Step Gently: On-line 'Campus' session with a focus on Module Two - but read it even if you are not in Module Two!!

On-line ‘Campus’ session with a focus on Module Two was on Tuesday. We were talking about Planning Ethical Practice.

First point we made was to look at what is ethics: I have described ethics as reflecting on what you are experience as. Thinking about what is the effect, affect, feeling, event that is created by your actions. This is not to say that you can control how people have a ‘good time’ with you because you can’t know what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ for them. But you can think about what impact you are having on the people and things around you and reflect on whether the impact you are having is the same as your intension for doing things.

NOTE: This is about using reflection: Module Ones old and new –  developing reflection is a kind of tool for thinking about a wider picture and making sure you are not narrowing your ability to engage with events to what you expect to find.  – also ties in with Module Three: using reflection to support yourself not having to know the ending of the inquiry at the beginning! (see my last post) – its all connected.

Ethics: Impact on others

So having established that when thinking about ethics we are looking at our place, effect, impact on people and things I asked the group what do you think of doing a research project which will result in giving advise to people about a topic. – bearing in mind you have about 3 months, you are at BA level, and some people have been looking at the field you are looking at all their lives. Alan was just saying to me he was listening to a TED lecture where the person said for the first 30 years of the research we thought X but know we have come to see it in terms of Y today!!!!!

So what do you think of you doing a research project that will give people the answer to something? What are the ethics (impact of you) in this?? I would not want to try to do that. It seems a little rude to people who already study the area to think I can come up with the ‘answer’ in 3 months when they might have been looking at it for years and years. And what is the ‘answer’ in terms of them, the answer is really just my thing, my issues?  Who am I?

NOTE: Module One is about asking yourself who am I – through looking at your networks, your presence on-line your reflections. I am the experiences I have – unique experiences because only ‘I’ live MY life.

Who am I – after Module One – I am someone with unique experiences and (and therefore) my ideas and thoughts matter because only ‘I’ have my perspective.

So I am someone who does not have to feel I am going to save the world in three months and come up with the ‘answer’ to this important question. But I am also someone with a unique set of experiences and what I think matters ….so  (ethically I could say) my inquiry is about finding out more about my question and giving some informed comments and ideas about what I think of what I found out.

NOTE: This what you do in Module Three – a reflective report and some ‘thing’ people in my industry can relate to (see blog post On-line Campus Three session below for ‘thing’ reference)

OK so what does this ethical perspective do to our inquiry questions? Remember:

1)    We don’t have to ‘find’ and answer to the question (and possibly can’t) we need to find out more

2)    We don’t have to assume we need to save the world and that nobody else thought of saving the world before us and just didn’t try

3)    The goal is to ask better more informed questions

We looked at our questions and reworded them. For example

Save the world version:

What are the different methods for developing performance skills for excellence in performers, so I can teach this to my students?

Find out more version:

What do different people consider excellence in performance is (asking dancers, director, choreographers and audience members)

Or

I feel Pat Smith, Blair Teller and Fran Jones are excellent performers so I will talk to each of them to find out what in their training helped them in their performance work.

Save the world version:

Blindness and Dance: why is their so much training lacking? I’ve noticed there is no training for dance teachers in this.

Find out more version:

What is out there in terms of dance projects that involve blind children. (world wide and locally)

Or

What do parents of blind children feel is a benefit from doing dance class and are these benefits to do with they way the classes are taught?

Or

How are the arts positioned in training for working with blind children? Looking at training programmes in general and seeing how much of this involves arts educational training.

Save the world version:

Culture in dance: what are opportunities for people to study musical theatre in India (but I don’t live in India).

Find out more version:

Is musical theatre a culture in itself (as it could be argued ballet is) having its own language, and expectation for behaviour?

Or

Starting to mapping musical theatre training from different places by comparing the narratives of three performers who have trained in different countries.

Ethics –  Questioning Assumptions

We noticed the find out more versions allowed us to notice our assumptions and question them.

Noticing the assumptions we are making is like taking a step back to look get a wider look at what we are thinking about. Very often the assumptions we make are the best place to start inquiring into. Why we make that assumption and what other ways are there to look at things. In the performance skills inquiry area there are assumptions in the original save the world questions that need to be noticed and in fact could be the inquiry its self.

