When faced with the task to develop a set of professional questions relating to my professional practice I found myself easily able to come up with questions but in the first place these questions were too general and open, which meant finding an answer would be hard. How was I going to develop my skills and use what tools I had to find out the exact right question to ask in order to gain a strong opinion to answer it. The use of my SIG was the first key to this as it allowed others to voice their views on the questions and the topic. (Appendix A) What I felt I learnt from this was that the cycle of proposing a question, getting feedback and different views on that question, then allowed further development on the topic. From this I felt started to gain a more critical understanding of the type of question needed for an inquiry. However,I didn’t ask people from this course to participate in my SIG because I was behind and it was too late to ask. Instead, I asked my peers from the same field and other practitioners that are related to the same industry we are working for now and will be working for later. But how useful and valid are the views of other practitioners on my SIG to my developing questions? I thought that Henna Parimoo, Sean Xie and Jessie Liang’s inputs to the SIG was significant and very useful as it allowed me to gain a completely different view point and have the chance to hear the opinion from people who was viewing the question as I viewed and who was not viewing the question through the eye of a professional from different field. This process has helped me to see that sometimes your own critical thoughts is not enough because it doesn’t hold value in depth, breadth and diversity, however, the value they have may be limited as I have but would be different and may sometimes aid your inquiry. So I summed up my thoughts in one question with ‘what and how should you do and develop to obtain a job and make successful in the career.’ (Appendix B)
Ethical considerations –
Then I started to look at professional ethics and I feel that this is where I have learned and developed the most from this module. Prior to my study I had not considered so importantly that the ethical framework involved in my work as being a makeup artist. For task 5a (Appendix C) I wrote down the codes of practice for a makeup artist both in and out of employment, this proved very interesting as it helped to show me that there were quite a few similarities between them. I should have realized this, as by doing my daily practice as a makeup in both training and working I was subconsciously learning and applying the codes of practice. This helped me to discover that in fact ‘ethics’ can be defined as the way we work, the way we treat our clients and colleagues and most importantly the way we present ourselves at the workplace. I then decided to consult the Human Relations and Professional Ethics chapter in The Art and Science of Professional Makeup book to establish the codes of practices and ethical framework in my professional community. (Appendix D) I found the information in this chapter very helpful as it enabled me to look beyond the codes of what we are told or not told to do and why they are actually in place. I was going back to wonder how much value did the information in this chapter hold? I went to look at the reader on professional ethics and found out how that applies to my work in makeup and more specifically with regards to my inquiry in my blog entitled ‘Reader on professional ethics and how does the theories relate to my professional practice’. (Appendix E) I realized that without an ethical structure the inquiry can have no academic merit and ethical considerations ensure the protection of any and all that participate in the inquiry.
Tools of inquiry -
The final part of the module was entitled ‘tools of professional inquiry’. During this final element of the module, I learned about creating and differing tools for professional inquiry and what their benefits and limitations were. The blog entitled ‘Pilot tools and reflections on merits and limitations’ (Appendix F) where I discussed the downsides that may have when using each of the tools.(AppendixG) (Appendix H) Although I did manage to use the tool ‘observation’ and I would wait till later in module to take these as one of my prior tool in my inquiry, as I think ‘observation’ has always be seen and used as the most effective tool in training and working in makeup. For the other three as well, I will take into consideration when deciding which tools to use for my professional inquiry and why I should use them.
Appendix A:
Appendix B:
Appendix C:
Appendix D:
Appendix E:
Appendix G:
Appendix H:
