Monday 6th November
Points to go over with Tim
- I have written my questions for my student & staff questionnaires and workshop.
- I have had my ethics form signed off.
- I have written & created my consent forms, my question sheets for staff & students and the information sheet to explain my Action Research project.
- I hosted my first student session last week – Friday 3rd November.
- I will host my second student session this week – Friday 10th November.
- I sent my questions via email to the 4 members of staff that I selected and want to engage in my project.
- I will send them a reminder this week about my submission date – 16th of November.
- I should have all my data by the following Monday 20th November to analyse and distil for the content of my cards.
- Next week put together a ‘work in progress’ presentation
- Try to use Orb
- Book risograph printing induction at LCC – find out how
- Design & make cards
- Urgent – catch up on blog posts
- Conduct reading on research methods, consider and write about why I chose the method/s I have used
- Present WIP 4th December
- Try cards out in a Professional Practice Unit session I teach with year 2 BA(Hons) students as a cross-school programme of events
- Remind Tim I would like to use my ISA
My father In-law suddenly passed away yesterday. It’s a huge shock to the family and throws everything I had organised by a week. The session I had planned as workshop 2 with my students on the 10th of November moves to the 17th instead. His funeral is on the 27th of November. We attend as a family, it’s the first time my twins have been to a funeral, they are only six. My older daughter doesn’t remember attending my father’s funeral as she was two at the time. It’s a moving experience, I had no idea how generous he was with his time and helping other people.
Online session
We discuss the intervention – research versus practical. I need to have on two hats – be a teacher and a researcher. I need to think of and ask researcher type questions, for example: what do my colleagues think about using music in the taught curriculum? What are the gaps in between working for students attending class? Reflect on the use of music in general. Researcher & practitioner – being both will help the students at some point. Consider a ‘research type intervention’ Michiko’s methodology is conducting interviews; she has seven participants who have agreed to be involved – she has four interviews planned. Tim reminds her this is a response rate of over 50%.
Look on Moodle for advice on reading material, look at ways to do interviews, techniques. Really think about my actions – a recorder in hand becomes too official, outside the teaching environment feels more informal. What applications can we use to make a transcript. AI? Investigate if there is a Ual package? Often programmes are available for a small amount of time for free. Record using my iphone? Type up text or find a recorded text to written text format? Data transcript from sound to text files. I need to investigate software for transcription. Remember to interview & record in a quiet space. Think about semi structured interviews which are informal and more conversational. We are each conducting a mini research project – data selection, the process of when do our collecting, we need to focus on an aspect of the response. Reduce the amount of data we’ve got to thematical / comparative analysis. Try not to be overwhelmed with context. We are reminded that if we’re going to use the information for publishing – speculative possibilities, my interviewee needs to agree I can use it.
Think back to the Action Research cycle – question, how can this data be used?
- Linear / circular research
- Cards and implementation
- Will my data give me the right questions?
- Sit with the data – put my questions / preconceptions aside
- Revisit my methodology and the question I have posed
- Visualisation / analyse the visuals
- Affective methods, gamification – digital research, for which there is lots of funding
- Linguistic or language based?
- Verbal or nonverbal data collection?
- Reading materials what should I read to support my methodology and my APR?
Look at Giles Lane CSM cards, making interactive toolkits – cards, awareness, letter maps, values.
I have eight students and four members of staff participating – hopefully!
I need help – what is my methodology?
My concerns
- Will staff respond to my questionnaires?
- Will I get the data that I can use to create the questions for my prompt cards?
- Don’t have a preconception, wait and see.
- Analyse what I receive, if not – relook at the questions I have asked.
