Module 2 - Session 1
1Module 2 Introduction
HTMLModule 2 - Inquiry, Reflection, and Knowledge Building
Welcome to the module entitled “Inquiry, Reflection and Knowledge Building” in a Professional Learning Community (PLC).
The example below
highlights why it is important for you, as a facilitator, to build necessary
knowledge, skills, and attitudes to involve PLC members in inquiry and
reflection as processes that support knowledge building and evidence-based
decisions.
During a staff meeting, PLC members
identify as a main problem that many pupils often misbehave by creating noise
that interrupts teaching and by causing frequent conflicts with their peers
during breaks. PLC members identify several reasons for pupils’ misbehaviour such as parents’ lack
of care to teach their children how to behave and pupils’
various individual characteristics such as aggression, unwillingness to learn
and bad temper. They also suggest stricter disciplinary measures as the main
strategy to solve this problem.
This example
illustrates that PLC members often take decisions based on their own
understanding and knowledge, thus without previously exploring and reflecting
upon what is happening and why as well what should be changed and how. Your
role as a facilitator is to introduce to PLC members the need and ways for
collecting data and reflecting upon their results to build necessary knowledge
and proceed to evidence-based decisions and effective interventions as a PLC.
Over the course of
three sessions in this module, you will develop the basic theoretical and
practical knowledge of how to support inquiry and reflection processes in a PLC
and also support PLC members’ professional learning and knowledge building. In
the 4th session you will have
an opportunity to reflect upon the knowledge you gained and how you can utilize
it in your own PLC context.
The goal of these
sessions is for you to achieve the following learning outcomes:
Inquiry and
reflection:
·
Understand how inquiry and reflection support
professional learning in a PLC
·
Promote research, and support developing research
tools and analysing data
·
Guide members in reflecting on practices
and leveraging data for evaluation of practices, informed decision-making and
planning
Learning and knowledge
building:
·
Foster learning and collaborative knowledge
construction through resource sharing and dialogic practices in PLCs
·
Facilitate the collective identification of knowledge
gaps and professional learning goals.
·
Initiate and support collaborative dialogue, peer
observations, and shared reflections to expand the group’s knowledge base.
In session 1, you will find out
about why inquiry and reflection are needed, what they involve and how they can
be facilitated in a PLC. The relations among inquiry and reflection will be
exemplified with the presentation of action research as a framework supporting
these relations to foster critical awareness among PLC members and
evidence-based decision-making processes.
In session 2, you will be introduced
in ways that you, as a facilitator, can assist PLC members in the design of
their inquiry and reflection. You will gain basic knowledge about how to help
PLC members raise research questions and design or find suitable tools for data
collection.
Session 3 highlights the connection between inquiry and reflection and between reflection and knowledge-building in a straightforward way. A practical activity will be used to demonstrate how you, as a facilitator, can support a data-driven dialogue, the development of shared understanding among PLC members as well as an evidence-based design of the needed edagogical interventions to solve a problem or improve the educational situations PLC members confront.
Session 4 will assist you to reflect on the knowledge you developed in the previous Sessions and the ways it could transform your existing way(s) of facilitating PLCs by guiding you to connect insights, tools, and experiences gained so far with your ongoing professional practice. Through self-assessment, reflection, and practical inquiry planning, you will consolidate your learning, identify growth areas, and design a personal roadmap for continuous development as a PLC facilitator who supports evidence-informed, collaborative learning and sustainable change.
2Session 1: Introducing inquiry and reflection as necessary processes in a PLC
HTML1. Introduction
What do you think
about what your role as a PLC facilitator is? Would you agree that your role is
mostly to support PLC members in their thinking and actions by providing them
guidance, practical solutions and give them feedback on their decisions and actions?
Would you describe
your role in a different way?
If not, how can you be
sure that:
- the decisions PLC
participants take are based on an exploration of what goes on and why as well
as an awareness of what should be changed and how?
- the PLC participants
can learn by critically reflecting upon the results of the decisions they have
taken collaboratively?
