How Do I Improve My Practice? Creating and legitimating an epistemology of practice

Abstract

This paper is a response to Schon's (1995) call to reflective practitioners for the development of an epistemology of practice. It grounds the epistemology in the experience of 'I', as a living contradiction in the question, 'How do I improve my practice?'. It focuses on four epistemological implications, for the creation of a discipline of education, of placing 'I' as a living contradiction within an epistemology of reflective practice. (1) The inclusion of 'I' as a living contradiction in educational enquiries can lead to the creation of research methodologies which are distinctively 'educational' and cannot be reduced to social science methodologies. (2) The inclusion of 'I' in claims to educational knowledge leads to a logic of the question, 'How do I improve my practice?'. (3) The inclusion of 'I' in explanations for an individual's professional learning can lead to the creation of 'living' educational theories which can be related directly to an individual teacher's educative influence with his or her students. (4) Values can be used as the educational standards which create our disciplines of education.