Reflection, SIGs and Literature!

 This blog was meant to be posted on Thursday according to the system I created for myself this year…! But then there’s life; as the quote above says “life is what happens to our plans”. So how is your schedule going. Don’t get caught up fixating on one task try to keep moving forward with your work.

My big wonder this week is; “is my life just a response to things and if so where am ‘I’ then. Or am ‘I’ in the setting-up / and perception of the situation to which I respond?”

The reflection of Module One (which is what 1er’s should be moving into as we enter week 4) is an on-going activity across the course and your career. So how is it going with reflection? The analysis you need to engage with in Module 3 when you have collected data is basically reflections – reflexivity aims to help you widen your perception. Locate the ‘I’, the 'response', the situation in the data.

Of course talking through your thoughts helps with the process of thinking - finding meaning. Who do you talk to? Well, 1ers will be moving on later to looking at their networks, 2ers and 3ers have looked at networks so use them. 2ers you are just forming SIGs and other groups that are extensions to the networks  you identified last module. The SIGs are so you can communicate your ideas and hear others. Dewey says that an idea, once communicated can be looked at and explored because it has a kind of form other than your feeling (which from my perspective is an embodied experience - what he calls 'first state' below).

‘Where communication exists, things in acquiring meaning, thereby acquire representatives, surrogates, signs, and implicates, which are infinitely more amenable to management, more permanent and more accommodating, than events in their first estate’ (Dewey, 1929a)

Module 2ers you need to have joined a SIG by now, and blogged of course. This is the way to have a conversation, interrogate your ideas, to widen your field. Don’t make lots of little SIG groups. If you are thinking along similar lines to a group but a little different join and add your voice, it will widen the thoughts of everyone and challenge you to explain yourself.

Formative feedback on the research questions in Module 2: from me it is to blog more. I have seen some interesting questions but you all need to talk to each other and blog. Some 2ers have not up-dated there blogs recently and it is hard to share in the conversation with them. Keep the questions fluid so you don’t fix yourself into a corner. I will post more feedback in my blog next week also.

Module 3ers: I strongly advise you to have a Literature Review by now and some Key Texts. A Literature Review is an overview of what’s out there and what people think. What the general threads are and who is famous for thinking about them. Key Texts are a few books that you have read cover to cover and that support your research (NOT support your argument - which hopefully you don’t have yet) the Key Texts are books that are known for raising the key issues in your area of research.  A metaphor for this is: a Literature Review is like ‘Eagle vision’ seeing an over few of the whole field. Key Texts are like ‘mouse vision’. To know about a part of the field really well.    

Another metaphor for this : If I am talking about Dance a  Literature Review is like knowing there are a number of kinds of dance – Salsa, Hip Hop, Ballet , Contemporary. As I am talking about dance you would expect me to know that these things exist, however you would not expect me to know all about all of them but I should be able to overview the kinds of dance out there. Key texts are like me knowing about Ballet in more detail, knowing about point work, ballet barr, and people wearing tutus etc…

Hope to see London based people at the campus sessions this coming week.

I am sitting in a Starbucks that is open late on a Sunday, Great!! I think we should start a list of good places to study outside the house, for those on the move, between houses, without internet at home etc... There are some great places to get wi-fi and get on with things. What do you think of all this?

Adesola