For example: What are the different methods for developing performance skills for excellence in performers, so I can teach this to my students?

This has the following assumptions and possible inquiry areas:

Assumption	Inquiry
Everyone thinks the same things are performance skills and excellence	What do different people think makes excellence in performance (get opinions from different people in different roles to do with performance)
Performance skills remain the same regardless of the performance setting	Find out if people who perform if different performance events and venues seem to access the same skills each time (Watch great performance in different setting, what do I think? What has been written about this.)
It is possible to teacher people to be better performers its just nobody does it	Talk to people I think are great performers and find out what they do and think.
There are methods to get people to perform it can be broken down in to steps or stages or points and then learnt in the classroom.	Talk to teachers/director/dance captains I have had, who I respect, and find out what they do and think and why.

You can see that all the example inquiry questions that are raised from my assumptions can all still be useful in my end goal of being better at teaching performance skills to my students.

The conclusion we came to is:

We help people (save the world) by being better informed, inspired etc… ourselves. Not by going out and ‘helping’ people. Being better yourself helps other people.

Joke: Old lady (much like myself!) standing at the edge of the road you help her across. And on the other side she says she didn’t want to cross the road and now she has missed her bus!!! (The irony was you wanted that bus too but you sacrificed missing it to ‘help’ her.)

The practice under ethics of looking at your assumptions is really valuable. In the session we all looked at the assumptions in our questions so far. This is about how looking at ethics will help you shape your inquiry. (Its not about a right /wrong question). You can see from my example table above that the inquiry questions that come out of looking at my assumptions also indicate inquiry tools – like I would need to interview people, or observe performances. So looking at my questions through a focus on ethics gives me ideas about the focus of the questions, the tools I would need and where informative information about the question might be.

Ethics – Nuts and Bolts

In a session about ethics we cannot miss out having a quick look at ethics 101. Make sure you don’t hurt people.  As the handbook points out some research has been at the cost of harm to people mentally or physically.

Some of the assumptions we make can be offensive and hurtful to people. Assuming I need help across the road is pretty annoying when I can ask if I do! In the summer I was standing next to someone much older than me waiting to cross the road in Liverpool street station and as the light changed for us to walk across she took my arm. When we got to the other side she let go and realised I was me. She said sorry. I said it was really nice to walk across the road together like that I haven’t done that since I was child. For a moment I was what she needed (some remembered friend or relative) and then I was not.

Nuts and bolts

1)    Plan to use pseudonyms for people you interview. Yes, so they have some anonymity but beyond that because (see Pips blog post from last week – my skype chat post below) because it is hard to really explain what you will be doing in your inquiry as in some ways you don’t know where it will take you either.

2)    Same with informed consent and the ability to drop out of the research at anytime. You can’t really say what will happen minute by minute in your inquiry or where it will go so let people know they can get off the ride when ever they want to. But this is more than just the rhetoric of the consent form you give them. It is about planning an inquiry that understands not all the data is coming from people you interview. What if they all dropped out??? The data is also the literature, and your feelings and thoughts (see recent on-line ‘Campus’ session Module Three blog post below).

3)    The power of the researcher – you think you are stressed about your project! The people you approach also have stress about the idea of research and they are not in control of the project like you are. Think about the impact of being asked to be interviewed or not being one of the people asked to be interviewed will have on people. Think about the relationship you already have with people involved in the inquiry. There is not a right person to ask. You just need to have thought about the impact you will have and maybe tried to make sure it is as gentle as possible. Where possible ask yourself do I really need to involved people they way I am planning, would it be more gentle to change how I engage with them. Like changing planning to interview your students to observing your students. Knowing the power relationship between student (them) and teacher (you) is quite stressful and can be manipulated.

All right this is long enough. I think it would be best now if you have a look at some of the post other people in the session wrote up.

http://stephanievezmar.blogspot.co.uk

http://francescasmith90.blogspot.co.uk/

http://lynnterry001.blogspot.com

http://ruthclarewood.blogspot.co.uk

Also I would love to carry on the conversation in the comments below…what do you think?

