How can I embed a sense of social purpose (through making) into the course I teach on – GB&I BA (Hons)?
Introductory text from Unit 1 of the PgCert in Academic Practice
My name is Sarah Mansell. I’ve worked as a graphic designer for 23 years, graduating from Kingston University and studying for a post graduate laureate at the Jan van Eyck Akademie in the Netherlands. I began my career in corporate branding & literature while teaching at LCP. I’ve specialised in retail design for the last 15 years working as the deputy to the Head of Design at Marks & Spencer. My professional experience informs my teaching on Graphic Branding & Identity BA (Hons) and Professional Practice a cross-school unit undertaken by all second year students at LCC.
As a Mum to three young children I am particularly interested in compassionate pedagogy and how to implement it into my teaching practice. I am also an insulin dependent diabetic since the age of 4 and feel passionate about disability, inclusivity & access for all.
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Wilson, B. (2020) Disorientation as a Learning Objective. Applying Transformative Learning Theory in Participatory Action Pedagogy. Sage.
Bury, J. (2018). Non-Hierarchical Learning: Sharing Knowledge, Power and Outcomes, Journal of Pedagogic Development, Volume 7, Issue 1, p.32-51 Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/153536466.pdf (Accessed January 2024)
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Stewart, T. T., & McClure, G. (2013). ‘Freire, Bakhtin, and Collaborative Pedagogy: A Dialogue with Students and Mentors.’ International Journal for Dialogical Science, p.92-108. Applachian State University.
Hooks, B. (1952-2021). Teaching Critical Thinking, Practical Wisdom. Browns Books for Students. Publisher: London: Routledge, 2010.
Chatfield, T. (2018) Critical Thinking: Your Guide to Effective Argument, Successful Analysis and Independent Study. London: Sage.
Parsons, D. (2017) Demystifying evaluation: Practical Approaches for Researchers and Users (Social Research Association Shorts) Bristol University Press.
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Wakeford, T., Sanchez Rodriguez, J. (2019) Participatory Action Research: Towards a more Fruitful Knowledge. Connected Communities. Foundation Series. University of Bristol / AHRC Connected Communities.
How can I embed a sense of social purpose (through making) into the course I teach on – GB&I BA (Hons)?
Professional Practice Unit, a cross school programme for al year 2 students.
The question I posed allowed me to explore and experiment with mixed methods research, connect with staff and students to learn more about how they felt and most importantly to me, I got to make a creative outcome to answer the question I had posed at the beginning of my Action Research Project. I also learnt how to analyse my data and importantly, I got to experience what life is like as a student at LCC. I used the digital print space to produce my artwork, found how frustrating it can be to use Orb to book the facilities available and how wonderful and kind the technical staff are in our college and all they do to help students fulfil their desires. I learnt how to pay for my printouts – something I have since been able to share with my year 1 students who are just completing the first unit of their undergraduate degrees. I attended a Risograph induction workshop, used print finishing on several occasions to cut, trim and shape my cards. I spent time in the library, reading and writing my blog posts. I visited the shop to get advice on what paper I could print on in Risograph but most importantly, I spent my time doing something that I really wanted to do and learnt a lot as both as a researcher, a creative and an educator at LCC.
I shared my prompt cards with my year 2 students who study across the School of Design in BA (Hons) courses including Art direction, Design Management, User Experience Design & Illustration and Visual Media. They experienced my cards and filled in a questionnaire to give me feedback and help me consider my next steps. Their thought included the following.
‘It feels sometimes that Ual talk about sustainable practise, but don’t execute it in the classroom – it just feels like greenwashing. These cards are asked direct questions which I can apply to my project, they’re very useful.’
‘These prompts make me think about my projects differently, they remind me to stay true to my own values and ensure I’m not producing more trash the world doesn’t need.’
‘As an architecture student there’s a lot of information in the question that I would need to think about as one of my projects goes along.’
‘These questions help me reflect myself from a different perspective. Each question has a certain depth of thought, closely relating to the collective framework.’
