Month: January 2024

Wednesday 29th November

Doctor Bob Walley is an actor, a fine artist and a dancer, she teaches medical students traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, she says yes to everything. Anticipate that everyone is glorious, be lucky. She did the first joint PhD in the world. In presenting & saying yes, always use that energy and presence. I ask why her name is both Bob and Joanna – she tells us she was short, fat, and ugly someone at the Hacienda nightclub called her Bob. It’s always stayed with her. She is neurodiverse which means she only thinks in the present. She tells us to work with what you have, especially when you have a lot on. Silent, no narrative a PhD on none places. Dance through different epistemology – interpretive dance, silent disco. She hosts ‘shut up and write’ sessions online / in a room – take the space to write with each other for 25 minutes on Thursdays 9:00 to 11:00am. PhD was in performance duration practise.

She asks us to think about the moment of presenting we are working towards. Do you know everything you need to know about it?

A moment,

• Draw ideas together
• How do you plan a presentation together?
• Breathe – look at her padlet
• Content – what is relevant?
• Draw all this information together
• Structure – ask me anything
• Delivery
• Graphics

Bob suggests we put our content onto post it notes – move them around to begin a structure.

• Sections
• Logical
• Beginning, middle and end
• Clearly introduced and concluded
• Delivery
• Eye contact
• Pace & timings
• Graphics

Ted talk, three articles – just a sorbet. Acupuncture for stress, read based on her disciplines. Email her any questions. ever be made. Look at her padlet – how do you feel about presenting? I feel ok as I do this a lot in my teaching practice. She asks us about being given permission to speak, will get stuck in your throat? Remember people, your colleagues want to be there, be present, be the best you can. Academic paper – write any word for clarity, to give a voice to something. I find public speaking OK, I find writing harder, balance.

Bob suggest when we speak, to make sure we face the door, settle, you can have, if you need a physical reminder. Think about your presentation, the characteristics you’re enjoying. Consider the person in the room who is experiencing your presentation. Use powerful pauses, repetition, something unfamiliar, reminder to breathe.

Nest – be present in the room, sit when you want to, on the right chair, where you feel comfortable, have your favourite pencil, hold tactile objects. Nesting – have your own things infront of you, with your words. Make your nest – put things in your pockets. Bob always has a smooth stone in her pocket as a moment of comfort. Wear comfortable clothes, shoes off – what makes you feel comfortable? Favourite stationary, smooth pebbles, a housecoat. All a nesting approach, what might yours be to be comfortable?

Grounding technique – find the ground to extend up and away from it and find a voice. Think about what you don’t like in a presentation? For me, its reading from slides. Get the correct tone, a melody in your voice. Lectures that are too long aren’t good, lighten the tone by smiling, frowning brings the tone of your voice down. Confidence – talk through and around your slides. Proxemics – invite more interest, learn less formally. Lean back, gain critical distance and understand something better. Correct method – section out the pages – different parts to take notes. This allows you to extract different information.

Bob teaches both death & birth practise. She focuses on water as energy, cleanse with cold water for clarity before you present.

Define a set of rituals,

• find your ritual practise.
• durational performance practise.
• Eg brush your teeth before teaching.

When you give your presentation, what are your strong and weak points? Keep those characteristics when you structure, plan your presentation. Find your ritual practice.

Breathing, guided meditation

Feel more present in the moment, feel more confident. Find your voice. Vocal exercises – how to use to communicate confidence and clarity, intention and conviction into the way we speak. Put ideas into practice, start to get ready. Breathe – a pandiculation. Stretch, yawn, place, space, pandiculation, breathe, loosen up the body. Breathing – are you aware of your breath? A moment of stress when we panic. Series of practises to do work with your breath. Exhausting up, away and out – in a bad way. We feel breath, in those moments of stress when we put the body through a certain set of conditions. Guided meditation – senses of words, guide you, direct you into the process, where are you? Take off your socks and shoes, lie down, feel the ground. I am in the perfect place for me right now.

We participate in a guided meditation with Bob. Breathing, I feel my heels. Intention, it was good to be in my body rather than in my head. I spent so much time in my head.

