Tuesday chats presentations and plans

More soon...

We talked about Module Three presentations
Read Eleanor post
https://ellebyrne.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/birds-eye-view-rather-than-chronological.html

The Art is in the process

We had two great Discussion groups on Tuesday. I am going to highlight some of the different points that we talked about and some I have talked about with other people in One-to-ones.
First some Module Two questions (and reminders for Module Three.)

What is the recommended time frame for the primary research aspect (interviews, questionnaires etc) in module 3?

I recommend 3-4 weeks for each section1-4 wks data collection (interviews, etc..)
5-8 wks analysis (triangulating the data, literature, your experiences)
9-12 wks creating communication of experiences and discoveries (written essay and artifact) 

How many research questions do you recommend? 
It depends on how you are working - I recommend being open to the area you are looking at and not pinning it down too much. This might mean one to two very open questions or lots of small ones that build to create a bigger picture together. You are not looking for answers you are looking to find out something more about an area in your own professional practice remember.

and how many pieces of literature to review? 
You are not reviewing single bits of literature - you are reviewing what is said about the topic in general (The Literature). Like not reviewing a show (Kinky Boots) but reviewing (overviewing) all the different types of shows there are - Musical Theatre, Drama, Medieval, Dance etc…. You are explaining the field where your one small area fits. In doing this you might (and should) identify three or four written books / articles that are particularly relevant and that will be key in informing your inquiry analysis. For ‘Review' think ‘overview' or 'The Literature' think ‘whats out there on the general subject…’ so a literature review is An overview of what is out there on the subject.

Other ideas we talked about

Don't get stuck trying to perfectly answer one question - cycle round tasks, come back to things review older Modules and tasks. You don't go to a ballet class and spend two weeks just standing at the barr trying to do the perfect plie or playing a song on the saxophone you don't spend two weeks  getting the perfect first note. (You know when to come back to it and when to work extra on parts. Use the same skills in your 'academic' study. Don't make the artist you a different being from the 'academic you'.

Reflection is about keeping track of your process

Differ your approach to ideas - organize yourself so you can play with looking at ideas from different perspectives.

Don't look at things in terms of 'I agree' or 'I disagree' - look at things in terms of what their relationship is with other experiences you have had and other ideas you have encountered. 

Ethics is not a thing it is a more a word that indicates you have taken or are taking an approach... 

Rather than the 'ethics of the situation' (as if Ethics was a thing)  you would say 'the ethical consideration made in the situation' (about how things were done). My last blog  Oct 30th 2017 talks more about this. 

For module Two and Three rather than think 'What question an I finding / exploring' think 'what do I want to find out more about / what am I finding out more about'.

People who attended the discussion ate writing the links to their posts about the discussion below. Also please comment below.

Getting on with getting the first draft done.

Dear All
It is getting to week 9. That is 3/4 through the term. So whatever is happening its started. You need to move from a feeling of starting to a feeling of reflecting - critically reflecting on what has happened this term.

To help you do this you can get feedback from advisors (and each other on the blogs of course).
Please remember Paula and I want drafts in by November 27th at the latest to be able to give feedback to people.

Please remember the following as you work on your hand-in papers:

Module one - send a draft of your critical reflection:
It should be about you and your professional practice NOT something telling us what the module handbook was about !!! You are making a critical reflection of your practice using the lens of connection through reflection, social media and networks. Remember to include the theory in the handbook that means citing the theory in your essay.

Module two - you should be able to clearly bullet point what you are doing and why for your plan. It might be a good idea to bullet point the whole plan (before you write it up) so that you know you are not 'waffling' or 'preaching' but actually planning something with care reflection on the how you will do it and impact it will have on other people involved and your own practice. (I am happy to look at Bullet point outline before drafts if you want feedback on them first).
NB - Module Two's send your filled out ethics form and consent forms for feedback asap also. Well done Ben for getting yours all sorted already :)

Module Three - you should be able to explain your analysis process by now. Also you should have three to four published people /works that are relevant to your inquiry and make comment on the themes or mapping that have emerged during your inquiry. You should not have 'proved' anything or found the solution to anything. In just 12 weeks any solution to something worth the time of your inquiry would not be very deep. After all if you could 'solve' it in 12 weeks during your BA study what were all the professional people in your practice doing all this time?

When you send things for feedback make sure your name is on them!!! Yes, some people just send something called 'Reflective essay'!! Also send questions that you want us to look at.
For example "I have tried to show there are many different points of view about the use of chalk in the studio. Do you think this comes across or does it read more like I just talk about why we should use chalk?"
or
"I have cited Dewey a couple if times but I am not totally sure if I make it clear it is his theory on art as experience that I am referring to particularly".

Don't just send things off for your advisor to edit for you - make sure it is the best you can do and then the feedback will be valuable. If you send something you already know is too long - we will just tell you what you already know... it is too long!!

Be brave and get on with it.

Adesola
xxxx

On Tuesday we had a Module Two session

On Tuesday October 13, we had a Module Two session:

What are questions?

We talked about two kinds of questions – questions that imply or seem to need answers

Like: Why do performers work through injury?

This question implies that you would need to find out an answer. But how would you be able to really find this out. You would need to talk to thousands of people to really be able to have any kind of credible answer and then you’d need to talk to them a few times to be able to really understand their reasons.

This kind of question would obviously take more time than 12 weeks and more knowledge about the field because in order to understand the answers you got from the question you’d need to already know about the question. In other words questions that imply answers require you to know enough to recognize the answer.  This course is about giving yourself the time to find out more to explore the unknown.

Then there are questions that help you understand your question better – questions that help know more about the question itself.