I feel that their feedback was mostly positive, although I understand that I am approaching them for their thoughts from a position of power as their tutor. For my next steps I would like to try my cards out in more workshops and share them with GB&I staff for their input and feedback. I would love to get my colleagues to use them in suitable workshops with students, to review how they work in situe and amend them if required. I would also like to see if I can apply for funding to continue and develop my project and perhaps publish packs of these cards for distribution. I would like to consider designing some packaging for the set and perhaps add a dice to heighten the sense of play through the gamification of the experience. In all, this has been an incredible learning journey both in the theory & knowledge I have gained as a researcher and through the practical creative experience of designing, making and being a student at LCC.
Thank you for this opportunity and I will hope to apply for the MA in Academic Practice later this year. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time and all that I have learnt during the PgCert, I feel I am at the start of a new journey of learning which I feel really excited to continue.
I attend a final group tutorial, there are three of us with Liz Bunting, I find that these are always worth attending as I invariably learn something new or discover a different way of thinking about my project. One of my colleagues presents her work, this reminds me that when I speak next Monday, I need to introduce myself and say; ‘My name is Sarah, I teach on Graphic Branding and Identity (BA honours) at LCC. My starting point for this project was an Away day conversation I had with colleagues from my course.’ In the presentation I need to talk about my research methods – questionnaires, interviews and workshops. Be clear that I used mixed methods of research to experiment, including arts based and qualitative research. I attended the Carbon Literacy course as a starting point for my project as did Nina. Remember to present some key findings from my thematic analysis of the data I collected. Reflect on the experience and what I have learnt as part of my presentation, give a summary of my findings – which I need to update and complete this week. I can also include my next steps, which will be to try all my cards out in a workshop and explore funding. Consider my options to develop the project. Add the pedagogy. Nina’s presentation is fantastic, she has created a game connected to sustainability through our ever-growing digital footprints. She presents the game in a single slide; I suggest she adds a video of the game to show it in action or interaction with a user. She also presents what parts of the Action Research cycle that she has achieved – this is brilliant and very clear. It makes me think about adding participatory arts-based methods to my presentation, we are advised that we can choose any – just make sure we add something. Remember to conclude with what I have learnt from this experience; how will it change my practise? – an important question and one I need to consider. Include Helen Kara’s book on creative research methods – a quote. Mention key scholars in my presentation. Liz encourages us to ground our research, present my mixed methodology in both my blog and the presentation, the participatory research methods I used in the workshops I created. Use a scholarly framework eg. ‘I based this on’ add a quote or reference to a theoretical arts-based method and the qualitative drawing student workshop. I experimented with difference research methods – surveys, questionnaires, interviews – a qualitative or different method depending on what you did.
I spoke with.
Staff during two interviews and two student groups via two workshops.
I had eight students in workshop one
I had six students in workshop two for a focus group discussion,
I analysed the data thematically, scholarly – draw on what you’ve used, who you’ve researched. For example… I’ve gone about analysis following Lorraine Clarke I’ve thematically analysed the triangulation of data, traditionally you would show the data for each theme rather than the method. Present what I’ve done – collected data via workshop interviews and questionnaire activities, what worked for me. Write a reflection. mentioned how I’ve grown. For my presentation, make sure I add the method and mixed research: participatory and arts-based student workshop, group discussion, interview staff. I analysed look at all text I collated thematically and show this through a storyboard, my mapping of, what is the story I want to tell. Make an action planning priority list, if I have time to do… Look at my calendar, when can you squeeze things in, block it out. Look at my reading list for example the Clarke book A practical guide to thematic analysis. Make sure I ground what I’m doing in the theoretical, fill in the form for my presentation, have a good framework for my presentation Focus on what is the most important aspect of this at its heart. What do I need to say? I will be assessment by two people in my presentation and on my blog. Two markers will agree on a grade and key aspects on feedback with the first marker putting it into my assessment form, if I have any questions emailed my tutor. My practice run of my presentation in December as my last tutorial with Tim and my group was enormously helpful. It made me realise I was yet to add my research method, data and analysis of what I discovered from the workshops and interviews. These are my tasks for the final week of my ARP. I have already printed my physical outcome in 2 different formats, now I need to finalise my presentation and complete all my blog posts.