Yoga nidra – this is my time; I’ve been through a battle. This is my time, it’s time to take care of me. Do yoga, be more body centric, learning – do the MA, no more Graphic Branding and Identity? It’s time. Lengthen my space, when you feel stressed – what does that feel like to be me? Shake it out.

Tell your body you’ve got this. When speaking, open mouth more. Project, use your breath intentionally. Not tense, constructed, open up your shoulder blades, open your mouth. Sense of clarity, get the words out. Exposing vulnerability, gives space to something internal – your mouth, open your mouth. Yawning, the apparatus of the jaw. Expanding, you are revealing more of yourself in the moment.

Breathing exercise, close the loop, your energy is yours – teeth, placing the tongue on the back of your teeth. Yoga nidra – lions breath, breathe in, hold, breathe out. Draw a square, draw one breath in, when ready, breathe out. A little hold, square breathing. We are told we can practice this in a queue – imagine the square.

Posture – open up the space, give the lungs space, this will give you more clarity, open up the voice, where you place your shoulders. Have a welcoming posture – open ‘in’ the moment, slightly placed forward, an aggressive pose – chin out, elbows up. Smile – pencil in your mouth, to begin the smile. Watch a Ted talk 20 minutes on posture. Consider your body language, taking in power poses in stressful situations, watch. Joy, celebration – open the body up. Hands on your hips, before you have an intention. Change your response, bring anxiety down.

Presence – physically, communicate your body as it is comfortable as you can be, you are willing to give it a good shot.           It could just be about holding your gaze. Take a moment, A powerful pause, speak to people, smile, allow yourself to access, be as comfortable as you can be. Manifest through physicality, look in between the eyes. The ability to hold the gaze, give your lungs the space to breath.

Breathing – bringing objects around you, remember to breathe, put it into the text you read

Sounding – a sigh, gets breath out of the body. Automatically replaces with fresh breath, sigh to get something out.

• Develop a sigh.
• Your text – learn a way of reading. How might you address the text we read?
• Practice the sound and clarity, the belly breath.
• Practice beforehand – where there should be breath.
• Not the breathing in when reading text, it’s the breathing out.
• Follow your rhythm – use little breaths
• Shaking hands are nerves, they are there because you can see humanity.
• In stress it’s hard to listen, we go blank.
• Stress can affect the senses; you don’t hear the questions.

You can answer through the questions, repeat the question while you gather your thoughts. Build through, use what you’ve heard and what you, use that material to find a way into a response. Ask – does that answer your question? Ask the speaker to repeat the question.

High moments of stress – exam techniques, an elastic band around the wrist, inability to function, ping it – the slight pain will reset and interrupts your brain. Catch your breathe and come back into it.

All points to consider as I prepare for my presentation.

Monday 20th November
In person, we meet in Holborn, a very different space that throws me initially. The session introduces us to a variety of methods to analyse our data, it is extremely helpful but it’s also our last group session before our presentations in January.

Friday 17th November

For my second student workshop, I created a focus group discussion in an informal setting. I had six participants that had attended the original session and two other new members joined to make up for the students who were off unwell. We sat in a circle on the sofas in our studio. I introduced the subject I wanted them to talk about together and with me, posing questions for them to answer and guide the conversation. It was very informal and enjoyable experience.

Raw data from the focus group discussion.

Wednesday 15th November

This blog session is held by Dr Rachel Marsden who specialises in creative health, working freelance and as both a Research Fellow and a supervisor for PhD’s across Ual, teaching as a Senior Lecturer on both the PgCert and MA in Academic Practice. This session is fantastic, helping me to think about writing & my ARP in a different way, I could definitely use some of these activities with my own students. She shares a slide deck to help us as a visual resource. Mentioning Pat Francis book – Taking a Line for a Write.

Today is about blog writing and sharing

• Rolling reflection
• Data sources
• Experimental
• Discovery

We limber up with a list exercise, free writing lists as an everyday method. Creative lists to generate ideas and inspire creative work. I am asked to write a list of everything I did since waking up this morning, we all have 5 minutes to complete this. I’m amazed at how many things I have achieved this morning. We also write a list of what colours we can see around us. This is so light, fun and thought provoking.

The task helps us to think about how we document, using observation as a method. See in different ways, what we hear or feel. Workshop – focus group, participant facing, observation as a form of reflection. A period of time – concentrated. Unit brief – check the criteria eg. data collection etc What have I got? Write a list.