In this section, you will learn how your role as a facilitator is different from that of a “provider” of guidance and solutions to PLC members. Your role is to support PLC members to develop a deep understanding of their practice, create opportunities for them to rethink what they take as granted and encourage them to proceed to an evidence-based design of necessary interventions to solve problems or improve situations. It is therefore important to remember that to achieve awareness, understanding and the ability to take evidence-based decisions, PLC members need support to be involved in inquiry and reflection-based processes of professional learning and decision-making.
This session will
specifically assist you to clarify what inquiry and reflection is, why these
are needed, what they entail, and how you can facilitate them effectively in a
PLC.
Toward this objective,
you will be working on the following learning outcomes:
·
Understand
how inquiry and reflection facilitate professional learning in a PLC
·
Identify inquiry as a necessary process for professional
learning.
·
Become
familiar with the
process of reflective thinking and practice
· Become familiar with frameworks that connect inquiry and reflection to informed decision-making, planning and evaluation of practice (action research).
Link to learning outcomes: https://www.leafap.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/LeaFaP_Learning-Outcomes_ENGLISH.pdf
32. Learning
HTMLIn this section you will be able to identify the difference inquiry and reflection make if used by PLC members to guide their understandings and decisions. Based on a concrete example, you will be given step-by step guidelines of how and when to introduce inquiry and reflection in the PLC. You will also be introduced to action research as a framework which shows how professional learning among PLC members can be supported if inquiry and reflection inform one another in a continuous spiral of PLC growth and progress.
42.1 Why do inquiry and reflection are necessary in a PLC?
HTMLPLC Cases Reflection
Below you can read about two different ways of how two different schools, however facing the same issue of concern, proceeded in their work as a PLC.
1st case
PLC members are not satisfied with pupils’ participation during teaching. They are often inattentive during the lessons, some make noise, and some come to school without having completed their homework. PLC members attribute this to pupils’ lack of interest in learning, their learning gaps from previous years and the lack of family support to encourage their study at home. They decide to be stricter with pupils to avoid interruptions during teaching and create penalties for the pupils who come unprepared in class.
2nd case
PLC members are not satisfied with pupils’ participation during teaching. They are often inattentive during the lessons, some make noise, and some come to school without having completed their homework. PLC members want to explore why this is happening. They collectively decide to ask their pupils to fill in anonymous questionnaires describing what they like and dislike in teaching, if they face difficulties in their learning, what is the help they need and what they suggest to improve their lessons. Some of the pupils report that they cannot follow the lesson because it is too difficult for them to understand, other pupils note that some teachers give too much attention in completing the teaching material on time rather than helping all pupils to understand it and some other that they need more time to think before responding to teachers’ questions. Based on pupils’ answers, PLC members make decisions about altering their teaching methods, encouraging group work and differentiating the process of teaching to better fit pupils’ needs.
Your task
Identify why each PLC followed a different pathway and what influenced their different decisions, even though they had the same problem.
Instructions
- Read the two cases again carefully.
-
Use the following questions to detect the differences among the two cases regarding the processes of taking decisions:
- Based on which information did each PLC take decisions to handle children’s lack of participation during teaching?
- Who provided this information in each case?
- How was this information collected in each case?
- What were the opportunities for PLC members in each case to reflect upon and/or challenge their own understandings of what should be changed and why?
- On what basis could PLC members in each case feel more secure about the effectiveness of the strategies they have chosen to confront the problem of children’s lack of participation?
- Sum up your responses to detect what is the basic difference among the two cases and why this difference is important in shaping the decisions and actions in each PLC.
- Click Feedback to compare your reasoning with the suggested analysis.
5Feedback
HTML62.2 Organising and structuring inquiry and reflection processes in a PLC
HTMLPLC Inquiry and Reflection
In this section the same example will be used to clarify further what inquiry may involve at different phases of PLC development and how you can support different inquiry and reflection processes during PLC development.