On a beautiful, sunny winter’s morning we find ourselves as a cohort at Chelsea School of Art. We meet in the most incredible wood panelled meeting room; I join my colleagues and friends for their final presentations of the Action Research Projects. It’s a pleasure to hear them speak and see the diverse range of subjects that they cover in their ten-minute talks. We are reminded that this is a summative assessment, to make sure our blogs are live and to complete the feedback form as a project summary. Ten colleagues present, they have ten minutes each, five minutes for the audience to consider questions and ten minutes in dialogue with us. We are reminded to try and enjoy the process, the PgCert is coming to an end. Be supportive and ask questions with kindness, to help the presenter talk about anything they may have missed in their presentation, for example background reading, evaluation methods or peer assessment process. The first speaker Denise adapted a time management tool the Eisenhower Matrix for students with ADHD, this is a social justice issue about disability. Affective pedagogy, sensory integration – how to embed this in relation to the growing number of students on all courses? Joe talks about a non-hierarchical collaborative exercise, embodied analysis (Bury 2018) He talks about traditional education as being hierarchical, whereas contemporary education is more about learning together. I find this fascinating. Francesco’s project is about decolonising fashion and textile brief, the mass displacement of people, the hostile environment the UK government promotes for refugees. His students work with refugees in a collaborative process, Francesco is an educator and activist, using his lived experience of migration, to challenge his positionality and privilege. His project is stunning, using qualitative data analysis involving
Participant observations
Evaluative questionnaire
Thematic analysis
Michiko’s project ‘Surviving I, surviving we’ explores using self in creative and intellectual practice. She interviewed her colleagues about the ethics of using self, as an art historian writer and teacher on the BA honours performance making course, students use their lived experience, cultural backgrounds, over sharing then other students get triggered. She asks – what extent do we ask students to over share? Collaborative ethnography, an interpretive and immersive approach. Boundaries in a pedagogical context. A framework, objective, objectivity, perspective, detachment, recontextualization, reframe, rewrite, design.
Lucy’s ‘Waste not, want not’ project is more connected to my own, she looked at sustainability and materials within the curriculum, social enterprise projects. Her project was based on the core values of sustainability, her question came from an observation. As a educator she champions material circularity with her students. Encouraging them to create socially engaged designs with the hope of embedding social principles into her students. Learning by doing – the transformative power, empowerment. Students as active participants, use them involve them in the project as a methodology. Participatory Action Research, an approach that engages the participants to be involved and want social change.
PAR methodology
Workshop
Focus group
Participant observations
Social change by empowering groups
She created a framework, collected discarded materials – these became her data set, a physicality. Lucy wanted equal partners with the students (James Bury) Using collected materials to make something that everyone would benefit from – a cleaning kit for participants to use in the studio space they worked. This was an outstanding presentation that I really enjoyed. Particularly the idea of using physical objects, the discarded as a data set.
In the afternoon Eleni presented ‘the leftovers’ she introduced herself as a studio space, my name is D305. It is a huge studio space but not very welcoming. ‘Find a place you trust and try trusting it for a while’ Immaculate Hearts College Arts Department. Corita Kent 1962. How do we belong together? Celebrate diversity and difference. The leftovers in a studio space is not what’s put in the bin, it has value but it’s not valued enough to take home. Richard Serra – leftovers contextualised. ‘Oblique approaches to knowledge’ Anti-ethnography, indigenous cosmologies. Method as intervention. Data analysis, agency, access as a support, display. Her conclusion was that other things that happened, people started to put things on the wall as a communication method.
I attended a Risograph induction with MA students where we learnt about the printing process. The machine works like a photo copier and screen printing combined. A master is created of your design, first using one colour and then using a second, you can only print a maximum of two colours at a time. We learn about what gradient to use on the prints and the thickness of paper that the printer will accept. How to change the cartridges of colour, what colours are available and how to run scrap paper through the printer to build up the colour on the plate to produce our artwork. At the end of the induction, I manage to book a session to print to print my designs via Orb next week. I am so thrilled I will be able to do this. I have only printed using Risograph once before when I manged to attend a workshop in Canada online. During Covid. Then we also learnt about the technique and how to set up our artwork to be able to print via Risograph – designs must be set in black with the lighter colour of the design printed first. I then emailed my designs the course tutor. A few weeks later I received in the post an envelope containing one of everyone’s designs who had attended the workshop. It was a joyous experience. I can’t wait to use my new knowledge and print my creative prompt cards via Risograph at LCC.
Digital printing my prompt cards.Print finishing, trimming my prompt cards and completing them with curved corners.
