Monday 23rd October
In person
Our second session in person, in the depths of LCC. We laugh that managing to find the room should give us points towards our grading, as it is so hidden in the building. We use the wool as an icebreaker, each choosing 3 lengths in different colours. Tying a knot and sticking it to the end of the table. This is ‘stimming’ a secondary process – psychoanalysis, look into this more. My daughters class use this a lot as part of the process of learning, pupils with ADHD are allowed to play with fidget toys and putty while they listen. It helps them to focus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimming
Stimming in the classroom
https://www.autability.co.uk/stimming-at-school
We use the string to be aware of our thoughts, trying to be present and sit in all three of our thought, feelings and sensations. Thinking about our projects, individual focus on my APR – my thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations – aspects. What do I have to do? What are you planning? Questions and ideas Which part is the most relevant and happening now? My mind races – I have lots of thoughts about what I need to do – these create lots of knot. I’m feeling both excited and nervous, the sensation in my stomach is churning. This morning I looked at a calendar and realised we already a month into this. Grounded embodiment, the ‘gut brain’ a hierarchy on the senses. Experimentation – being present in the room. It is interesting to consider: how long does it take for students to arrive mentally in the room? A lot longer than the physical. We rarely consider this when teaching, our students may still be thinking about their day so far, their worries or concerns, distractions from being present. Be still, when you need to become focused on the day at hand.
We are reminded – you are an expert in your field. Consider critical friendship as part of this process in person, asked respectful questions. Now is the time for me to finalise my methodology – how many participants will be involved in my ARP? in this tutorial we will learn from each other. Be kind to yourself, use active listening and undertake supportive responding. We are reminded to start doing things as soon as possible. Pace yourself – write a blog post after each session reflecting on the topics discussed, our feelings & sensations. We are reminded again to create a small-scale experience – expectations. Only do what you can do.
Consider the Learning Outcomes – have things in line. Develop a feasible and detailed research design (Enquiry) Researching methods to be creative in collecting data, try something out. Try something you haven’t had the chance yet. Blog – I thought about… however, as I continue thinking about my project I decided to explore my research by observing staff. Write an essay not lots of quotes. I need to find my voice – my research voice, my own legitimacy. What do I feel? The process of becoming a researcher. Try different things, research methods and why am I choosing it. Learning outcome three – Design & implement – review research methods and instruments appropriate to your question or process. Explore what’s out there – interviews, surveys, workshop, observations, making – use my practise for exploring. Look at a situation – what does it tell us? Observation – the object conveys an experience. Your blog is created organically through your research.
- Intentions
- Questionnaires
- Analysis
Make one blog entry as a reading list full list compiled together. Look at Lindsay ‘s blog examples on Moodle. Conduct reading into research methods. The project is about trying things out, read about other methods. Use your blog to document your process.
QUESTION
How does my project map onto the Action Research Activity?
- Today, rewrite my ethics form
- Talk to my tutor Tim – is this OK?
- Create my visual plan in Miro
- Choose my methods
Plan the next two months
- Focus groups with students
- Interview / question staff
- Workshop with students on Professional Practise unit
- Gather feedback
- Reflect on what I’ve learned
- Resubmit ethics form ASAP – then get feedback
- Get signed off ASAP
- Start the project quickly
- Today, decide my method – what I’m going to do
- Finalise consent form today – get signed off ASAP
Consider – where are you on the cycle?
- Refining question
- Then collect data
- Next, implement into teaching
Present quotes, collate data, make questions implement into a workshop.
- Define the problem
- Preliminary survey
- Collect data, how can your teaching be changed?
- Make question cards
- Implement change – use cards in a workshop
- Monitor and evaluate change
- Review and reflect on change
- Repeat cycle
For me;
- Defined question and remake ethics form
- Ask questions – e-mail / interview staff
- Organise a focus group with my students
- Create cards from quotes posed
- Implement cards into a workshop – PPU
- Get feedback on how useful these were
- Decide what to do next
We are advised to not spend too long on our research, I will collate my data via
- A survey
- Interview
- Focus group
- Workshop
Through the data I collate – quotes from staff, information from the focus group I will be able to extract a set of questions to physically design and make a set of wild cards. These will be implemented into a Professional Practice unit workshop reflecting the data I collected. I will then ask participants questions on how they found the wild cards – were they useful to change their own creative thinking as an intervention? I will evaluate these changes, review, reflect and repeat the cycle.
It is important to implement change. The action is doing something different. Another action is reflection – this is also an important stage. Implement change and reflect on it – it’s enough. Think about the next steps, three months is a snapshot, a moment in time.