Adesola

On-line 'campus' session with a focus on Module Three

Today we had the second on-line ‘campus’ session for Module Three.  The title for the session was ‘Organising and analysing data’ 

We began by challenging ourselves to think about – “What is data?”.

The problem we can have with data is recognising it. Data is NOT someone giving you the answer to your inquiry question. I think often that is what we expect. That the field data collection period is to go out and look for someone who can answer the inquiry question like an Easter egg hunt – going out in the feild and coming back with exactly what you wanted. Then coming home with the answers(eggs) and write them down - the end research done!!

Firstly, the data collected in the field does not give us the answer. (See the Module two overview post also – we are not looking for answers but looking to better understand our question. We are looking to be able to ask better more informed questions).

The data collected in the field is only part of the ‘answer’, your feelings and thoughts and impressions are also part of it, the literature you read is part of it. You mix these all together and see what you think of them all – that is the analysis. Then you write-up what you think having done the analysis, along with explaining what you did so we can see the journey you took to get to what you think. Analysis can be thought of as triangulation. A triangle linking and mixing together: your experiences and reflections, with what other people think (the literature) and what the people you saw in the field were doing (field data). 

So if at some level you have been thinking of the data as – the ‘answer’, and you have not found the answer you might think you have not collected any data yet. In other words you might have quite a lot of data and not realised it is data because you are only looking for something that will be the direct answer to your inquiry. So we asked ourselves “What is data?”.

I am suggesting it is everything that happens between two points in time – when the module started in February to late March when you stop collecting data and start analysing. Everything that happens – not just the parts you planned or expected people to say.

For example you might be looking at Motivation in the students you teach and have plans to interview six of them… but you haven’t yet. This doesn’t mean you haven’t started the research yet because it is March (!) and the module started in February (!). It just means its not going the way you expected. But the very things that have delayed you or are making you hesitate are data. We talked about this – maybe it’s because you are so busy. So ‘being so busy’ is like a theme. You have got to this theme through your experiences and reflections more than through the field data activity but you can see if this theme happens in the field data too. For instance you could observe if the students who you want to learn more about motivating also see themselves as very busy (busy with relationships, busy thinking about after school events etc… not having time for your class).

So if data is everything that happens between February when the module started and end of March-ish then how do we organise it?

I suggested you use themes (as the example above showed). Notice what is jumping out at you as a theme. Are there some things that keep coming up (even if they are negative things)? Start to notice them and group them together. In the end you can take all the experiences and reflection you have, all the field data (interviews and observations etc…) and all the literature and almost colour code every time one your of themes appears in them. You would be organising the data into themes.

Now to analyse you look at all the bits under one theme and think about what they have in common how you see them relating to each other. Ask yourself what story do they tell to you.

So to summarise the steps

1. Come to turns with it:  the research has started and it might not be doing or saying what you expected (great you what to learn something new and to do that you have to encounter something new – something unfamiliar)

2. Reflect on what is reoccurring – are you seeing themes yet. You can do this now as you collect data or look for themes once you stop collecting data.

3. If you have a theme start to see what its relationship is with all the data – field work, literature and your feelings/reflections.

4. Know you will STOP collecting data at a point in time and start looking at it and the relationships there are between all the ideas.

Comments and questions we talked about:

As we talked people said that a few things jumped out at them, they were:

You might be afraid you will not know what to do with data that is unexpected. But this is like saying you want to control what you will find and if so then why bother to do research – you could just tell us what you want to find.

The process of research that you worked out in Module Two will stop you from getting too lost. The research project itself is like a path if you follow it even when you are not sure what you are doing you’ll get somewhere.

The Professional Artefact, what is that???

We said replace the word artefact with the word ‘thing’. It is a professional ‘thing’ explaining or sharing your research. You can’t know what the ‘thing’ is yet because you haven’t done all the research so how can you know what ‘thing’ will explain it.

The research doesn’t have to be what you expected in Module Two as you planned it. The process is the more important thing.

Last thoughts – the data is not to tell you the ‘answer’. I hope after reading this post that makes sense.