Risograph printing induction.Setting my masters to print my prompt cards using Risograph printing.Final set of prompt card designs created using Risograph printing.
Above are the various design stages of my visual prompt cards from my initial visual concept to the artwork for both digital printing and Risograph printing which require quite different forms to produce.
Checking through my e-mail I suddenly notice the possibility of a group tutorial which is almost over. I log on and managed to speak to Rachel, which is really helpful as I have a few outstanding questions. We discuss the requirements I still need to complete to finish my blog and presentation. Rachel talks about including the rationale for my methodology, put it into context for my project. For example: I chose thematic analysis because of X. Methodology – narrative, reasoning and reflections. For my methodology what were the strengths and weaknesses for example, my question didn’t work. Talk about what did or didn’t work throughout my Action Research Project. For me it was the need to talk to my participants, to engage them in my process and be able to create the most interesting and varied data. Use the blog writing session – respond to the questions posed in a post. Add some into the conclusion for my project. I put all my writing into a Microsoft Word document before I post my text. Consider Social justice and refer to the brief requirements in terms of the Action Research Project To submit I must have blog posts and a presentation – have you go. Include my methodology and methods – have one baseline and more than one for each section. Include multimedia resources in my bibliography such as blogs posts, books, podcasts, YouTube videos, articles online. Signpost, underpin my thinking and its conclusion that I come to via process – document all of this. Use my blog as a discussion space – expand on what I’ve done. Use my teaching and PgCert peers – support them to share more. Rachel suggests I do a practice run of my presentation with someone who has done the PgCert or I could ask Matt and Sandra? My colleagues from GB&I who are also undertaking the PgCert this year. I was fortunate to try an initial proposal for my presentation in my last tutorial with Tim. It was clear what was working well – the initial stages of my project and where I need to add both text and my thinking to explain my research methods, data collection & analysis and finalise with a conclusion to my project – my final set of cards along with my thoughts on this experience.
I attend the‘Radical pedagogies’ talk as part of the staff development week just before Christmas, as the project that was being presented had a similar theme to my ARP. I wanted to see how the research for this was conducted, what themes were created for the cards, how was the content developed and what was their decision-making process for the various stages of the project.
‘Radical pedagogies’ is a project created by colleagues Doctor Helen Walsh & Sarah MacDonald. The cards were created based on student feedback using a Horizons research and innovations funding in 2021. This was to support projects to develop pedological research. Their manager Christy Johnson suggested they make a proposal for funding as they had similar values around the concept of social justice. They used creativity in an educational format to create a more meaningful experience for students. Building inclusive models for engagement, foster risk taking, creativity and curiosity. The proposal was for student centred teaching materials that celebrate diversity. The box of activity cards they created from this project is now used by academic support staff in classes that they teach. Based around four themes.
Cultural thinking
Avant-garde action
Radical imaginings
Thinking time
The twenty cards in the box relate to their own personal research interests. These included concepts of time – how we use time, time management, to engage student learning and invigorate group discussion. They worked with students to get feedback on their themes and questions for the cards. The four themes initially had text for ten cards, they got student to vote for their preferences, and engaged a student designer and illustrator to create the final set. Which were then edited, proofread, and printed at LCC.
Students engaged with a focus group as part of this process, BA and MA students from Design, Screen and Media. They gave suggestions such as the card asking participants to ‘write a poem’ receiving feedback from an international student – maybe this is a hard request if you are not a native speaker, the request could be amended to write a poem or a statement. These cards were co-creation with students, their feedback was valuable to the development of the project. As they chose to not follow a banking model of education, but more the lived experience, where students were empowered to make suggestions. Another proposal was from a student who said we need to talk about colonisation, before we can talk about decolonization, they gave perspective as learners. Student initiative shaped the pedagogical materials. For the ‘Avant-garde action’ theme – each card takes an ‘instant’ and turns it into an activity. On the reverse of the card there are discussion questions and activities which get students to think more playfully about big issues. Each card has five activities listed. ‘Critical thinking’ – is a critique of white feminism. Racism and whiteness of feminism – intersectionality. Students were asked to research this and feedback. ‘Radical re-imaginings’ is based on an exhibition at the V&A. Alice – the social justice campaigner empowering women who stood up against injustice – the questions include design a placard to advocate for positive change. The ‘Thinking time’ theme is about decolonizing the calendar. The students giving feedback on this set proposed that time is universal, actually, it’s not, the sun and moon are universal, but time is not. Babylon, Egypt China made-up decimal time but other countries use different systems. They encourage us to use different cards in different learning environments. Helen suggests you can use all of them in a lecture or pick one from each thinking, use flexibly – such as the time management series or critical thinking. They can also be used as warm up exercises, or to support student discussions.
