Nov 27th Skype with Module One focus am conversation

We talked about the importance of finding your authentic self in your writing and artefact making. What we mean by this was that you genuinely want to communicate an idea/story not just write to show you read something or can recite some information. The Reflective essays are about bring together significant points form the term and thinking about how they help you see your self differently or see more of yourself or a new perspective about your field. How you are 'widened'. Because of that they can't be about everything you did or learnt they must be crafted to tell a story that is significant to what you are being asked to engage with and address and to your practice. The essays are not just to prove you were there.

Feedback - not alone

Throughout the course we see you as 'In conversation...' with us, with each other and with the handbooks. So how does feedback fit in with this?

How do we stand with feedback - 
Firstly, feedback is not about telling you how to get an 'A' it is about helping you develop your ideas and work from the place it is when you receive the feedback. So it is not about correcting the work in terms of telling what to do but it is about developing your work. This means that where ever your work is we will always support you in developing it further. Of course as Supervisors we will let you know if you are working at a level that will not pass. We will not be letting you march of the edge of a cliff!! but the Supervisors role is about working with you to go further so feedback will not likely ever be 'Yes, this is right.'!!

Secondly, so feedback is a conversation and on-going process which is why have a 'Feedback response sheet'.  This is so that we can document the conversation in brief. It is also so that you can direct your own feedback.
The feedback response sheet is sent with any drafts you send for feedback - you should use the sheet to ask questions that direct feedback such as
'I have used quotes to give examples of XXX but I wonder if too much of the essay is in the voice of others because of it.'
or practical questions
'I was not sure how to quote an interviewee I have used "" instead of '' for quotes from interviewee and put them I the bibliography but their interviews are not published so should they be in the bibliography?'

The Feedback response form should also be used after a Skype Supervisor tutorial (one-to-one) summarise the discussion and inform a blog about the tutorial.

The Feedback Response Form is therefore a document of learning, discussion and conversation for you to refer to as you study.  It supports the idea you are not alone in your study (you are in conversation) but not being alone does not mean you are just waiting to be told what to do.

A note: emailing your tutor should not be your first response to not understanding something!! First go back to the Handbook that is what they are for to explain the course, ideas and direct, then read some blogs of people who have done the Module you are on. Then have some time to think.

* feedback response templates can be found on UniHub or create one yourself as a word.doc

Campus session reflections

Here are reflections from the campus session today:

In our on campus session today, I begun realizing that the main task for me personally is to find myself within my inquiry. Reflecting upon it, some of the questions I thought about raising seem rather generic; when Adesola asked me why I was raising them in the first place, it quickly became apparent that perhaps I had to dig a little deeper.

Why do I feel a certain way about the topics I raised? Most probably because they affect me personally.

Ultimately, I have to think less of projecting an idea ‘over there’ and more of how to look for something ‘right here’ within myself.

Being faced with the aspect of ethics at the moment, I want to think more about how I affect things and how I am affected by things; knowing that I can only assume how I am affecting others, really.

Though ethics are being seen as quite a black or white kind of thing, I agree with Adesola that perhaps they are more reflective and therefor also personal.

Adesola mentioned Tina from Module 3 who was in two minds about whether she wanted to write her inquiry from a personal perspective or follow a more ‘academic’ approach by not doing so.

But why is it that we automatically divide between the me and the academics? Aren’t we allowed to approach knowledge and see it through our own eyes?

Do we think our own opinion might not sound as valid as it would sound if we spoke about it in third person, like It didn’t really affect us?

But no matter how hard I try to be objective, isn’t whatever I write ultimately my own take?

I am now planning on writing my inquiry from my point of view, reflecting my personal perspective on my own experience.

At this stage of my learning, I want to narrow it down to my inquiry topic as soon as I can so that I can allow myself to go deeper within the actual process of posing a question, or as we looked at it today, finding out what I would like to explore more. 