Della and Pip are both writing blog posts on the on-line ‘campus’ session too. Please have a look at what they say.

 http://dellaestlin.blogspot.co.uk/

http://pipspalton.blogspot.co.uk

 What do you think? Does this make sense? Please comment below

Adesola

On-line campus sessions!!!

Hi
We have 'on-line campus session' coming up next week:

Module One - Wednesday 18th March 7pm to 8pm

Module Two - Tuesday 17th March 6pm to 7pm

Module Three - Tuesday17th March 5pm to 6pm


Looking forward to some great chats. Please let me know if you want to join a session by leaving a comment below.

Adesola
:)

PM Skype - discussion

Our PM skype went well also. We talked about a number of things including:

How to cite – there are a number of guides for how to write-up unusual citations such as from pod casts or films on web-sites. Some people recommended ‘cite me’ I also found:

https://www.citethisforme.com

There is also a clear guide on our Middlesex Library web-pages and the librarians are also there to help.

We talked about the idea that these chats are for exchanging ideas and thinking beyond your own process. For instance Julia talked about her thoughts about translating her interviews when they are carried out in Portuguese and she is writing in English. That got us thinking about the interview process in general and the ways we can try to make sure we get the meaning behind what people are saying. Importantly it made us realise that to some extent we cannot find the ‘truth’ of what someone is saying. It does not exist in qualitative research (such as we are doing) because everything is interpreted at one level or another.

Bernie and Pip are going to write about this

http://berniebellp.blogspot.co.uk

http://pipspalton.blogspot.co.uk

We also talked about time management. Everyone who was in the conversation is going to put a time management tip on their post. I am asking that you – the person reading this – yes YOU…. Write a time management tip in the comments here Please. 

Mine is: to write a list of things I must do and then give myself a deadline or day I have to do them by. So each thing on the list has a day when I have to have done it by!!

We asked each other questions about the course and those in Module one asked how that was for those who had completed module one. Lisa asked did you know what your inquiry would be in Module Three when you were in Module One? Everyone in Module Three said no that the inquiry emerged as they did the work of Module One and Two. That was helpful because then the Module Three people realised that they were worrying about things toward the end of Module Three (like what the professional artefact should be) rather than trusting like the whole course that would emerge as they did their research. It is impossible to say what the artefact will be before you’ve done the research just as you can’t write about the research before you’ve done it – unless you have a time machine!!

It made us see how discussion is important – that is not always address a question by asking for someone to give you an answer but to address a question by talking about it with other people. Julia is going to blog further on this.

http://julia-v-gil.blogspot.de

Lisa is going to post about hearing how other people have dealt with the course.

http://lisameiklejohn.blogspot.com

Looking forward to reading your time management tips.  

Adesola

Watch this film

For the post on the film of Sir ken Robinson's speech see below. Looking forward to reading what you think of it.

http://adesolaa.blogspot.com/2012/01/arts-and-education_7442.html

Adesola

AM Skype chat

Today’s am skype session was great. It’s always so amazing to be talking to people who are all over the world. We talked about:

Blogging – we started off about how if you are  starting in Module One you may not be sure what a blog post should look like. Should it be informal, funny, personal, more formal? The conversation took us to the point that the blogs are for connecting. As such people felt that being more personal and informal and not tooooo long encourages people to read and respond. However some post might be more for yourself to reference back later in the Module or the course. We thought about writing for purpose. If you are writing more informally on your blog also remember (and practice) writing more academic style, which the university will require for the work you submit. I think you should start getting used to citing things as you write even if you are writing in an informal manor. If you practice citing then you get used to thinking about how what you are saying can connect with other people’s ideas. Danielle is going to post further about this.

danniausten.blogspot.com.