I give an overview to my group based on the list I created in this post, to show where I am in my ARP. I’m advised to look at what I asked as a device to get my students to think about Analogue Tuesday, making and sustainability. Asking, how did that workshop make them feel? I am given feedback that my Action Research project feels like an MA, it has the scope to turn into an amazing project – which is fantastic. It’s complex & cohesive, innovative, at the threshold of thinking, a new development – pushing the university to be more relevant, critical. Tim talks about the Stuart Hall project, a researcher in the Knowledge Exchange. Look up Stuart Hall & Maureen Salman. I am reminded to think about the scale / scope of the project – what is doable for me? I feel it’s OK, think about what will sustain me & feed me going forward. I want to make work. Design, writing, research. I would like to do the MA, this is the beginning of something new for me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stuart_Hall_Project
In my data collection I tried to be efficient – with the hope that staff will type up their answers via emailing them questionnaires, to save me having to writing up the interviews. I must remember to ask – what do you really want? It’s an important question to ask students and an amazing question to be asked. Document the event – how? What will I record? What resources do I need to share / create? In this situation, what materials are required? To share physical resources, do I need a script? – I created one for each scenario I envisaged. I am reminded to consider what prompts I will give my participants to get them to think in the way in that I want. If it’s a surprise they may not have bought all of that information with them to the session. It’s good to get people in a room and open them up. Have carefully prepared resources for what they need to do the next. Anything is possible – Theaster Gates took over a bank for $1.00 and turned it into a national critical archive.
https://www.theastergates.com/project-items/stony-island-arts-bank
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0361684319865255?journalCode=pwqa
Critical Participatory Action Research: A Feminist Project for Validity and Solidarity by Michelle Fine
If you can see and feel the possibility, then students will open up. We are reminded – what are you going to bring? Prepare your interviewees. Activate ‘use of self’ a method used in social work. This is real – Rachel talks about her struggles with the project, we discuss making ourselves vulnerable. She is asking her Year three students to think critically. For me, I need to catch up on my blog and my reading list. I need to finalise what is my methodology. Build connectivity, prepare a meaningful space – this is powerful for students. Participatory autoethnography – prompts to get under skin. Create imaginative, artistic questions. Look at The Queer Art of Failure – A John Hope Franklin Center Book by Jack Halberstam, Sep 2011 - knowledge not passed on due to structures of power. Get the student facing things done. Participatory action research – look at Michelle Fine’s work. Capacity, trust, communities who experienced marginalisation are studied Participatory research is delicate, consider: how does this service? What do we need to believe in the process? What do I need to get there? What do I need to sustain myself? What resources do I require to get there? Be upfront, what is possible? Intersectionality? Remember to mention my positionality as part of my Action Research Project. The power is in the participants hands – let’s begin where the curriculum begins. Think of Paulo Freire – we are the educator and the educate. The researcher is the outsider, what do we bring to the group as a gift? To give them the confidence to speak. Educational research, we are teachers designing research, how do we do this without advantageous / disadvantageous some students?
Educational research can be unethical, as the students who do my project or at an advantage. Think about this, find the right stories for people to connect to.
- Email Tim if I have any questions.
- Plan a speculative unit model.
- Show how much we can commit ourselves.
- Self-reflect as a teacher.
- Non duality, this doesn’t happen very often.
Enjoy the process
- Collate data from my students and staff ASAP
- Analyse for the next session in two weeks time
- See what happens
- Write up my blog posts
- Think about my methodology – do research to support my method and write about it
November 13th Updates – where I am
Staff
- R e-mailed she will do the project, I can interview her
- K chase him if don’t hear anything, ask if I can interview him
- E expert on sustainability, ask again for her involvement
- G check he is OK to complete & return my questionnaire ASAP?
- Email Tim request use of ISA
- Interview with R booked for Thursday 16th November, send invitation
- Second workshop with students booked for Friday 17th November
- Use Microsoft Teams transcript for both
- Arranged interview with K
- I could also interview E previous colleague from GB&I BA (Hons) see how other interviews go & then decide
- Completed workshop one with students
- Sent questionnaires out to 4 staff – 1 returned, 1 expressed interest I’m learning that I would have been better to do these interviews in person. Relook at this.
- Risograph induction – I’ve finally got onto ORB to book this but I’m listed as being a student at LSF campus so I can not book an induction at LCC
- I’ve talked to staff and they have said I can do a walk in session this week, do it ASAP
- Complete blog posts on ethics form questions &consent forms for staff & students
- Email staff and book interviews – be more interactive offered to conduct an interview rather than ask for an email reply to the questions I have posed
- Thursday – go in and do Risograph induction
- Do second workshop with students on Friday
- Saturday / Sunday Review data content to start thinking about making cards
- Plan my presentation for Monday 4th December