Read more from Irini 

http://irinibapp.blogspot.co.uk

Today I had my first campus session, it was an incredibly nerve racking experience as I didn't know what to expect. We started by introducing ourselves, where we were in the course and raising any concerns that we had. I had a question about task 2D - inquiry, I wasn't sure which practice to write about, education or arts.

Adesola asked us to write a poem entitled yesterday, it could include pictures or doodles if necessary. Once we had finished, we passed it round the circle and had to pick out key points that might tell us something about the persons interests or personality. This task was incredibly useful for me as I find reflective practice difficult and really helped me to find connections and things I am passionate about. It also helped me to identify how certain things affect me and how we affect certain things for example, the weather can have an effect on my mood. 
Next, we looked at the inquiry in Module 2 and what sort of questions we should look at. This proved to be difficult as we always wanted to answer the question instead of thinking about how it directly affects us. I personally think the trap that I will fall into, will be picking a question that is too generic and general instead of picking one I wish to know more about. 
A question that was raised was, "How can the arts be taken more seriously as a profession?" This is a question I have certainly asked myself many times, however it is too vast and not personal enough. 
Adesola was asked a question by a module 3 student asking whether she should write her inquiry from a personal or "academic" point of view. We had a long discussion about this and explored pros and cons for both avenues. I feel that it should be written from a personal prospective as the course is about exploring you and your practice. Also, it is your opinion and by writing "academically" it may give the impression that everyone feels the same. We also talked about how using ‘I’ can be academic also.    
This session really helped me to understand myself and how much I use reflective practice in my everyday life. 

Read more from Zoe:

http://zoevictoriapope.blogspot.co.uk

What do you feel, see, hear about this?

Please comment

Adesola

Writing for Dance Professional Practice Summer Intensive

Hi,

Just a note / dates for your diary - We're holding our a Summer Intensive this August!  Some info for now, with more to follow;

The Dance and Writing Professional Practice Summer Intensive will take place August 17th-21st 2015 and will be held at Middlesex University's Hendon Campus, London.

The programme has been designed in response to feedback from students on both the  BA Professional Practice (arts) and MAPP DTP programmes concerning the transition from vocational training, performance work, independent practice, studio teaching into studying within a university environment and being able to confidently share rich bodies of experiential knowledge through academic writing.

The programme intends to address these transitions through a mix of studio (practical) dance classes and classroom sessions;  accessing and developing literature reviews, citation methods, academic writing structures and written expression of physical experiences, engaging with social media and web 2.0 online developing confidence in online learning and sharing.

Each day will begin with a movement class followed by sessions looking at text, research skills and writing to help students develop confidence in what they have to offer as academic students and to encourage students to draw on their somatic knowing of movement to inform their ideas and writing.

The Summer Intensive will be open for booking and a full programme available through the MDX online store by the end of the month, we just wanted to flag up the dates to you now appreciating that you're probably in the process of planning your summers!


Provisional Details:
Dates: August 17-21, 2015
Costs: £350 (Full) £250 (concessions/unwaged)
Venue: Middlesex University London NW4 4BT
Facilitators: Adesola Akinleye and Helen Kindred
Bookings and Payment online: www.mdx.ac.uk/onlinestore
The programme is open to all current students, alumni and enrolling students for the coming academic year, and would be a great opportunity to come together and learn more whatever stage you are at.  

We look forward to seeing some of you there!
Let me know if you are interested, or have any questions.

Adesola

Notes on sending work for feedback

Please do not send documents called 'Proposal' or 'AOLs' or 'Reflection' because everyone doing the same tasks. The title of the document is as much for the person receiving it as it is for you. If I get three documents called 'Proposal'. I then open them and hope that the persons name is clearly on the document!! But no!!! Often it is just the written work no page numbers or footer or header with the persons name and id number. I write this for both my BA and MA courses because they are both in professional practice and it is good practice to do the above in general. Send people things with your name on them!
Akinleye_blog post.doc
then when it is opened your name again and page numbers in case they need to print it out.