 We talked about some Module Two inquiry ideas, some ideas are: about how dancers look after themselves, injury and self-medication, the exchange of work place knowledge across a cast or group of performers, Why dance training does not rated as highly in some people’s eyes as desk based study. I am re-posting a great film of a speech by Sir Ken Robinson on this last topic. Saran D. and Sarah S. will post further on our conversation about inquiry questions.

http://sarahdunn88.blogspot.co.uk

http://sarahsmales.blogspot.co.uk

We asked what advice would people who have done Module One have for people in Module One now.  This seemed to be: blog , connect with people, Don’t’ Panic, keep notes to yourself. Anthony is going to post on this and also specifically about working from a cruise ship.

http://antgifford.blogspot.co.uk

James will write about attending a group skype session for the first time and what it was like.

http://jamesbapp.blogspot.co.uk/

We also talked about how all the choices we make and other people make (down to looking at your phone when it should be off for instance during a performance) are ethical choices. Ethics is about reflecting how we are experienced by others.

The next Group skypes are March 31^st

What do you think of our conversations??

Adesola

Skype group call March 3rd

Hi BAPP-ers
We have our first group Skype calls on Tuesday March 3rd. That day we have two chats one am (for people who work in the evenings) and one pm (for people who work during the day)!

These calls are really helpful and a great way to meet and exchange ideas with the other people doing the course.

 It is our collective experiences that makes us strong. It is our collective experience that changes information into knowledge.

So please let me know which call you will be joining by making a comment on this post indicating which one you will be at.

10am (in London)
9pm (in London)

Looking forward to hearing how everyone is doing and exchanging ideas and thoughts on professional practice and the module you are on.

Best wishes
Adesola

Welcome back to the new term February 2015

Welcome back to the new term. Feedback and marks will take a little time before they are posted. But as the first week begins start to look at the next module handbook, work out deadlines for handing in work – hand-in dates are same for each module. Maybe up-date your blog and visit some other blogs. It is always useful to visit the blog of someone who has done the module you are about to start.

Looking forward to reading some posts and hearing how you are preparing for the new term, what you learnt last term and how its going in general.

Just a reminder my skype office hours this term are

Monday & Wednesday 10am to 11am

Tuesday & Thursday 12noon to 1pm

It is best to make an appointment if you would like a one-to-one tutorial but if you need a quick check-in feel free to just skype me during these times. Once feedback for the module you have just done is sent out It is a good idea to schedule a one-to-one to discuss your feedback and how it applies to the module you are starting.

Adesola

Feedback…

Thinking about feedback….

I am getting lots of drafts and so busy working my way through things. I don’t read fast so it takes time because I don’t skim read; I need to read each word in order to really understand and analyze what is being said, because I want my comments to be meaningful and helpful.

But feedback is not sending a draft for my approval. The approval has to come from you – you making something (writing something) you feel ‘proud’ of or at lease feel you’ve tried your best at. Its about being honest with yourself on one hand and not leaving bits untouched because you don’t want to shake your own story by fixing them at this point. It is also about being diligent finding out the procedure for writing in this way, noticing the books you have read how things lay out and how they are presenting such as how people have used citations and then thinking about why it is done in that way and what it says about what you are trying to make.

Feedback you ask for from me is to get another eye looking at the work you are doing. If you send something and feel you cannot move forward before I get back to you

1)   Then feedback in that form does not seem the best form for the purpose you have. I would say you need to book a quick Skype call in order to discuss the specific points you feel you need input into before you can go on.

2)   Or your use of my feedback is not really ‘feedback’ it is ‘passing the buck’ asking me to edit your work for you!!! So you can use me to decide what should be in or out of your final piece _ I can’t do this for you!! You know what you want to create.

So please feel free to contact me in different forms according to what you need from your feedback. If it’s a quick block you need to talk out – email or skype (set up a time via email or call if you see me on-line). Then also have specific questions – ask what you want to know. Be direct about what you want me to look at that is because I am another eye so you can direct where I look.

I think it is really important in the performing arts to be clear and to have thought about the role of feedback. A few years ago I realised that when I choreographed something I would ask for feedback from a dance agency for instance. Then I realised I would get quite down when it wasn’t ‘can we book this piece’!!! what they would say was things to ‘improve’ the choreography or general comments. But that response is not feedback. I realised what I wanted was to bring my work to their attention NOT feedback and that by asking fro feedback I was putting my work in the light of something that was unfinished or something I was unsure about. That made me think that you have to  be really careful, direct and really want to hear the response when engaging with feedback. It is not there to reassure you, you are o.k.!!

What do you think?

Adesola