First Tuesday Coffee and Easter

Next week are the Easter Holidays: I am point person for questions at for the holiday. Feel free to SKYPE or email me if you have any emergency questions, even if I am not your advisor.

April 2^nd is our next ‘First Tuesday Coffee House meeting’. We will meet on SKYPE at 7:30pm London time. Don’t forget the clocks change this weekend as British ‘summer’ time begins!!!!

If you want to join in the ‘First Tuesday Coffee House meeting’ please SKYPE me to make a connection before Tuesday if possible or send me an email with your SKYPE address so I can reach out to you. Let other people know about it too.

Well, now’s an exciting time as we see the end of term looming and start planning summer work etc… Keep calm, breath. Find out your best way of dealing with all you have to do – I make lists so I can tick things off!!

Hope to chat on Tuesday

Adesola

Award titles

Thinking about Module two-ers who are working on  an award title. As usual I do not see any one module as having exclusive thinking points so this is something for everyone to ponder on. The award title thing is not a big question. Remember that 2/3 or so of your BA (HONS) award is carried over from whatever you did in your associate degree. Then of the three modules in the BAPP programme, only one is an inquiry. So the inquiry topic cannot be the main focus of you BA just because you have not spent that much time on it. Plus we are asking you to have a topic but we are not grading you on WHAT you find out on that topic we are grading you on the process you have. So your final module inquiry might not uncover much more in that area for you than you already know, but does help you have a better understand of the context of the topic and how you want to fit into it.

Hold that thought and look at it another way. When you go for a job and hand over you cv and it says BA (HONS) in performance extensions (!!!!) because that is what your inquiry was. Firstly, it look like you made it up (which you did!) but without knowing about MDX the person looking at your cv is not going to understand it or might think its like one of those degrees you can by on the inter-net!!!! Secondly because it is unique nobody will know what it is or what it is about. Thirdly you don’t know much about it either because think about how much you know about dance or musical theatre or whatever you did for two years in the previous schools. You know all the ins and outs that is what you can talk about from here to Thursday…then on top of being really knowledgeable about that you can also talk a little about whatever your inquiry was on or about your process.

So putting those two thoughts together the simpler and clearer and more recognisable the better such as:

Performing Arts

Dance

Musical theatre

Graphic design

Theatre performance

Lastly, just know you cannot choose an award title in the hope you will go into the topic or because its what you want to do – you are choosing something because its what you HAVE done.

Keep it obvious and know it does not have to be a big decision the only reason you are making it is because we do not know the ins and outs of your experience not because its too complicated for the university to do.

What do you think??

 Adesola

Has it been colourful?

We are in week 5 (sort of half way through the term). I think this is a good time to start to think about where you are heading. Are you clear about what you are required to hand-in for assessment? Do you know the deadline date? It is a good idea to ask yourself why you have been doing what you have been doing? To take a step back and ask yourself what it has meant to you so far. How is it meaningful and how can you make it meaning full. In the middle of it all it can be easy to start to forget to link things find connections and you can end up jumping through hoops just because they are there!!

How has it gone so far? Please comment lets see what people are thinking, saying and doing? Do you have any tips for others or things that have been amazing or very hard or unexpected?

Adesola

First Tuesday Coffee House meetings - SKYPE

We just had our SKYPE chat: a four way conversation. We talked about responses to blogging – how blogging can be frustrating if people do not respond to your posts by leaving comments. But also how the blog can act as documentation for yourself of your process and thinking as you travel through the course. In some ways you are posting for others to read and in other ways you are posting for your future self to read. Ahmet said a really cool analogy about being a stand up comic: you can play to the audience for the laughs or you can play to the truth and hope you get some laughs along the way.

We talked about the reflection section of Module One and how ‘doing’ a journal is not the fundamental point of the section of the module – the point is about looking at how you reflect, what role reflection has in your practice and what other people have said about reflection. Reading the handbook before you do too many journal entries is good, this is because this section is about thinking about reflection and yourself not producing a daily journal (– although you might find that helpful and fun to do).

We talked about how throughout the course there is a multi-layered experience you can have as ideas do not appear ‘straight forward’ and you feel you are starting to think ‘differently’. It was suggested that module One is a way to make yourself more stable as that you can go on to the other modules with a sense of where you are coming from. I think this is a useful comment because it also demonstrates how it might or useful to return to Module One ideas when you are in Module Two and three as a way to ground yourself.

We decided the experiment went well and was useful. So I am going to do it every first Tuesday at 7pm London time. Anyone can come from any module and we will talk about things that people bring up to talk about – making links across the course and learning from each others experiences.

I am naming it the First Tuesday Coffee House meeting – so if you want to join-in the next one April 2^nd send me your skype address and /or a skype request so we are connected.

What do you think?