I think this is important because it means what you send is intended for the person reading it. This shows you have taken a moment to think about how the thing you are sending will be experienced by the reader and it means it does not look like you did something and sent it the first moment you thought you wanted reassurance it was ok.

Get what I mean? What do you think? Have you experienced the same thing? Do you suddenly realise you did this too!!!!!!
Adesola

Feedback

All most Christmas: I wanted to say a quick word about feedback. Remember the idea behind having an advisor and not a ‘puppet master’(!). Is that it is your work. You are not writing to please us. I understand that sometimes the University culture can seem quite foreign and you appear to be asked to do things for no particular reason other than to say you did it, but do not let this mean you start to feel you are just ticking the box of the whim of the ‘teacher’. We are trying to help with two things:

Firstly, the form you present your ideas in – that is they are your ideas but we are helping with the conventions of academia.

Secondly, we are helping with teasing out more ideas or helping you develop your ideas further. But they are your ideas.

So how does this reflect when you ask for feedback?

When you ask for feedback – explain what you want feedback on, what you want your advisor to look at. Just sending your essay again, again until the advisor says it is ‘right’ is not what this is about. You are in discussion with your advisor with your work write a note explaining what the draft is attempting to do or explaining changes you have made.

For example:

“Dear Adesola, I have changed the order I introduce the different elements of the research inquiry. Can you tell me if you think it is easier to follow in terms of understanding what I did to collect data? “

It is important you feel ownership of your work and you don’t feel you are having to stab in the dark at what someone else wants from you.

Happy Holidays!!

What do you think. Looking forward to reading your comments

Adesola

Developing a picture

I know everyone is busy so I have marks sections 'Module One', 'Two' and 'Three' but as always try to read the whole post. Something I think is useful to a Module One might be just what you needed to think about in Module Three. We are all connected.

Module One's

You will be thinking about the portfolio that you are handing in for assessment. At this point in the module you are starting to reflect on the whole activity. Although you did things in sections the portfolio is asking you to present an overview or summary of what you have learnt. I find it very hard to do this if I start at the beginning of something in terms of time, and work my way to the present day. In other words if you start your Critical Reflection with talking about task 1a and finish with the last task it is hard to give a meaningful overview of anything but a schedule. This is because your learning probably did not develop one thing after the next. Some ideas might have 'clicked' straight away, some might have 'clicked' and them you found deeper meaning to them later. Some may not until next module!!! It is unlikely it was a step a-b-c sort of process. I don't believe in linear constructs anyway, and I don't think learning is like that. So trying to tell the story of your learning as a straight timeline is very difficult. But everyone has their own way of doing things. In the post below I talked about different approaches. I find organizing what I want to say into themes works best for me. Think about which works for you? Give yourself time to try writing your final Critical Reflection a couple of different ways. Just like with the reflective journal there are many ways to write about the same events. Remember also we are looking for links to ideas from other people - citations from books, journals, articles etc... that have had an impact on the way you looked at your activity in this first module. Have a look at:

Assessment portfolio

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

Module Two's

I love this video because it talks to the importance of analysis see paragraph below. But it is also about how important it is to create a research model that has thought about the effect your activity has on the people you interact with. Thinking from the perspective that they have their own story and you are just a small part (maybe a 10 minute encounter) of something much bigger than you could know. THAT is what ethics is about - thinking about how others will experience what you have created. This video shows how if you do not think about this you will limit what you can hear from them. You will limit what you hear to what you expect them to say. I would love you to comment on what is wrong in the video in terms of research in the comments below. 

Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children’s Healthcare

Module Three's

I cannot stress enough that the inquiry is NOT about collecting data it is about analysis (see film above). The inquiry hangs on what you do with the data. That's not just re-writing what people said or putting what they said into a beautiful chart. It is about you thinking about what it means informed by your unique experience, the literature you have been reading and the experience of having been there when the data collection was happening, oh and what was said!! have a look at this post too.

