you will begin to consider the conditions necessary to ‘game plan’ ethical inquiry actions.

Session 5: Re-immersing and delivering

This session considers the question of what is meant by inquiry, by considering appreciative inquiry as a form of praxis, which foregrounds the role of both reflection and action in bringing about transformation. Through this view of praxis, it considers the role of re-immersion as a process of coming to know what has changed as a result of our inquiries and how this has ‘met’ the real-life contexts of our work. The final section of this session explores how the story of our inquiry can be told as a form of reporting, or as a way of coalescing colleagues or others around our newly generated stories of practice.