We do the reading exercise on citation – references. I discuss with Kat. Share a survey of key points and experiences. The eleven functions of citation. Social scientists and those who wrote on computer sciences were interviewed. They were asked about recent papers – why did they use citation? Computer people & sociological people. How they used the different functions of citation.
- Signposting
- Supportive
- Future
- Topical
- Position
- Building
- Advertising
- Competence
- ?
Depending on where you take your research, you can use citation to;
- Support your argument in a field of debate on something
- Expand on an issue
- Working towards something else.
- To promote the work of others
- To indicate you know what you are talking about
- Niche, to build something specific
The use of citation can be linked to personal interpretation. My colleagues on this unit may use citation for a different purpose to me. Always consider why a reader is reading a text – how is it useful? Should we be using these categories for our own citation in this unit? Consider why do I use citation? To show what I have read and put my teaching practise into context. I have not thought about all of these categories but perhaps I need to as a framework for my thinking to sit in. An academic framework that shows I have read texts and also shows my positionality. Through the PgCert I now know how to contextualise a workshop I have created etc. but I don’t need to share all of my knowledge with my class, it’s all in me and is implemented in my teaching practise itself by osmosis.
Use a bibliography to show common fields of research as confirmation for the person or text I agree with. A citation may not necessarily be needed but headings and a bibliography help. to map my thought process. Don’t make assumptions from a title and a bibliography, I need to actually read the texts.
I find academic text intimidating; I often have to stop to look up the words as I tried to read the text very thoroughly to gain an understanding of what is being discussed. I could approach this very differently Kat suggests I just pick out something that looks interesting.
Vernacular citation encourages us to think about everyday media from non-academic sources. Everyone in the group is encouraged to use these as part of our research – such as poems, songs and conversations. Once we have our research question, we are inspired to open up to the world in a different way – cite non-academic such as magazine articles, YouTube shorts or podcasts to support our rationale.
For me these could include;
- Workshops I’ve attended at Ual on the subject of sustainability
- Other events I’ve attended about the environment and creativity
- Ual policies I have read on the subject
- Course handbook and those of other courses
- Conversations & talking to peers and colleagues
- Overheard conversations as anecdotal evidence – a way to test your thinking
- Cartoons or a different kind of knowledge
- Other’s citation
- Podcasts
- TV shows
- Vernacular citation
- Footnotes commenting social justice issues of citation
We are reminded not to produce the same body of knowledge again & again. Draft a post about your reading from the week, discuss what you’ve heard and read, cite relevant quotes/sources as part of this. Think about your reading, how is it informing your thinking. How does your reading inform your thinking, your research, your project? Consider mind mapping as part of this process. Make sure I give myself enough time to create and host the workshop, time for the production of my outcome.
In my blog posts include everything that informs my thinking.
- Why does it matter to me?
- Why does it matter to the world?
- What research methods am I interested in?
Blog headings to include;
- Research heading and question
– Link this to who I am - Rationale
– Write why I chose to look at this topic – my research question.
– What were my personal motivations, why is it important?
– Include the context of my role with students, department, the institution, my discipline or sector.
– Has anyone else written about this? Include quotes - Ethics
– Upload a copy of your form with notes on feedback from your tutor and how I responded to it
– Show each version and how it changed - Participant facing documents
– Information sheets
– Consent forms
* Question – do we use the template available / do I have to create my own?
– Include notes on any amends made / feedback - Research methods
– Write about the research I’ve done eg interviews, the list of questions and notes on my reading research
– Write about my findings not the raw data - Up-to-date Action Plan
– Tasks and activities as a Gantt chart - Create my blog posts
- Project findings
– What have I learnt?
– From interviews
– From workshops with students
– From feedback
– Cover what I’ve learnt from my reading & research about sustainability
– What have I learned from my primary research – data collection
– What I have learnt from the research methods I’ve used - Presentations
– Any draughts I did for class exercises / tutorials
– The final presentation of the project - References
With my ethics form – we talk about social justice as being a UAl principle but how is it actually embedded into individual courses? Some must be doing this more successfully than others – find out who and how. My plan is to collect a series of questions that become creative prompts for action. The questions will come from collected data, to make a set of wild cards. These will be given these out to students for use as part of the projects they are already working on. I will then collate their feedback on this experience.
To do
- Ethics form
- Draft of plan / brief
- Run pilot in college with students
- Get feedback
- Refine activity
- Plan in college how to observe
- Prepare observation templates
- Run activity
- Capture outputs
- Reflect on session
- Re-brief /debrief with observees
- Collate feedback
- Plan next steps
- Create presentation slides
