Why blog when I’m busy? And it doesn’t get marked! multiple agents construct meaning through interaction

Not to be even heavier than usual!!! This blog is about community: I do not believe we exist alone. I think we are connected to, influenced by, shaped, and fed – exist really in our interactions.  It is what I write about:

“A ‘thing’ is what one knows it to be, and when ones knowledge of it changes it changes also therefore epistemologically and ontologically things are the same. A person could not exist unaffected by what is around them as if person and environment existed independently of each other. Instead the reality of both is found in how they are perceived by each other through their interactions and responses.

‘Our position is simply that since man as an organism has evolved among other organisms in an evolution called “natural”, we are will under hypothesis to treat all of his behaving, including his most advanced knowing, as activities not of himself alone, nor even as primarily his, but as processes of the full situation of organism-environment;’ (Dewey and Boydston 2008, p. 97)

Placing the perceiving body as central, the experiential nature of this complements dance. Dance clearly also finds meaning through the body interacting with its environment for instance a dance step, such as a grand bat-mon, is not just a technical description but is also created by the body of the specific dancer executing it, the environment it is executed in (the floor surface, the size of space), the rhythm of music and so on. The Grand-bat-mon is an example of the object becoming how it is interacted with. The dance step cannot be extracted from our interactions with it. This is a good example of how something is interacted with shapes what it is.

This dissolving of the subject / object divide is experienced in dance. Dance is a thinking process, not through the subjects static mental theorising but is the sensory interaction of the dancer through movement. The mind-ful body of the dancer is a mechanism of many parts responding to the environment of the dance studio including responses to other dancers, physical environment, sound and intention of action. Dance activity highlights the possibility of a kind of metaphysic in which multiple agents construct meaning through interaction. Sheets-Johnstone exemplifies this relationship of perception, interaction and movement as she describes the interactive process of dance contact improvisation.

‘The world that I and other dancers are together exploring is inseparable from the world we are together creating’ (Sheets-Johnstone 2009, p.32)”

So how do we teach like that, taking into account of the fact each of you (the students) are connected to your life; each of you are a part of your own parade? (doing Work Based Learning). How would you do it? We thought of blogs as a way to make those connections – this is away to talk to the community of people on BAPP (and MAPP) and still respect your busy lives. So you can say what you think – connect at 2am because that’s when the idea comes to you and still be able to be heard by those people who are not on that kind of schedule, who will read the post at 9am because that’s their thing. And then they might notice something in what you say because they have different connections, they are a part of a different parade. As you do the same for them. The blogs are also public and have the possibility to reach out to people all over the world. When I look at the stats. of who looks at my blog they include, Russia, India, Europe, USA, … Someone out there might have something to say that you would not other wise ever get to meet. We have a lot to do to make a better world, the collaboration of communication and listening is part of it I believe so that is why I teach on this course this way. But if you don’t write posts or comment or engage in the community then it defeats the philosophy of the idea. The blogs are about what Sheets-Johnsone: describes together we are explore and creating the educational experience – the learning journey. You are not dancing alone in a black hole!! That’s my answer to why blog?

What do you think?

Adesola

Dewey, J. and Boydston, J. A. (2008) The later works of John Dewey, 1925-1953, The collected works of John Dewey, 1882-1953, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2009) The corporeal turn : an interdisciplinary reader, Exeter, UK ; Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic.

Writing Session

Writing Session on 23rd of October '12 - scheduled for 10am - 2pm (but you could always end a bit early if needed). Attendance is open for people from all three modules. This workshop has been developed specifically for BAPP (Arts) to help in 'thinking' and communicating.

Please come to the Central Reception at 10am in College Building (the atrium or quadrangle area) at the Hendon Campus. Directions to Hendon are on the Libguide Noticeboard. If you do arrive after the start we will be in the College House building.

Peter has pencilled in an agenda below – but  he will prepare extended exercises for this who have attended before.

Conceptions of writing:
the students’ own
other writers’
their lecturers’ (as evidenced in criteria, etc.)
A process-approach to writing-thinking through drafting (moving from private to public):
This will emphasise the use of writing as a means of coming to a conclusion.

PLEASE look out for materials from the workshop on the Libguide after the event.

Reflection, ethics, identity and a well cooked cake

Please read the whole post not just the parts that start with your module at the a start of the paragraph; it is useful to see things from different perspectives. See if what I write about another module resonates with the one you are on. For instance, if you are in Module Two, thoughts on Module One might add meaning to the experience of doing the module now you can reflect back on the module, and thoughts on Module Three might help you see where you want to go with what you are doing now.  Remember things always have new elements to them because you are changing and having more experiences so your interactions with things change.

This week Module One’s might be starting to move on to the reflection tasks. Here are some reflective thoughts following on from my last blog. Some people have written little biogs. instead of CV’s on their blogs. The idea of looking at your CV is to review what you have done!!! in terms of trying to see  patterns and themes to what your experience has been. I think writing a biog. is a good way to do this as well because it means you have to put a kind of narrative to the lists of your CV. As I said last week once you have done this it is interesting to think about what you valued and shouted about from your experience and what you take for granted and what you don’t mention. The way you construct these introductions to yourself also tell you about your own ethical values and principles. It is important to think about this from the beginning of the course although you will be talking about ethics specifically in module two, it is more than just administrative guidelines. You have presented some rule for conduct, what you think is appropriate already just by making your blogs.  Thinking about this leads us into the reflective section of Module One.  This is about finding ways to engage in reflective thought in terms of experiences. Dewey saw the action of the body as reflective thought – the mind full body. The actions you take like making a blog are the results of your reflective thoughts, but how can you be more conscious of these reflective thoughts? The habits you have are not just physical habits they are habits of thought also. (for instance if you have an injury and can’t walk the way you usually do, your habit of walking is interrupted but the issue of getting about becomes more than just finding a way to walk it changes your feelings and thoughts about things too.) As you are introduced to reflection in module one think about how it ties into what you have done so far in the course. We are hoping you will keep the tools and use of Reflection throughout the course and beyond. 