The first need for inquiry emerges from the fact that a PLC is never a homogenous group since PLC members may hold different ideas, beliefs, understandings, resources and practices. Following the same example in which PLC members are concerned about children’s lack of participation during teaching, it is important that you, as a facilitator, can assist PLC members to bring all these different views, knowledge and resources to the fore and enhance their reflection upon the members’ different starting points in this collaborative endeavour.
So, the first step of inquiry can be to explore PLC members’ initial understandings, suggestions and proposed practices about the issue of concern right at the beginning of PLC development.
The following questions can support such an inquiry:
- What specifically concerns you about children’s participation during teaching?
- Why do you think this is a problem?
- What do you believe are the reasons for its existence?
- What do you propose as possible solutions to this problem?
Since time is always an issue during PLC meetings, it is probably best that these questions are answered individually through an electronic form, and you, as a facilitator, analyse these responses, looking for similarities and differences, and share them with PLC members.
Questions to enhance reflection after this presentation has taken place can be:
- Can you detect similarities or differences in the ways we answered these questions?
- Where do we agree? Where do we differ?
- Why do you think we agree on…. or/and differ in our …..
The outcome of this inquiry and reflective-based process is to become aware of the shared understandings and key differences among PLC members and to enhance their focused dialogue.
The second step of inquiry and reflection can focus on the collection of specific information that describe and explain what is actually happening, when, how and why. Collecting information about what, when, how and why something happens from different perspectives (PLC members, pupils and parents) is preferable to gain a more complete understanding of the issue of concern.
The following questions can support such an inquiry:
- What do we need to learn more about children’s lack of participation?
- From whom should we gather information? (e.g. pupils, parents, colleagues, people from the community)
- How can we make sure all perspectives are represented?
Questions to enhance reflection after the inquiry results have been gathered and analysed can be:
- What are the factors that influence this situation based on the evidence we have? (e.g. school culture, teachers’ practices, educational policies, societal issues)
- Do all participants (e.g. pupils, parents, colleagues, people from the community) have the same understanding of the factors that influence this situation? Why is this so?
- How can we be sure that the information we have gathered will be used to design the goals, content and ways of our interventions to change this situation?
The outcome of this inquiry and reflection process is to make sure that the PLC plans the interventions it will implement based on specific evidence and understandings it has gained from this systematic process.
Last, it is important to support inquiry and reflection upon the PLC’s implemented interventions in order to evaluate and reason the effectiveness or not of their chosen interventions and proceed to further improvements.
7Activity
HTMLTry to design some questions as prompts to PLC members to enhance their inquiry and reflection at the stage of PLC development that refers to implementation and evaluation of chosen interventions.
Questions for inquiry:
Questions for reflection:
Self-check:
Review the questions you designed for inquiry and reflection by looking at indicative questions available in section “3. Implementation and Evaluation of PLC interventions” of the “PLC Inquiry & Reflection Guide” which you can download here.
8Infographic
HTMLYou can use the following infographic as a visual summary of the different ways you can support PLC members to be involved in inquiry and reflection during different stages of the PLC development. Do not forget that each inquiry has different purposes and leads to different foci of reflection. At the beginning of the PLC, the first step of inquiry focuses on the exploration of PLC members’ initial beliefs and practices about the issue of concern and the realisation of differences and similarities among them. The second step of inquiry at the beginning of PLC development focuses on the exploration of the educational context and of different perspectives regarding the issue of concern that leads to the identification of the causes and factors affecting the situation. The knowledge of these causes and factors assists in the identification of what needs to change and how, thus in the planning of the PLC interventions to improve/change the issue of concern. The third step of inquiry, during latter stages of PLC development focuses on the exploration of effective and ineffective interventions and the reasons behind their effectiveness. This realisation assists in the re-planning of interventions based on the gained knowledge.
9More Examples
HTMLNeed more examples of how to introduce inquiry and reflection to PLC members as prerequisites for making informed decisions in a PLC?
Visit LeaFaP webpage
and check out the activity https://www.leafap.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/10_Inquiry-and-reflection_English.pdf