As part of this exercise, we as participants in the lecture now look at the cards and give feedback. Some of the cards need to be made more accessible with larger text. I love the consistency of the illustrations, but the text needs to be larger. I ask the following questions.
How many rounds of topics areas and the questions did you decide for each?
Where did you get them printed on card?
Which came first categories / examples of text to read, art exhibitions etc?
Would they be used by just LCC students?
Are the card age specific?
Could you simplify the content for school children?
Once they, the students have completed activities what do they do with that knowledge?
To create the themes and questions Doctor Helen Walsh & Sarah MacDonald created a padlet for the questions, themes emerged from these questions. Initially they had twenty categories, then they began to find which questions had themes in common. The printed set have now been used by both MA & BA students. They found that MA students have often being out of education for a while. The cards work well as an ice breaker. The team designed a few cards each and the categories. A member of the audience talks about working with a publisher to create box sets, how to take an academic project to a commercial conclusion. He had MA student on a course at the college who had done something similar.
The student who designed the cards presented today was found through a job spec on Arts Temps. She created both the illustrations and designed the cards. I love the colour coding of the card themes; it makes them very clear. It’s great to have something physical as a reaction to all the online learning during Covid, a tangible thing. I really like that there is more than one activity to choose from, some of the text is quite small. – we discuss this during the session, and it is something they will consider as they develop the project. The cards address multiples via a range of activities, some practical – film, poetry, a range of outcomes. We discuss how these could use in education; we also suggest they need packaging – a box like the School of Life sets I have been researching. A final idea is to include a dice with the set, the playful act of rolling a dice to get a card in a theme you might not have selected. This reminds me that I need to get feedback from my students on the cards I am creating. What about the final objects? – the speakers have used individual cards in a workshop which also works but they love the idea of having a dice – the gamification of the activity, so that it chooses for you. You can select one card from each colour to work with or all the cards from one colour. We talk about other concepts to work with academic students such as ‘Sentimental exchange’ – like speed dating as an icebreaker activity Students consider sentimental verses monetary value of objects, they talk about what is important and of value to them, that they didn’t bring to university. ‘Critical thinking’ – film, watch a trailer. The MA film students didn’t want to write in class but they like the idea of a game and how that changed the atmosphere in the room. Some prompts are individual activities, and some are class activities. We also recommend adding instructions – pick one card for the whole class or choose one card from each colour. Roll a dice, use the card that you are given. This reminds me that I need to do something similar with my own set of cards, create guidance or instructions explaining how they can be used. Pedagogy – test my cards out with students, in an Open Access workshop, or a game, how do we talk about these tricky topics? For the ‘Radical pedagogies’ set there could be included a ‘Mystery’ card – if you don’t fancy writing you could swap it – answer this by taking photographs, design a logo instead etc. Also consider:
If you have half an hour do this
if you have quarter of an hour try this
Timing You could have an extra card with fifteen minutes, thirty minutes or one-hour options. This time limit would allow you to write a very different poem from having a longer period of time to explore & experiment, both are possible.
For my ‘work in progress’ cards, I now need to review what works – consider colour coding? but what could I change? Add a dice with colours on it? Give a different option for writing activities, mix them up? Take a series of photographs etc. Email Sarah MacDonald and Helen Walsh if I have any questions. I also meet Kevin Biderman from CTS, our GB&I new staff member.
I had collated pages and pages of Qualitative data from my participatory action research, containing thoughts, opinions, and the experiences & knowledge of both my staff and student participants. I had all of the following documents to analyse.
2 staff questionnaire responses
2 staff semi structured interviews
8 student questionnaire responses
8 student drawing responses
I student focus group semi structured discussion
1 student questionnaire response
Examples of data to analyse Staff response
I think after the climate emergency in 2018-2019 there was a big push for students to see more projects visibly respond within the curriculum, responding to the climate of urgency and also decolonizing the agenda.
Reusing resources adds to creativity.
Being specific about what sustainability means.
Graphic design can benefit people & communities by limiting its environmental impact.
Do the right thing.
Responsibilities for designers, you need to think before designing, during designing and after designing, how it can be the whole process.
How you make a small thing so that is feels more real, you have a connection to it.
How is somebody gonna interact with your product or service?
Student responses Lego did make you think about the project in a different way.
Fantastic way to present your ideas to your friends because you can just ask them – _do you think this works? Do you know what I’m making? To get like real feedback. Just showing them a 2D page which they might need you to brief some background information at first, so feedback might not be clear.
Something physical people understand. more of your thought process.
A lot of projects we tend to talk about our ideas, you have maybe a vision of what you want something to be in your head but until you can actually, physically make it – drawing is one thing, but to physically make the objects helps somebody else understand what it is you’re trying to create.
Find out where my resources come from, educate myself regularly as research.
Trying to think about other resources that could be reusable so that they have a longer life.
Does it make you think about that going into the future and the kind of company you want to work for. (Sustainability – aligned thinking.)
I began by reading everything that I had, highlighting the key points in each piece of copy that I found interesting. I used thematic analysis, following a manual, iterative process to extract the main points from my data, continually editing and reducing version after version of all the text I had collated. I put all the highlighted points from each document into one paper and grouped the text thematically, synthesising and transforming the data firstly into a series of statements under themes that I had extracted from my research. Then editing these to become a series of questions that could become creative prompts in the ideation stage of a design project. Once I had a set of approximately fifty sentences, I put these into a prompt card design I created. I then printed them and having this set to physically hold, I placed each card into one of the four final themes that I selected & wrote. These were Think. Use, Make and Connect. For a final edit of my designs, I considered and made a comparison of card against card, where questions overlapped or had a similar sentiment. I either merged the statements into a single response or removed one of the options from my pack. Finally, I was left with a set of 24 cards in total which I felt posed the most interesting discussion points, concepts to consider and ways of working to implement into individual or group project work for students on creative courses at LCC and hopefully Ual in the future.
My final set of creative prompt cards to embed social purpose into GB&I BA (Hons) contained the following themes and number of questions.
6 prompt cards for Think 5 prompt cards for Use 6 prompt cards for Make 6 prompt cards for Connect 1 card for Instructions
Miro board, data and analysis and development of themes and questions.
How it all began…
Process
For my data analysis I began by collating all my categories of text
I read through each document highlighting key points of interest
I then edited these into a new & separate word document
I took this copy into Miro to categorise it into themes
I then gave each theme a heading
I took each point I have highlighted and turned it into a creative question / creative prompt card
I edit the questions to my final set to add into my designs for production and the final set of wild cards.
Data sets from students and staff interviews, questionnaires and workshopsHighlighting key points of interestCreating potential questions from my data analysisEditing all the bodies of text I collected into a single document.50 edited prompt questions, I physically put these into my four chosen themes.
Below are the various stages and edits I made of my data, from a series of documents to a single paper. Statements collected by themes, edited again, turned into questions with a final cull to decide what would go to print and be part of my creative prompt cards.
I found some inspiration for my data themes from the following document. – page 5. Long before the categories I finally used developed from analysing the data I collected.
Themes could be;
Design for Activation
Design for Imagination
Design for Recognition
Or from Ual The Exchange Fostering belonging and compassionate pedagogy by Vikki Hill, Liz Bunting and Jheni Arboine page 5.
In our last tutorial before the Christmas break with break we are asked
To talk about our projects.
Present part of what you’re doing.
Simplify the Learning outcomes – the fourth learning outcome is about communication – blog.
What is my project essentially about?
Research methods
social justice
design
I am reminded to make sure I touch on all three of these.
Look at the unit brief – what the presentation needs to include. What do I want to present and what do I want to leave on the blog? If it is difficult to explain, leave it off the presentation and just put it into my blog.
If it’s energising & enjoyable including it in the presentation. save that interesting content for your blog.
Reading references – make sure talk about these when you present.
Tim and others will look at my blog.