Module Two’s are looking at questions, ethics, themes and interests. This module is an introduction to research methods and that means it is about questioning your assumptions. So first question your assumption about what a question is, what is it for (to get to an answer, to get clarification, to know more about something?). I have been saying it is not useful to think of a question as something used to get to an answer. The very idea of questions should start you questioning your assumptions. Then as you realise you have made assumptions about thinks it is useful to know why you were drawn to that assumption this is where your personal principles (rules for how you understand life, community, society) have kicked in and they are fed by a sense that you are a good person and useful part of things right? So you are acting along a set of ethical principles but where did they come from? You weren’t born thinking questions led to answers or people should do surveys so other people can know more about them!!! As I wrote above your actions the way you understand things is not right or wrong but it is the result of some habits of body and thought where have they come from and what makes them right or wrong for you – this is ethics… and reflection… and inquiry… and sometimes quite disorientating which is why I am always saying have courage. Have courage to question yourself first.

Module Three’s I want to talk about analysis. You have gone out and collected data (or you are about to). Think of data like ingredients. Analysis of the data is doing something with it. You are a cook expert because of your life experiences and you have to make something with the ingredients. Do not just display the ingredients for us (in a pie chart!!!!). Anyone can go out and get some flour, sugar and eggs. You have to MAKE THE CAKE not give us the data (ingredients albeit in a beautiful display) and tell us to make it ourselves. Its like giving a birthday party and bring out Tesco’s bags of shopping with a candle on top!!! You are reading literature, reflecting on your life experience and remembering the situation of gathering the data in order to do something informed and interesting with it for us to try.  Then because really you are making a critical review and artefact not a cake you also have room to explain why you cooked it that way, what you thought you were doing by cooking it and what came out of the oven in the end. A lot of mixed metaphors. Do you get what I am saying???

And now for a new section of my post called – what is Adesola doing!!!! Well, I thought it would be interesting to talk a bit about where some of my questions have taken me this week and see if they resonate with ideas you are having. I have been writing a paper with a friend  to present at Re:Generations in a couple of weeks. We are looking at the interconnectedness of dancer, environment and cultural discourse. Part of this looks at how cultural and personal identity (which manifests physically through belief systems see what I wrote about  Dewey) is affected by the aesthetic of particular dance techniques. How do we as choreographers encourage the dancer to move within the personal nuances of them Selves and also draw of established techniques that do not originate from the cultural indicators the dancer identifies with? This is particularly interesting to me in terms of Contemporary Dance which despite all the world influences at it’s inception (Ruth St. Denis and Martha Graham, and Katherine Dunham drawing on North African - Egyptian, Asian - Indian, African, Native American) seems to be Europeanised in terms of ownership. This is a question about ownership of modernity when one is of the western world but from non-european heritage. Contemporary work that comes from Non-European artists working in Europe seems to be distinct in that it is seen as work that is contemporary with a XXX influence as if XXX (Nigerian, Indian whatever) was fixed in the past and did not have a contemporary manifestation. This second point is the topic for another paper I am presenting in New Mexico at a Dance Conference (CORD) in November. I will be talking about the Jingle Dress, a piece I made and toured UK in 2010 which draws on Native American discourses particularly the Jingle Dress dance.  Here is the New Mexico blurb:

“The paper explores how Contemporary dance’s physicalised inquiry into meaning and principles of being impacts on embodied and cultural identity when it draws on traditional dances as a source. The research takes an ethnographic / case study approach drawing on the experience of creating the performance piece ‘The Jingle Dress’ a 45 minute work for 3-5 year old audiences. Ethnographic data is drawn from having been a part of traditional dances and ceremonies on Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota for over 20 years, as well as the creative process of making the work- the Jingle Dress- and responses to the work. For the purposes of this presentation there will be a discussion of how dance shapes cultural identities and personal philosophy. As well as exploration as to whether within a contemporary context shared philosophical principles (such as Pragmatism) and shared embodied approaches (such as dance) can create communities of understanding across cultures or strips cultural identities.”

I will talk more about these two papers (questions) over the next few weeks. I have cited a number of books in the New Mexico paper, here are three of interest:

Johnson, E. P. (2003) Appropriating blackness : performance and the politics of authenticity, Durham, N.C. ; London: Duke University Press.

Pratt, S. L. (2002) Native pragmatism : rethinking the roots of American philosophy, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Nikolais, A. and Louis, M. (2005) The Nikolais/Louis dance technique : a philosophy and method of modern dance, New York ; London: Routledge.

Please comment on any of the above – what do you think?

 Adesola

Week Two: noticing

HI

Week two and hopefully you are getting into the flow of things. Finding your ‘student world’. The best place for work: home or a coffee shop? Do you work best in long chunks or short regular bursts? How do you schedule your BAPP working times?  Do you work best after a yoga class, a strong coffee (de-café of course!!), in the morning or afternoon? Its fun to workout what or how you are as a student. Somehow my student self in my head is always heading for Paris!!

Please read ALL the below whatever Module you are on: the course is all connected

Module One’s: by now you have your blog going, you have played with Flickr and maybe some other web tools. But this is not a tick box type course. You need to notice how you did things, what you did. Already you have made choices (ethical choices) about how you have presented yourself, what you value as important and what you haven’t said. Although all you did was start a blog you took action according to your own value system, your principles your priorities your ethics. Think about what this says about you and what is meaningful to you? Who helped you or influenced you to have this values and principles? This module is about seeing how you fit in to a wider world – contextualising yourself in order to better understand your professional practices. The reflection section of the module will help you with this and it is next…

Module Two’s: You will have been thinking about questions. These are not questions you will be finding answers to!!!!!!! They are questions about something you want to find out more about. Think of your research question as something you want to ask BETTER questions about when you have finished the research NOT something you will have found an answer to when you have finished the research. So maybe look back at the reflective work you have been doing see what keeps interesting you, what keep making you excited to work, what you are curious about. This is probably the area you could work in. Then think about HOW you are asking the question. How does the way you ask a question affect the kind of answer you will get. This is important because the rest of the module is looking at how you ask which is the research methods you will use. This module is more full on than the first module, so get stuck in.

Module Three’s: One word: Literature

You are not alone!!! Find out what other people have said about your subject through being published or performance etc… Not the firs random article you find when you use Google ... If you had a conversation with someone else who studied what you are looking into who would they know you need to know them too. This module is not about gathering data! It is about what you do with it. And what you do with it involves thinking about what other people have theorized too. You are not alone. The wheel has been invented. Now – also – where do you stand in all is going on. What is your philosophical framework? What assumptions have you made – that people will talk honestly to you in interviews? Did /will that happen? That we are all equal and nobody will be intimidated by you asking them questions? That everyone has an opinion about your project area? Did / will they? The truth is out there? Or there are many truths?

Things that have “gone wrong’ so far are also a part of your data the best part probably. For instance I keep asking teachers if they will talk to me about dance & and Maths, most of the Maths teachers have not replied for interview dates and one did but only had ten minutes in a busy staffroom where I couldn’t properly record the interview and I am worried about running out of time, all of the dance teachers have been very excited about the idea and I have interviewed one already.  My question is ‘How do we integrate dance into core curriculum subjects?’ I feel need Maths teachers data. But I have some already – they are not interested, that has resonance with my question. When I come to analyse all the data the fact I couldn’t even have a conversation with a Maths teachers is part of the data and comments on the question. Once you begin the research EVERYTHING that happens is part of the process. Be brave and let it happen.

What do you’s lot think?

Adesola

Think about this!

This blog is one I am hoping you will return to across the term to remind you of basics. As I have said in the past I am dyslexic. For me English (and any languages apart from sign-languages) feel foreign.  I feel most able expressing myself in the wordless mode of movement. So it is with the mind-set of someone who has learnt (and is learning) the rules of a foreign language that I write this about the academic presentation of your work. These are constant problems that there is no need to make.

1.    Your work should have page numbers, with your name and student id number in the footer.

2.     Keep spacing (lines double-spaced) consistent throughout the paper. Check the font is consistent throughout the paper. Problems occur if you copy sections of text from other places and just put them into your paper. There are problems here with plagiarism if it is from others, and context if it is from something else you have written.

3.     Check the tense of the words you are using, check that the ‘s’ ‘ed’ ‘ly’ type endings of words are correct in terms of the sentences you are using them in.

4.     Check you understand and explain the words you use. Don’t rely on the word itself to explain your meaning. Explain the ideas rather than prove you have read something by just coping the same words you read.

The literature – is what other people who are established in the area have said about the area you are looking at. It is not a few random articles that come up on Google when you first look. The literature carries the trends for what people think on the topic. It is a source from which you can compare your experiences and the opinions of the people you know. THE PEOPLE YOU KNOW ARE NOT THE SOLE SOURCE. Do not use the people you know as if they were the literature. This is not because their opinions are not valid, it is because the literature is a part of a wider discussion.  (Like it or not published works are made credible across the world. Because they are published)

If you don’t like reading this just means you need to do careful research on which books would be best to read, so you only read what you really need to read. It does NOT mean you just don’t read.

Learn how to cite, quote from books, journals, and articles in the press. (See earlier blogs guide-line for citing or look at lib-guides.) If you write a paper and you haven’t cited a few things think of this as a problem and ask yourself why not.

Send your Advisor your best work for feedback. Do not send work in the hope that the feedback will help you finish it. If you send your best effort then the feedback will help push you further. If you send anything else then all the feedback does at best is get you to where you might have got to on your own anyway.

Work out your ideas and the ‘story’ of what you are writing anyhow you need to. Then write it. The act of writing a paper is an act of communication (NOT THINKING), You have to know what you want to communicate before you start to communicate it. When I write a paper I find my first version is very emotional, it seems to include everything I’ve ever thought, I end up crying and by the end the whole thing is so confusing. Then I take a breath (do a dance class or some other kind of movement – this helps me think). Then I start all over again. This is because I need to get all the chips off my shoulder before I can write something that is not just about me justifying what I think. It is also because I am dyslexic and so I don’t think in the linear unemotional form needed for a paper. I understand I have a process that takes at least four drafts for me to get to what would be the first draft for some people – 1) the emotional draft, 2) the first one when I re-order everything, 3) the draft where I realise what I am really trying to say, 4) the draft where I triple check for spelling and left out words. And I need to move between each step in order to think. This (fourth) draft is my official first draft. The one I would send someone for feedback. What process do you use now? How can you develop this process? Use your time on this BA course to work out your process and tinkering with it so it is workable for you. This means you leave the course with a new skill and a new understanding of yourself.

Understand that just because one does academic type work does not mean one will suddenly become comfortable in a dream academic type approach to creating (where you sit down once with your computer and produce a master piece). Just like a dance class you have to fight for the techniques and practice by pushing yourself beyond what you think you can do.  Part of this is about finding a new way to express yourself – a new range to your voice.

As we start the new term please have a think about these points.

The blog below is information about the Re:generation conference in November. It is always interesting to go to conferences and hear the papers people present you get ideas about presenting work and styles of writing.

Adesola

Re:Generations Conference

November 1st – 3rd, 2012

Re:Generations is the UK’s largest gathering of dance artists, researchers, choreographers, teachers and students intending to shape future practice in dance from Africa and its Diaspora. After an exceptional inaugural event in 2010, this year’s conference, The Next Generation – Mapping New Futures, will explore how young people and emerging artists engage with African-influenced dance. The conference includes talks, film screenings, workshops and performances by contributors from the Caribbean, the UK and the U.S.A.

This year’s featured international guests are Germaine Acogny, ‘the mother of contemporary African dance’ and founder of L’école des Sables, Senegal; Kariamu Welsh-Asante, Professor of Dance at Temple University, Philadelphia, USA; and Chris Walker, dancer and choreographer with the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica, Assistant Professor of Dance/ Artistic Director of the First Wave Hip Hop Theater Ensemble at University of Wisconin-Madison, USA.

There will be evening performances in the Robin Howard Theatre on November 1st and 2nd featuring Chris Walker’s Urban Fissure, specially remounted for the conference and performed by UK-based young emerging artists. Walker’s work has been presented in the Caribbean, North and South America, South East Asia and Europe.

Runs 9am – 6pm daily.

Full Conference £100

Concessions £70

Hi welcome back

Here are some starting back thoughts.

First, if I am your advisor and haven’t already emailed you by Monday contact me (there may be a glitch in the matrix!!!). There are a number of advisors on the course we all have blogs and they are all useful because different people have different ways to explain and share the same ideas. I am going to be writing blogs that are across all three modules. So sometimes my posts might be more useful to someone on Module (3) than Module (1) but it is useful to think of the WHOLE course as one thing. Do not to think of each module as a closed set of activities we are making you do!! By thinking about what people are doing at other points in the course you might find something really useful for your current study. If you have finished a module there is nothing more to get out of it. Keep looking backward and forward (its how you locate yourself).

For people beginning the last module (3760) (that is Module (3), the research project) a couple of things:

1   The last module you did was to plan what you are doing now – but its not written in stone, look at the feedback you had on your grading form, think about it now you have had the summer to let the idea settle.

2      Adapting your method, addressing questions your advisor highlighted is all part of the process. DO NOT think the whole thing is just about gathering data. You can get all the data in the world but it is only as useful as the questions you ask of it.

3   The module is about the process (as is pretty much everything we are doing) NOT ABOUT you finding an answer to some problem. Focus on your process, your artistic development, what you can LEARN. We are looking for you to show us what you learn from the experience that is all (and that is a lot).

So get chatting talk to people about what you think blog, email, don’t hide away trying to get a perfect answer for your project.

For people beginning Module (2) (3630). Have a look at what happen last year. Look at the blogs see what you can learn from observing what other people thought about. This module is quite extensive. Start to get on with things get the reading done its more intense than the first module because we are asking you to apply some of the principles you are learning about.

For people beginning the first Module (1) (3730) and everyone else remember this is not a set of hoops we want you to jump through. We have planned something that we hope will be useful and meaningful to you in YOUR situation. Try not to see the module as something to critique, or on the other hand something ordained from on high. Try and apply the ideas to your life. See if they are useful and in doing that see what you learn from them. Do not be put off by starting to blog just get on with doing it.

If you are re-doing a module have a look at what you did last time but also let go of some of the things that seemed like obstacles. Move forward, work out what helped you last time and what hindered you.

Get advice from your advisor if you got an unexpected mark. It was higher than you expected work out what you did to get that response, if it was lower work out what you did to get that response.

For everyone MAKE a timeline for yourself, work backwards from the hand-in date Jan 7^th 2013. Work out what you need to hand in to be marked. This is different from what you will be doing as tasks. Work out when you need to have a final draft by in order to get feedback from your advisor if you want it. Work out all the things you want to do right up to today. Make a plan and be kind enough to yourself to stick to it.

Lastly, my office hours on SKYPE  for this term (October 1^st to January 7^th )  will be:

Monday 11am to noon (GMT)

Tuesday 7pm to 8pm (GMT)

Thursday 7pm to 8pm (GMT)

Friday 11am to noon (GMT)

I have tried to make them when people have breaks at lunchtime at work or after work. However if you can not make these times email me for an appointment either on SKYPE or phone or over a coffee. Also if you see I am on SKYPE feel free to just call me I will let you know if I can chat or I will call you back when I can.

Have fun

Adesola

September 1st, shaking off the summer and beginning to prepare for the start of the new term. It's a great time to start getting a routine together for documenting reflections and ideas. Having a journal you carry around or texting your ideas to yourself on your phone, writing a 5 minute poem before you go to sleep, having a note book for lists that acts as an overview of your ideas and activity each week. I hope everyone had a good summer. Mohamed Ali said something along the lines of ' if you are exactly the same as you were 20 years ago, you have just waisted 20 years'. So let yourself be different from the Self that had ideas last term. The idea to enrol for module ones, the way you describe yourself to yourself for module twos, the plan you had for your research module threes. Thats the learning process slippery and ever changing!!!!

Info. passed on

Winchester Big Dance 2012 Commission Are you interested in…….. Working with a professional choreographer? Gaining an insight into how to make work for site specific projects? Being part of a large scale outdoor celebratory dance event? Keeping active over the Summer? Hampshire Dance still has a few places available for dancers to work with a established choreographer Bettina Strickler to create a site-specific dance performance for this year's Hat Fair in Winchester as part of Big Dance 2012. Bettina is an independent choreographer and ex Co-Director and performer with Protein Dance. The project is open to 3rd Year Students, recent graduates and dance artists. She will work with the group to create a new piece of dance to be performed in the outdoor spaces by the Great Hall and old castle in Winchester. Your performance will be part of a whole day of dance and street art that will celebrate the sheer quality and diversity of dance in the region. The event is part of a nation-wide response to Big Dance and Cultural Olympiad initiatives and will take place in collaboration with Winchester Hat Fair on Saturday 7 July. Rehearsals will be in Winchester from Monday 2 July to Friday 6 July from 10am – 4pm each day. To be part of this project please email anna.brown@hampshiredance.org.uk as soon as possible. Please include a short description of your dance experience and a statement to confirm that you can attend all rehearsals and the performance day.