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

http://adesolaa.blogspot.com/2012/03/weeks-678-10-module-three-particularly.html


So what do you think? 
Love your comments
Adesola

Dec 7th, tasks D and E

It is great to have some comments. Thank you. I have been away from the Internet for the past three days. Laura-Beth’s comment said she was not sure how the session relates to improving her writing for task D or E. I think that we were trying to focus on the Why of task D or E not so much on the How. We wanted to support understanding; the reasoning behind the tasks thinking that if you understand why something is required then you will be able to investigate how to do it. I would investigate (research) how to write academically through looking at the Rubric on Peter and Paula’s blogs and through standard instruction books that give advice, and through reading academic literature. But why are we asking you to do this? And why are we asking you to do this at this point in the course? This is where the learning is for you beyond acquiring a skill in writing because we told you to.

The idea was that task D & E are about communication of ideas. We are then going on to say that there are specific ways or style of communication for this kind of work – academic writing. The session was to raise questions for you about your personal style of communication to find ways to link this to the tasks so that they are meaningful to you and more than a tick-box requirement.

Donna commented that she feels that the ‘rule’ of academia are to think as if you are in a debate. I know what she means and this is an example of having your own relationship – making the tasks mean something to you. (That is how this course will be useful to you beyond the year or so of the course). For me I imagine academic writing as it being really important to be gentle and not to assume anything, to feel as if you are a part of something being goingly constructed and you want the bits you add to be strong and supportive, not collapse if someone started using it. Also you want to add gently with respect and knowledge about how other people have added to the construction. Donna also asks “Regarding tasks D & E, I’m having a little trouble deciding what to write about, do all the different writings have to be about the same thing?”
I would just say it is the way you write not what you write that we are asking about.

Rachel talked about the academic style and the Literature Review. A literature review is to tell us about what other people have said (written about) the things you are talking about. You then summarize this into a document that is a Literature Review (just like a review of a play it summarizes what happened and who was involved and what they said). It gives us a sense of what is going on. This will also be written in an academic style.

I think that continual reference back to the information you found about Kolb’s learning cycle will be useful. What we are trying to do in this first module is to help to define yourself through what you have done and your interests i.e. the information on your blogs. Also to identify yourself in terms of starting to know how you learn and then saying now for you to engage with this course you need to start to find your own voice within the academic arena. This is a life-long process but the first step is to start to learn how you write in the academic style.

I know for some people myself included writing is really not a preferred mode of communication. But remember it is just a way to communicate. The first part of the session on Dec 7th was saying that you can still think and work things out in your preferred form. But to be heard in academia you need to be able to learn to communicate in its language to some extent, (and you want a BA hons which is an academic certificate. This can come with a wealth of history (baggage). I got laughed at a by people because of my spelling and because I miss out words and letters sometimes when I write and because the spell check can put the wrong word in. BUT don’t worry remember your writing is not your thinking, believe in your thinking and try your best to take this opportunity to learn a little about how to write in this particular way.

Campus Session (Dec 7th)

Yesterday (December 7th) we had a campus session based around task D & E.
The first half was looking at what made a productive conversation, communication. This related to both tasks but was aimed more at task E (the conversations through the comments). In task E you are asked to comment on each other’s work.

The second half of the session looked at the style of academic writing. You are asked to use this style in both task D & E.

This blog is an overview of the campus session (what we did) for those who could not make it and a reminder for those who were there. I am also hoping both people who came and those who could not be there will comment about this blog.