Gather together and organise
I present where I am with my ARP, I show and talk through twenty-four slides. My feedback is mostly positive, it’s lovely not too rushed. My design depicts my journey, the audience learn more about my project, gaining insight on my themes. Why I chose my topic around graphic design, the context for my APR. I worked this theme through my workshops, the whole project exists as a thing. My talk is 9 minutes and 45 seconds, I did not plan what I was going to say I just talked but it is interesting to understand that I used my time well.
I present how I hope to actually embed climate justice into the course I teach on. I am told I speak with an honest voice stating points, uses etc through my implicit practise. I am interpreting institutional policy. There is a value for students as a participatory Action Research Project. I am told with this presentation as it is I would currently get a B/B+. What is missing is my research, I must put on the hat of a researcher. Include a slide about why I choose these methods for my research and data analysis, why I chose this method over another. How was this experience? Add this to my slides. Include the original context, background rationale for my project. I need to add my research analysis, the policy documents I have included are good. I need to talk about ethics and my research particiapnts who created the data with me – explain the formats I used.
I could talk about what I would like to redesign in terms of the university policies or that I could read that literature. I need to show the design of my research overall – what would I do to improve the research design? Teacher implementing the research I have developed. As a final slide I need to include a reading list, consider what did you find the most interesting. Finish your presentation with a bibliography. I need to add a few extra slides to my presentation covering the areas I have yet to document as part of my APR.
Tim breaks down the talk I have just given.
1 minute on my first slide introduction
7 minutes on data collection
1 minute on data
I need to add more research information, why did I chose a certain way to research? How did it go? How did I use the workshops I created? What would I do differently? Write about these as a researcher, not as a teacher or a designer.
Think about timing, to get in all my content. I will take out the section I have on other prompt card designs, and the page I have included on my branding – I will put both of those sections into my blog instead. Tim said I wish everyone could see your presentation, which was very kind.
ASAP to do
Write up my blog posts
Create a visual plan of my project
Contact staff member E for an interview
Interview El ASAP
Contact staff member K for an interview, again
Analyse my data
Decide & create my themes
Collate my questions
Design cards
Do Risograph induction
Print cards
Create a feedback form on my prompt cards for students to fill in
Put cards into a Professional Practice Unit workshop with students
Collate their feedback
Draw some conclusions
Plan what to do next
Contextualise all you’re thinking as a researcher. Consider sociality, conditions of university etc. Add methodologies to my presentation. Include a slide – how did I analyse and interpret my data? Participatory research can be difficult, dealing with different groups etc Consider, if I did another participant research project, what would I do differently?
For example, Michiko interviewed her colleagues, it has taken her a long time to edit their scripts. Kat created a workshop, ten participants signed up to join her but only one turned up for the event, it is not always easy.
Use the blog template, make sure I have included all the sections listed. State why I decided to data collection via interviews, justify your methodology, your data collection format. The collective identity of staff and students on an equal level. A framework objective is the most important thing, art not therapy. How do you communicate an academic approach? ‘Critical friendship’ – I need an approach. An alternative way to play the academic game. Apply to the relationship with staff and students, a lived experience. A representation for artistic practice.
We are reminded that there isn’t a right or wrong way about the type of research method you use, most will give a rich data set. Think about you reading, use it and your thinking about it. Consider your interests, your interests as a researcher. The depth of your fundamental questions. The nature of learning – individual or social learning: Lev Vygotsky. (1934 -1978) The social learning model is collective thinking, how we learn. Learning is a psychological, about how individuals developing themselves Tim says we have all worked really hard and we are using what we have learnt in our APRs.
In conclusion, the feedback I receive includes needing to add information about my research methodology, why I chose it, did it work? Add a bibliography, remember to document the analysis of my interviews, my own interpretation. Consider, how do we bring the whole of ourselves to the teaching environment? How much do we bring in? When do we stop? What is the frame we’re going to bring in? I must check on my notes, it was really useful to put an initial presentation together and talk it through with an audience. I hadn’t considered my timings, but now I will. This will help me make a plan to get ready for my presentation.
What next for me?
After this course I would like to apply for staff development funding to develop my social justice prompt cards.
Speak to Tim and Lindsay – what else can I do within Ual? Become a researcher?
Can I do the MA in Academic Practice if I only teach on PPU?
Ask Rachel & Stacey my PPU colleague for career advice.