Post Marked

A quick note from conversations I have had with students. The hand-in date is May 14^th. For things that are being mailed in this means you must attempt to have them post marked May 14^th . You do not have to send them to arrive on May 14^th because some people are on the other side of the world and would have to send things a week before or something. So this way everyone has the same cut off date. However you do need to email you work to arrive by May 14^th.

Feedback

This week is a short post because I think last weeks post left a lot to chew over. I have been doing some self-reflection because that is what we are asking you to do. Yoga class is a great place to think about ego. (I am a pragmatist believe everything is connected) but one teacher talked about thinking of oneself as be made of three parts: body, ego and breath, which is interesting. In yoga I butt up against ego in terms of body and breath and it helps me think about it. I was thinking about it because sometimes it feels as if there is a bit of a battle between me and the advisee and I wonder if my ego is getting involved.  I have to make sure I am not just saying things because that’s the way I would do it. But at the same time my role is kinda to know some established ways of doing things. It is a delicate balance to keep between suggesting something rather than instructing someone they have to do it, but also in a way so they notice you are suggesting it.  It gets back to the relationship on this course between us all. It is one where the student is not sitting at the feet of the teacher but is empowered to go out pull information to them – this is a connectivism model: acknowledging how the internet has changed the dynamic of teaching by having some much information available. BUT information is not knowledge what we as advisors are trying to help you with is two things:

Looking at the quality and validity of the information

Using the information so it becomes knowledge.

It is here that the clash (that could be ego) happens because here we come across points when we feel we all ‘know’ something. And knowing something is an important feeling because it anchors us down. But 'knowing more' is not a threat – of course it changes what you know and change is scary. In these last few weeks of term there is a hanging on to things because there is so much to do and you are so busy. But in fact this is the time when things might change as you write them up, as you discuss them and there is nothing wrong with saying I thought this and as I started to put it into my reflection or plan or review I realised that…. You do not have to fight your corner and hang on to stuff. You are just asked to honestly evaluate and reflect. If you can explain it and give a good reason for it, than that is more than half of what we expect. Comments and feedback will shift things and change things for you and you will need a moment re-group. But it is not about ego, it is about the disarming, amazing experience of learning.

My advice is to get your work to best possible place before you send it for feedback. This is a much more daring thing to do than anything else because it means the feedback will shake what you have done because you have done your best so far. But then it can only get better with more exploration. If you send it knowing it is too long, or part of it is missing then you are taking the safe option of kinda controlling what your feedback will be because you already sort of know what you think you need to change (and you run the risk of only hearing the parts you already know.)

What do you think? How do you feel?

Adesola

Details

Just did a piece of choreography with a Hip Hop Crew and they got me in “telling it how it is mode”!!!!! This week’s blog is all about the details. What ever module you are on please read all of this :)

11)    First, MODULE ONE please be assured we do not want you to write a critical reflection about how right we were to encourage you to learn more about Web 2.0. Really we are not asking you to reassure us we made a good decision in writing the module. It is not an exercise to make us feel good. WE really do want you to REFLECT CRITCALLY ON YOUR PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE using the experience of doing the module to inform how your thinking on your current and past professional experiences. Don’t just tell the story of the each module –“ web 2.0 is very useful.” Why in terms of your experiences, Is it really? How have you used it and has this changed? Also see    

Positioning of Self  16 October 2010

hhttp://www.adesolaa.blogspot.com/2010/10/positioning-of-self.html

22)    Read my post about ways to order what you write using a timeline can make it really hard to really reflect on something and makes it more like just a re-telling of an activity. also see 

Assessment portfolio 21 November 2010

http://adesolaa.blogspot.com/2010/11/assessment-portfolio.html

33)    Think of the blogs of students and advisors as a mine of information you can read what has been said about a module over the past three years. Three years of information and ideas about the very thing you are doing. Take the time to research the blogs themselves see how other people approached the assessment work. Why re-invent the wheel, make the same ‘mistakes’ someone has already made for you.

44)    The hand-in date is May 14^th now don’t ask me again!!!!!!

55)    When you send work in for feedback you will not be told this is ‘right’ and this is ‘wrong’. There is not ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, there is make a well-articulated critical reflection about something. The feedback from your adviser will consist of questions aimed at making you think further, or comments that hope to stimulate you to work further on your ideas. The more comments the more great ideas to develop you have. Don’t wait for us to say that’s ‘right’ because we don’t think that is very helpful to you. Who would want to condemn someone to being at the end of their learning journey in life? The exciting part is that there is always more.

66)    Read my recent post on citations, PLEASE. Citations are a vital part of the paper because they tell the Reader how to link what is being said to the rest of the world (sort of). You have to get your head around them and follow the way you are meant to use them. 

Citations Jan 27th 2012

http://www.adesolaa.blogspot.com/2012/01/citations.html

77)    OK NOW LISTEN: having data is not the end result of the research process. It’s like going to the shops and coming back with flour, eggs, and sugar and a candle and saying you’ve got a birthday cake! Data is like the ingredients but the skill (and how you show you understand) something is WHAT YOU DO WITH IT.

DATA IS NOT EVIDENCE TO PROVE YOU WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG.

It is something you use to better understand a situation.  MODULE TWOS as part of your plan you have to say what you will do with the information you gather in your interviews/ observations/ questionnaires. You could compare what you find to the literature – that is the basic analytical process.  You could compare it to your own historical / biographical experiences.   But the goal is not to have a volume of things people told you that you can pick through to prove a point you want to make. YOU HAVE TO EMBRACE WONDER.