Adesola

People at the meeting today were

Ahmet 

http://mrahmet.blogspot.com

Kym  

http://kymwalton.blogspot.co.uk

Sophie

http://sophiejones17.blogspot.co.uk

and me

Visit their blogs to see what they say too….

Rubric

I found this rubric as I was looking through some work. It is a good example of expectations for writing, might be especially useful for those writing their reflection of learning in Module One although I think it is interesting reading for writing in the context of  BAPP in general. What do you think?

Example for BAPP blog: Assessment Rubric (from 3/12/2008)

	Beginner fail (below level)	Expected	Developed	Progressing	Notes
External sources of Knowledge: Aware academic / professional ideas of other and seeing how they fit into your work.	Cite one or no external ideas.	Cite others work  two- three	Cite others work appropriately (examples) four or five Aware of others doing similar work as you	Cite others work effectively – (developed ideas on) more than five
Internal conception of knowledge: Recognising own practise as a source of knowledge.	Telling the story of something that happened that helped you	Realisation: Articulating an   event or incident when self practise developed, (without the aid a teacher).	Trust: Articulate a time when you acted on your practice (self knowledge / things you have learnt) without confirmation or direction of someone else.	Giving / Risk: being able to articulate a through-line (show us how it manifests) of your practice in life outside of the arts or work.
Selection and Justification of approaches to tasks	Wrote the work	Work has a number of drafts, final draft could track the development of the drafts (work went through development stages)	Work reflects other forms of thinking used in the process of composing the essay.	Work is a vehicle that summarises a whole process of learning. Almost like a report on the learning that has been done (persons went through development stages)
Ethical Understanding	Know external frameworks.	Work articulates how student can see the impact of themselves and their practice on others. Aware of external frameworks (rules) and apply them.	Articulate how practice is informed by awareness of particular views and experiences, aware of the effect they have on others.  Know external ethical frameworks and incorporate them into this knowledge of their actions.	Articulate a clear understanding of responsibilities: Practice is informed by student’s perceived place in society – student shows a range of ways to engage with others because of the impact research / study might have. Analyse external frameworks and develop them for themselves.
Analysis and synthesis	Ideas are evident.	Can track where ideas have developed and how they have been influenced by experiences.	Show how ideas have linked in the past and the range of ways ideas emerge. Show the different ways in which ideas can be used. (concepts, principles, systems, models)	Articulate the personal process for developing and applying ideas, shows awareness of other peoples’ processes as well.
Self appraisal / reflection on practise	Explain how a teacher has helped their develop	Explain how a past experience has informed the way the student does things now. The Student explains how their impression of their work has differed from a teacher’s.	Explain how past experience has been used to inform a wide range of elements of practice.	Shows how the student has developed their practice through   intentional use of self reflection (not instigated by someone or something else). Instances of this.
Action Planning leading to effective and appropriate action (B3)	Table or schedule of events	Evidence of how they plan, including prioritising and   setting of aims and objectives.	Showing evidence of having planned for themselves and others. Plan would accommodate a number of people and schedules &/or use existing action planning tool/s.	Shows understanding of ethical implications and the impact of their work has on others. Their work theorises or cites other planning methods.
Evaluation of information (B4)	Student describes information that they think is relevant.	Presents ways that have been   used to access information and identify what is important to their personal practice.	Present a range of existing evaluation tools/ formulas that they have found valuable.	Show personally devised ways and systems that are used to evaluate information.
Application of learning in number of contexts	Shows that student learnt stuff.	Learnt something and show how student used it in a different circumstance.	Learnt something and used it in two other contexts (home-life, teaching, technique class, relationships).	Learnt something and used it in more than two contexts, or at a very deep level.
Use of resources will be effective and wide ranging	Has put aside some time each week to study.	Shows understanding of relevant resources and how they would be useful.	Gathered a number of resources (such as people, things,   ideas, funding) in support of their work.	Sees impact of their work on others. Can describe the strategic implications of their work as a resource for others.
Effective Communication	Good at story telling.	Uses the standard methods of written and oral presentation for academia. (sentence construction, argumentation and citation)	Articulation of the use of a range of approaches to communication / presentation and some are used.	Successful and clearly decided approaches to support impact of ideas and concepts in their work. Articulation of why this approach was used.
Working and learning autonomously and with others	Evidence of being organised and punctual.	Organised work, with a method of working developed from past experience. Can identify the people they work with ‘best’	Shows strategies for working autonomously and with others. Is willing to take a number of roles within a group (challenge, reflect, support).	Shows knowledge of when to engage with others, is aware of their responses to different group settings. Shows awareness of when and how to challenge and support others. Can articulate personal perspectives in relation to working autonomously and with others.

URGENT SKYPE conversations groups

I need you send me request for contact on SKYPE and / or email me your SKYPE  addresses so I can contact you. It would be great to have sorted that out before Tuesday / Wednesday. Please email me the information.