First half of the session:
This was a movement-based session. We wanted to look at how people engage, interact with each other. We were thinking about what makes a ‘good’ productive, stimulating conversation. In a way we are saying that academia is about engaging in a large conversation. It is about ways to understand and explain ideas across people who are quite spread apart (both in distance and in time). In other words academia has conventions of communication, (the academic style of writing that is asked for in task D & E is one of these conventions). These conventions have developed as ways to carry on useful and engaged conversations across distance (for instance between people in universities across the globe) and across time (for instance to develop ideas people who wrote in 1700 had in today’s world). In task D & E we want you to start to learn how to write within these conventions (in academic style) so that your ideas can fit into productive learning conversations through the blogs and comments.

But how do you have a conversation? We wanted to look at the personal values and feelings that people had about engaging in conversation. We wanted to see what a conversation looked like! We did this by replacing words with movements. We asked each person to choose three words that were elements of a productive conversation (these were elements like ‘respect’, ‘re-evaluation’, ‘questioning’ ‘passionate’ ‘quality’). Each word had a type of movement that would represent the word. For instance passionate was a big movement and quality was a slow movement.

We imagined the room was a metaphor for a conversation, stepping into the room was the same as stepping into a conversation. When we stepped into the conversation (room) we would execute the movements we had that represented our three important elements of a productive conversation. The movements were a physical representation of what each person individually valued as elements of a productive conversation.

We stood around the edge of the room. But before we could start we needed a reason to begin, enter a conversation (enter the movement space) and a reason to stop leave the conversation (leave the movement space). Each person made-up a personal rule for beginning and ending the conversation ‘dance based on their feelings about starting and ending a conversation in ‘real’ life. We did not know what each other’s rules to begin or end were. But we knew they were rules that were similar to their feelings about starting a conversation. Music was put on and people could start the conversation ‘dance’ as soon as their rule to start (enter the space) was met.

The first time we did it people waited on the edge for sometime and then a couple of people started moving others joined in and then the whole thing seemed to come to an end pretty quickly. We then talked about what had happened – we felt it looked like people had not stuck to their rules for starting.

Feedback from participants:
People had wanted to stick to their rules for starting but then felt they had to do something so just did anything. Then they felt sorry for other people who were out in the space moving so they joined in but finished as soon as they could. Once a little bit (token amount) of movement had taken place they felt they had done their bit and left. The whole thing finished quite quickly.

That’s what it looked like.

What did we feel this meant: we felt that starting the conversation because you felt you had to or felt sorry for someone meant that you didn’t bring much to it other than being there. It was not productive because as soon as you had done your ‘bit’ you left. Also there was nothing to really interest you because you only joined in to be polite not because you had anything to add or say. People said that the blogs could feel like this; because they don’t know people they felt they needed to be polite and say something but didn’t really want to do any more than that. They did not really write things to engage people more to acknowledge they were there.
We asked the questions; how can you become interested in something? What makes you interested?

We tried the dance again, this time everyone had to wait until their rule for stepping into the space was met and not just join in to be polite! We put the music on………………………………………………no body moved………………..no body began……………………we stopped for feedback.

Feedback from participants:
Nobody moved because nobody else did anything that would make them start.
They all had rules to start to engage that relied on someone else starting first; we asked how this reflected on the blog space. In truth no-body would really start to comment on each other unless someone else did first. This was understandable if we were looking at conversation in general but we were looking at a productive learning conversation. We asked participants if they needed to re-evaluate their rule for beginning to engage. Did they need to ask themselves if it was productive to wait for someone else to be engaged before you were? We said nobody had to change their starting rule but they could if they wanted to and I joined in the next one with my starting rule which allows me to just start – as an advisor I felt my starting rule should be just begin as soon as the music starts.

We tried it again, this time some people started with big (passion) movements. There was a lot of interaction.

Feedback from participants:
One person noticed that passion as a big movement can be a little overwhelming and sometimes it needs to be small and intense. (Maybe considered and focused).
Another person found that people who stuck to being respectful or polite where hard to dance with after a little while because you could not get beyond the same polite movement.
Other people noticed that the comfort place for most people was to be doing the polite movement because it was safe!
Some people that did the personal conversation movement ended up drifting from person to person.
When people got into a rhythm with someone else they felt quite relieved, but people outside of that small group felt that it was hard to enter the group. They felt the group was much more organised than it really was.