MODULE THREES – great you’ve got data now don’t just basically tell us what it is as if we should have been at the interview too and you are having to tell us what happened. If that is all you do I could just as well as done it myself.  You are bring your unique experience and the literature you have read to the data, so you can share with us the wonder you found there , the way you found meaning (often by noticing themes), the things that surprised you, how you got meaning from the surprises. Also see   

Why research analysis is so important; it's not all data collection!  24 September 2009  http://www.adesolaa.blogspot.com/2009/09/why-research-analysis-is-so-important.html

88)    MODULE THREES – the time has come to think about and create your   artifacts. This is a thing that embodied the research experience, that allows you to express ideas and event without being limited to words. I know there is a work count max. but that is more to guild you towards the importance of the artefact. (Traditionally in universities the word count sort of indicates how much time to spend on something.) To make your artefact a word document that summaries the longer critical report you created is “kinda lame right”? It’s basically the same thing but shorter. Celebrate the embodied being you are not a head full of words. YOU KNOW THINGS outside the computer key board use you whole self.

99)    For those who have read my past blogs !!!! this may seem like I am repeating myself.  Imagine you are holding an audition and fifty people send you a file called “C.V.”

First problem:  You lift the file from the email of an auditionee and put it on your desktop say, great. The you do that again but the next file call “C.V.” replaces the first one or you have to spend time re-naming one of them. 

Second problem: imagine you some how got then to be all together in a folder maybe some ate call C.V. and others “C.V. for audition” etc… then when you look at them you do not know whose C.V. it is unless you open each one. 

I have literally been close to deleting a person’s application just because I was so exhausted and would have had to open the document. If you have 75 people already you think “I’m sure I can find someone from the people I already have.”

So my point is that you need to send files to people FOR THEM. The file name needs to help them know what it is NOT HELP YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS. If you are calling the file CV it because on your computer you have a number of things and you want to find your CV. It is named for you. But sending it out CV is what everyone else is sending too. Naming the file for the person who receives it means putting information on it you know already. You name it  “A. Akinleye CV”.

Likewise I have 20 people sending me a file called “critical review” !!!!! Great for your computer there is only one “critical review” but I now have 20 of them. I have to open and rename them so I don’t get them mixed–up.  Sending for the person who receives means thinking about their experience of you. Particularly, in an audition process as some many of us work in you want the experience to mean you are easy to find, notice, and clear and not giving them more work.  If I was going to give someone a job I want someone who will do the job not someone where I have to work first just to find out if I should hire them or not! Get it.

OK, talk to us, blog, email. What do you think of all this? Add some other tips in comments please. You can do it

Adesola

Time

Time is rushing by. It just seems like yesterday I wrote the last blog. I have been in a weird flux where there are lots of things in my head and I know I have things to do but completely lack the energy to do them! Sometimes I think you have to trust yourself: that you are working through things even if it seems like you are doing unconventional things (like watching every episode of Glee in my case!!). Having a timetable of the term acts as a safety net because them you can make sure you don’t get behind while allowing yourself time to just brood on things. I wonder if you are feeling the same? Its kind of still Easter Break so I hope you have given yourself a bit of thinking time. A bit of a short post today.

Finding a focus

This week I spoke to a student in module two about the size of the project you are being asked to plan. I used a dance class metaphor that might be helpful for others: The topic area of your inquiry is like a dance class. You decide what field / area/ genre you are going to be exploring. This is like you deciding if you are going to be in a ballet class, a tango class, a hip-hop class that tells you the context of what you are doing, (ie an inquiry in the field of curriculum development for stage schools, or funding cuts in dance or marketing a small business). So now you know the topic the class type in terms of the metaphor. But your inquiry is not the whole class. The inquiry is to find one exercise in the class to focus on and really look into.

So in my area of a ballet class my inquiry is to look really carefully at how I do my tendues. I look at this really closely and carefully within the context of the whole class but I do not try to take on looking really closely at all the exercises in the whole class its too much at one time. It is important to do one thing really well and with real care and that will inform, support and connect to a bigger picture. So you are looking at your field of inquiry and finding something you really want to know more about. Not looking at the whole field as a site for proving things you already know. In terms of the metaphor you are deciding the type of environment / type of dance class you but then you are focusing down to look at a particular thing / one exercise to really work at.

Does that metaphor work for you?

Well, I hope everyone is having a good Easter Break

Adesola

Holidays, networks, tools and be led!

This week’s blog is a little late, in that I try to post each Thursday. I had a test on Thursday and then had to watch a few hours of 'Glee' to calm back down.

So how is it going? The Easter holidays are upon us but I know for some people that means having more time to work on your module since work obligations are not as intense over the holiday. As the term comes to an end really meeting your own scheduling targets for your study is important. You might use some of the time to assess where you are in the module and re-schedule how you will approach the activity of the last few weeks. Always leave yourself a couple of weeks to write and re-write what you are handing in. In some ways you need to think of writing the work you are handing as an experience in itself that will teach you more. Having written it you might find that the experience of writing it completes the module activity for you and helps you have a full perspective. At that point you will have a kind of clarity of completion that will in form the whole process and will mean you can go back to what you wrote and improve it in terms of order, or clarity of the points you make or seeing where you have left out something important.

I am not going back on what I am always saying about thinking. I am not saying that thinking is IN the writing but knowing the whole event is helpful for organising understanding of it. The whole event is doing the tasks AND writing about the learning. It is like the way if you are learning a dance sequence even if you don’t know how to do it all yet knowing how it will end helps you to start to internalise the sequence so you can learn and remember it. I always find while I am being taught a sequence it seems really long and overwhelming, but once I know the whole thing where it goes I can start to manage the parts of it much better and it don’t seem as long at all.

Module Ones are thinking about networks. This is am important idea because it is about how you connect to things and how you see yourself in the context of your professional activities. The last part of Module one is different from the first two parts because it is asking you to expressly look beyond yourself, to position yourself in the field of your activities. This is the first time we ask you to expressly do this. The reflection part of the module asks you to look in and the network part of the module asks you to look out. By doing both you get a sense of where you are, what your position is now, where you come from and how that has influenced you and the trajectory that moves you forward that will be the energy you use to engage with module two and then later three. I have a number of posts about ‘positioning’ and ‘YOU’; have a look around my Blog at posts from the past.