Like: ‘What are some of the reasons that performers use for having to work through injury?’ (you could talk to five people and understand their stories).

Or

‘What experiences have people in my cast have with working through injury?’ (then maybe you’d find out more about what have happened to people who work in the same jobs as you).

This second kind of question can be more specific to your professional practice (which is what your BA is about – finding out that will help you in your career).

Assumptions:

Another way to look at questions is to look at what they assume.

Read this post:

http://www.adesolaa.blogspot.com/2015/03/step-gently-on-line-campus-session-with.html

You can see that the questions themselves start to ask you to look at them through ethical eyes and imply how you should find out more.

Ethics is about how you look at your question from the perspective of how the question and you finding out more about it will be experienced by others. How much of the inquiry is you proving you are right about something you feel and how much is about really finding out more – inquiring.

Your question also implies what tools should be used to inquire into it. For instance above the question about ‘what are some of the reasons performers use for having to work through injury’ clearly indicates interviews …

Lastly:

We talked about planning

Remember that you are planning an actual thing/activity. It has practical elements it needs to be done over 12 weeks, you need to know where you need to go to get more information and put this in the plan and if you can go there! What you need to read to find out more and why these books (This is Literature Review to help you know what other people already think. This helps prepare you for the activity you are planning).

People involved in the session are writing more about the conversation in posts on their blogs and in the comments below.

http://lisameiklejohn.blogspot.com

http://jessicaplant.blogspot.com

http://gjswittering.blogspot.com

What do you think?

Adesola

Module Three skype session: don't drown in a panic of data collection!!!

On Monday we had a Module Three skype session.

We talked about consent forms: Make sure your consent form has been approved by your advisor (Paula or me). If you had changes suggested to you for your consent form as part of the feedback from Module Two make sure you have made the changes. It is important the form makes it clear how people can contact your tutor is they have questions or comments they want to ask about the project.

Planning: Also a point that is often mentioned in feedback for Module Two is your timetable for your inquiry (the Gant chart). Now you might see why this is so important to keep you on a good track. At this point (Week 3) you might either feel like you have found it hard to get things off the ground, hard to get interviews or trips you have planned confirmed or maybe the opposite you feel like there is so much data you are collecting and you still have so much to go. Either way you can see how time runs away with you. If you think about it we have completed 1/4 of the term already. Having your timetable, that you planned to follow regardless of the crazy of getting into the inquiry is really useful. I strongly recommend that you see the module in three equal parts

1) data collection (including literature and reflection),

2) analysis (in literature and reflection continues),

3) communicating what you have learnt – writing-up the inquiry reflective report and the artefact and getting feedback on your draft.  

So that is about four weeks for each thing. Remember collecting data is just getting the stuff together you are going to think about, it is not the whole inquiry. The meat (tofu) and potatoes is the analysis – what you do with the data – how you make it meaningful.

Capturing process: Just like in Module One, you are on the journey of a module and you need to capture your process in order to reflect on it at the end of the module. It is very easy in Module three to stop posting blogs and not use your reflective diary as much. But you need to capture moments of the process just as much as you need to in the the other Modules. The inquiry is about the journey you take when you decide to find out more about the area/question/ idea that is your inquiry topic. It is not about you coming up with a definitive answer to something at the end. The process of finding out is inquiry. When you go down the rabbit hole of your question what happens? You need to capture moments in the journey to refer to later and to share with other for feedback and comment and a new perspective. Anthony who was in the session is posting about this.

Post at: http://antgifford.blogspot.com/2015/10/its-all-about-journey-module-3-skype.html?showComment=1444731390008#c310913826793685600

Anthony: http://antgifford.blogspot.com

Lastly, we talked about starting itself. In a ‘good’ inquiry there are lots of starts...! Firstly when you got your feedback from Module Two your response to the feedback was not “work done before you start the inquiry”, it was the start of the inquiry- It was the beginning of you thinking more about the question/area of the inquiry. Similarly if you started doing something and realized you needed to change something, that is not ‘starting over’ it is also part of the process of understanding better, of knowing more about the question and knowing more about how to go about looking into it. All the ‘force starts’, ‘mistakes’, changes that you come across are part of you opening your ideas and knowing more about the field so they are the inquiry. This is why capturing your process is so important each bend in the road is a part of how you are coming to know more about this topic and you need to make sure you notice the change and capture that moment before you move on. Otherwise, just like a physical journey, when you look back at what you have done you will only be able to see as far as the last bend in the road, but you know the whole journey was much longer than that.

Remember it is not about ‘discovering’ a solution to a problem – the inquiry is about you finding out more and in order to do so things are going to change. You are going to change.

Ilona was also in the session. She is thinking about different ways of seeing in her inquiry.

Ilona: http://ilonamolnar.blogspot.co.uk  . We talked about different ways of capturing the moments of your inquiry. Your blogs do not all have to be words. The way you capture an idea reflects your relationship with the idea itself (remember that for when we talk about/think about the Professional Artefact).   

OK keep going….

Adesola

Module Two Skype session on Tuesday October 13th at 8pm

I (Adesola) will be initiating the call so I need to be connected to you in skype before hand. Please send a request that states you are in BAPP and your name (not just your skype name). If I just get the standard skype request I might not be able to recognize who you are and I will not accept it.

We will be talking about the nature of questions, their relationship to ‘answers’, different types of questions and how they can be a vessel for professional inquiry.

We will also be touching on ethics as ‘how you do things’ not ‘what you do’. Then how ‘how you do things’ affects/creates what it is you are doing.  

Lastly we will talk about the idea of planning.

Now… please come to the session with some ideas and things to share, discuss, wonder with people about.

Please comment below if you are going to attend the session.

Look forward to talking to you.

Adesola