Monday 4th December
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.
- Create guidelines for students and staff.