Module Twos are looking at tools of inquiry. The pilots are trying out tools to see what they do in practise in terms of the kind of information you get from them. Then think about whether this information is in the form that addresses the approach you have taken to inquire. Does it create data that is relevant to what you are interested in. In other words if you piloted something and found you got data in numerical form, (six people thought that, seven thought this) is that useful if your topic is about personal experiences of people? You might have piloted another tool and found you got a massive amount of thoughts from two people this form of data might be much more useful. NOW why do you need to have useful data?... because the inquiry is not about generating data (information) it is about what you do with the data, it is about your analysis (see last weeks blog). If how you are going to analyse is to compare numbers, you need data in the form of numbers to do that. If you are comparing or looking at feelings you need to have documentation of feelings to do that. How do you know what kind of analysis you will undertake? You know because in your inquiry question you indicate what you are looking for.
Module two is about making the ‘framework’ of your inquiry - all the bits fit in and support each other. The art of the module (and research in general) is to be sensitive to the life of the inquiry / the question itself and not to impose your own expectations and assumptions on to what will happen. This is to allow the research to lead you NOT for you to lead the research. This is a lesson for Module Threes also as they begin writing-up there research now.

What do you think?
Adesola

Weeks 6,7,8& 10 (Module three particularly)

This week I am writing particularly for people on Module Three, although I think it is important for everyone to think about … analysis. According to the Addendum page on Libguides in week six

“Students send adviser 1-2 paragraphs as a sample of your inquiry analysis. Formative feedback will be given on the structure, the quality of the arguments and the quality of the supporting evidence discussed”

I was talking to one of my students about this and we thought that some of our conversation would be good to share on the blog. So here is my take on how to address this. First this is not about writing the whole analysis section of the Critical Review Think of the analysis as an actual activity and you need sometime to do it. What you are meant to be sending is something that explains how you are addressing the activity of analysing your data. This is to check that you are actually doing it and not just writing-up an ‘incident report’ type piece of writing instead of a Critical Review.

So here is how I would do it. Summarize the following:

1) What kind of data is it that you gathered? – you may have intended to get one thing and in fact when you did your data collection you got something else. So although you said what you wanted to do in your project plan (and you will also explain this starting point in your introduction in the Critical Review) it is important to show you know what it is you got. For instance in my last research project my data was:
i) The narratives of eight people about what it feels like to learn to dance.
ii) Literature by dance academics that discusses what it feels like to dance, I particularly use McFee.
iii) My own observational data from watching the eight people in dance classes, and from doing the dance classes myself

What is important here is that I know the kind of data I gathered and I can put into categories of like kind – narratives, literature, observational. What did you gather?

2) What are you doing with it? This is hopefully some kind of triangulation (if you don’t know this word you should by now). But how are you triangulating – for example I am:
• comparing what the people said with what I felt within the classes
• comparing what the people said with watching them in the classes
• comparing what the people said with what the literature says
• comparing what the literature says with what I observed of the people in the classes
• comparing what the literature said with what it felt like in class
• comparing what I observed with what the people said
• comparing what it felt like in class with what the people said
• etc…

3) What themes are emerging from the data? From doing this I keep noticing certain things, ideas, theories. Some ideas reoccur to me or some questions keep coming up. Organising these I can group them into themes. So this step is

4) What you are doing next? These themes are where you do the activity of analysis in that you start to look deeper into them. For each theme you might need to read more of the literature focusing on the aspect of one of the themes. You might want to go back to the place you collected the data and look at things again with a theme in mind. You are starting to inquire into how the themes that have emerge relate to the initial research question that you started out from. You will need to ask yourself questions like why do you think you (yourself) noticed this in the data. Is it unexpected? Etc…

Then you need to look at what relationship the themes have with each other and with the research question. So lastly in your summary you need to state what ‘more’ you are doing which of the themes you are looking at more deeply.

So a summary of your analysis would be:
What kind of data you have
What you are doing with it
How you are doing this.
What themes have been emerging.
What more you need to know and/ or what questions have they raised
Any ideas you have at this point in terms of how this relates to your initial research question.

This should be short and clear for your own clarity and direction. In terms of what supporting evidence is, this not to build an argument yet. You need to do the above. Think of the use of the word ‘evidence as ‘illustration’. See my blog on my MAPP site March 8th
RoL 'evidence'
http://www.adesolamapp.blogspot.com/2012/03/rol-evidence.html

Now in week 10 you are asked to:

“Students send to advisers the last two sections of your Critical Review (Analysis and Critical Reflection) in draft for written feedback”

at that point you should have done the activity of the above and be able to start to put it into the words you are going to use to explain it in the Critical Review. But the words themselves are not the activity of analysis; analysis is the activity of thinking!!!


Before that in week 8 you are asked to have a draft of the first two sections of the Critical Review.

“Students send adviser the first two sections of your critical review in draft form (Introduction, Evaluation) …..”

Much of the ‘knowledge’ for this is already known by you. It is the outline of what you planned to do which is all in the work you did in Module two. It is just that in module two you planned it now you write have done it. The introduction would be to say why your interested, where you are carrying out the research, a bit a about you as the Researcher etc… the evaluation is saying what happen if any of the data collection activity changed from the plan, if the you used a different methodology than you had planned etc… This should not be a problem to write because you already know it all. Getting this bit written is just helpful because psychologically (and actually) it feels like you have a chunk of the work done. OF COURSE you will need to go back to this draft at the writing-up period and work through the text incorporating a little bit about what you found (your analysis) which will not be complete at week 8 so that why you will have to go back to this draft.

Long post!!
Does that make sense what do you think?
Adesola

Dance UK - Healthier Dancer Conference

Monday 30 April 2012, 9am - 5pm
Healthier Dancer Programme Conference:

Nutrition and disordered eating in dance: Artistry, athleticism and the role of the multidisciplinary support team.