Do you think these observations could apply to the blog spaces too?

We did the dance a few times developing the rules and trying things out as we noticed them in feedback. At the end people were asked to write what they see, what this made them think and what they wondered.
See:
Compassion
People have some connection
It was very random, but with power
Hesitation
Many instances of copying
Observation what happens when people observe each other and situations?
Lots of copying
Lots of copying of movement (respect)
Copying!
Copying
Small groups formed

Think:
Each exercise was very different
She’s shy
People will only engage in movement (conversation) fully if they are interested
People’s attention has to be grabbed
A lot people copying
Educational
The group are not trusting each other at first maybe near the end a bit more
It’s ok to play a small part in a conversation as long as you are involved
Breaking the ice

Wonder:
How it was ever going to end?
If some people don’t comment because of lack of trust or lack of confidence?
Does this reflect each person?
Is it ok to not be drawn in?
What was your rule?
What made the conversation easier?
How important are rules?
How it was going to end?
When to start coming in?
What made you change your mind?

Have a look at what they wrote and see if you think they apply to the blogs and the activity of the comments on blogs.

Overall we felt we learnt a lot about how conventions of politeness and respect could get in the way of having a productive conversation. This was because we were not their as friends and we didn’t know each other very well but we need to get to the ‘meat’ of the conversation without feeling we were being rude.

This is the problem that academia has tried to solve; how do you talk to someone in a university hundreds of miles away who you have never met but about something that you are quite passionate about. THIS IS WHY ACADEMIA HAS CONVENTIONS AND RULES – FOR INSTANCE A PARTICULAR WAY TO WRITE . Academic writing is just about another set of rules to be polite but to cut to the chase and get on with the interesting learning conversation. This led to the second part of the session which was about looking at the conventions of academic writing in ore detail.

I led the first part of the session. The way of working is my way of looking at embodiment, how the body can be a part of a whole understanding. Some of the research for this part of the session was done with Prof. Anna Craft a few years ago. The ideas are part of some research I am doing at the moment about the body, environment and learning

Paula led the second half of the session. We looked at the idea that writing in academic style use conventions as we said above. These conventions are to aid with neutrality, exchange of ideas, critiques, statements and concepts. We looked at the idea that a set of concepts forms a theory. When writing in an academic style you express and explore concepts and theory. It is important to have these to allow the Reader to understand where your points are coming from, why you are taking a particular point of view.

Paula introduced the idea of Critical Thinking as a process that is used to think about topics and issues. In small groups we did some exercises discussing (having a conversation about a topic), writing down some concepts and theories that different people in the conversation had.

We looked at the important distinction between the content of some written text (WHAT it is about) and the structure of some written text (HOW it is written). We said that academic writing, marketing and descriptive writing are all structures for writing. (They are about How it is written)

To summarise: in the first half of the session we discovered why it important to have conventions for communication that support the kind of conversation you need to have. We identified where our personal conventions for engaging in a conversation might need to change. That we may need to have a distinction between our personal rules for engaging with people in general and our personal rules for engaging in an academic context.

In the second half of the session we looked at some practical examples of the conventions within academic writing and we practised some writing in small groups.

Other things:
People pointed out how frightening the posting of blogs is, especially if you are not sure about spelling. We talked about using spellcheck and reading your work to someone. We talked about the importance of getting help if you have dyslexia. I have dyslexia, I have a step by step guilde to what to do to try to get government help as a pdf on the communication page of my website. (If you want to look at it)
We talked about the difference between facebook and the blogs. How the people on facebook are people you know but the people on the blogs are not and you would not know them if it was not for this course.

So what do you think about all this? PLEASE comment