Book Now for EARLY BIRD rates (until 2 April) Dance UK members from £40 and students from £30
Venue: Royal Society of Medicine, LONDON, W1G 0AE
Key topics: Demands on dancers, healthy nutrition, and the prevention and treatment of disordered eating.

This conference will aid the dancer and their multidisciplinary support team to identify and encourage healthy behaviours and deal effectively with disordered eating patterns when necessary. It advocates a multidisciplinary approach, with presentations from leading artistic directors, health professionals, and support staff in addition to personal insights from dancers.

Speakers will include: Dame Monica Mason DBE, Artistic Director, Royal Ballet; Lauren Cuthbertson, Principal Dancer, Royal Ballet; and Huw Goodwin, Research Associate, Loughborough University Centre for Research into Eating Disorders (LUCRED).

Dancers are expected to train hard and perform excellently. This, in turn, puts particular nutritional demands on the body and psychological demands on the person. This conference will explore the technical, aesthetic, social, and personal demands on the dancer. It will ask how these demands can be managed to achieve optimal health and performance, rather than disordered eating.

Sessions include:
• The technical and aesthetic demands of dance and whether they are realistic and healthy for dancers; to be debated by a panel of artistic directors including David Nixon, Artistic Director Northern Ballet and Ann Sholem, Artistic Director National Dance Company Wales.

• A panel of dancers and educational staff will explore experiences of disordered eating in educational and professional environments.

• Recommendations for identifying and treating disordered eating.

• Recommendations for best nutritional practice, education, and the prevention of disordered eating.

• The day will finish with a discussion around the role of the multidisciplinary team working with dancers, including recognising and managing maladaptive strategies and supporting dancers’ ultimate goals of optimal health and performance.


For booking details please go to: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3053540221

Messy

Well, hard to believe it’s week 5!! Hopefully you are well into everything, possibly getting acquainted with the feeling of ‘not knowing’, which comes before that light-bulb moment as things click into place. I think the biggest thing to check at this point is that you are ‘in it’. That is you have done the things you set yourself to do and if you have not just get on and do them as best you can – get messy.

Module ones are trying out different kinds of reflection tools, writing different journals. And going further than the handbooks by looking at books in the library by theorists that have interested them from the Reader.

Module twos are really looking deeply at the ethical questions that their experiences, and professional environment raise – maybe asking uncomfortable questions of themselves or looking at things differently.

Module Threes are coming to the end of data collection and starting to try to find meaning in all the pieces of the research.

Emergence: it’s a messy, wonderful time! And then it’s Spring the perfect illustration of growth as dainty buds move stones and dirt in order to push themselves into the sun and flower. You might be pushing some stones too.

A word about books: (still thinking about literature for all modules)

Below is a really interesting TED talk. It is about the way Google, Hulu etc… find things ‘you would be interested in’. That is the mathematical patterns that computers run in order for listings to be produced. When you Google things for instance. Now how do things pop-up when there is so much out there… its not magic.

Watch the video, which is a word of warning about the trust we place in these patterns. It is clear that it can not be ‘fair’ because how does anyone decide what should be first etc. So as something goes viral it can be ‘real’ be what it appears to be or it can be something else – marketing. How do you check its authenticity?? It is why the internet is problematic as your only source of information gathering. There is an in crowd.

Books that have been published go through extended checking because they are out there and people can question them. Authors have to cited other authors to show where things have come from. Now I am not saying that this is not exactly the same situation of in crowd. There is an in crowd in the literature too. Judith Butler who writes about women’s profile in the crowd and Cornel West who writes about the non- caucasian’s profile in the crowd. The point is that the bias in the book has been better documented than the bias in the internet. The books have been going on for thousands of years and the internet is new to us. So ideas from cross across a range of sources seems to be most useful. I highly recommend you look at published works as much as the internet.

What do you think?
Adesola

Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape are our lives

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape_our_world.html

Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape are our lives

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape_our_world.html

Having fun, chatting and being brave!

Module One people you are starting reflection tasks these can be a lot of fun. In the past, as well as the tasks in the Handbook, we have tried writing a poem each night. It is a fun way to see what you were thinking, often it is quite a surprise what you write about. Reflection is at the core of this work since it is the process of analysis (looking at the things around you and finding meaning, relationships and connections between things. The reflection reader is your first introduction to theory in the course. Take the time to find out more about some of the people you are reading about and also to apply (link) the theory with your own day-to-day experience -  reflection. 

Module Two people a word about the SIGs each year the students in this module have found different ways to make groups. The goal is to have a group of people to discuss with. In the past facebook has worked well but this year Linked-In seems to be working well for some people too. Go to the notice board on Libguides to see which groups have been formed. You don’t have to make a new group for every thought or theme you have. Just find / create a place where you can exchange ideas with peers. Remember it could be a regular meeting in a coffee shop with other students near you, but for most people the internet is easier because they are moving about because of work or do not live near other students. The point is the get chatting with people.

You are also thinking about ethics. I really would like to stress that ethics is partly about what you create for others. It is about thinking about what your actions will create and also thinking about how one can not control what people receive from us but we can put in checks and reflection points for ourselves to consider what our actions and perceptions create.

Module Three people – artefacts!! You know its great to start to think about what you could do for an artefact, but I want to ask you to consider being brave and allow yourself NOT TO KNOW yet. It is pretty hard to know at the moment because a large part of your inquiry is your analysis (thinking, reflection) of your data. You cannot really know what your inquiry is really about until you have done that part. At the moment as you collect data you are following ideas, intuition, literature but putting it all together happens in the analysis which is down the line yet. So of course you don’t know what the artefact is yet. Remember it is an artefact of the inquiry not a solution to the ‘problem’. The inquiry is not about problemtising elements of your profession (to which the artefact is a solution) rather you are inquiring to find out more for yourself.  The artefact is the manifestation of the experience of the inquiry. It is a way to move from a totally theoretical piece of work to something that expresses outside words something that stands physically outside of the pile of words in your report.

What do you all think? How is it going?

Adesola