Our next 5-minute task is a memory making tool. We are asked to create a pattern in letters, to act as a device in memory making. We create Mnemonics using the letters from our names to create a list of keywords as a summary, that define our Action Research Projects. This exercise helps me enormously, to consider what are the key points of importance for both my research & my intervention.

Our tutor shares;

R – Researching
A – Arts
C – Care
H – Health
E – Ethics
L – Lived Experience

I write;
S – Searching
A – Answers
R – Research / Reflection
A – Analysing
H – Hearing

M – Making / Methodology
A – Art & Design
N – Number / Nature
S – Social Responsibility / Students / Staff
E – Ethics
L – Looking
L – Learning / Lived Experience

How could I take this further? Other words that come up in people’s poems include: variety, group, creativity, observation, insightful, brainstorming, emotion, reflective, inclusion creativity investigation – methods. We are asked to really think about ‘what are your priorities as part of your APR?’ I must make sure I can define what my research is and then invite my participants. This will help with co-production. Think about the reading I am interested in as part of my APR. Create a concept map. Think – are the words appropriate in the context of my research? Go further with each word – position in context. Action or active verbs – doing words. The experience made me think about what the key elements of my Action Research project are, along with a wider reflection on the activity. How would I define each activity? What reading should I do on it? Does this identify any gap I’m missing? Participants? Can a numeric reveal senses and emotions?

We are given a proposal of ‘to do exercises’ – promoting the approval to write. These are to do in our own time. The Reflectionnaire (Francis 2009:83) – the way, the how and what of writing. Consider – how do you write? What are the hurdles? Time and space? A framework? How might you create ­a Reflectionnaire for the Action Research Project? How do I write? Lists, post it notes, untidy handwriting. Take pleasure in writing as reflection. I write too much, about what I need to do to formalise it in my own mind. I need to read more reading. I reminder myself to look at the workshop three resources on Sunday. Rachel tells us that if you do a PhD there is a lot of reading & research, but the writing is hard. We are reminded to think about what we find hard and easy to do.

Time – idea generations.

There is no perfect time to write, there are times that we are better. Rachels tells us – give yourself the time to write, time boxing as a daily practise. For example – after breakfast, every morning. Write at the kitchen table. Time box, same time, every day. Short or long? Use dictation? Talk to word or just my iPhone? Investigate how the pomodoro technique works – 25-minutes on, 5-minute break but longer breaks throughout the day. Use time boxing – schedule a time. I tend to think about my work for a long time and then write with the pressure of a deadline! APR – engage in an interaction continuously. We can’t leave this to the last minute because it requires blogging & a presentation. It’s fine to work offline and upload it later, which is what I tend to do. Writing up my handwritten notes from each session. Find what word works for me.

ASAP

• Blog posts done before Christmas
• Make my cards
• January 9th plan to do the workshop & collate feedback
  Sadly my US students will be gone by then
• Need to do in December?
• Design and write a presentation of where I am
• Homework for session 3

• Idea generation – content bank
• Look at Lindsay’s blog post suggestions etc
• What should I focus on?
• Make sure I are meeting all of those areas
• Free write about my ideas
• Acknowledge any gaps eg. Research Methods

Find more literature & theory to underpin

• Definition – feelings & emotions
• Look at the Unit brief
• Data collection – analysis, integration, quotations, add into my text. Lines that resonate or are challenging. A diagram of five legs responding to a question with links, agree or disagree. This can also include anecdotes, statements or quotations – extract a quote and sit it in that space, generative to create a paragraph around it, that is analysis. Generative – value & power – reading / listening can form a pivotal moment for you as an approach. Have a set of criteria to identify – thematic analysis. Criteria to select quotations for analysis. A generative process, repeated process – I am interacting follows the Action Research cycle. Our third session in person will go over this.
• Summary – what I’ve got out of the project.
• What changes did I make in the project / did the project go through? An honesty task. Attitudes, ways of working.
• What brought me joy? Inspired me? An achievement?
• Blocks & barriers – What did I overcome?
• Reflect on my tutorials, the advice I have been given, feedback on my ethics form etc.
• How did I manage your time?
• Is my APR experimental enough?
• What skills have I gained? For me, learning how to collected & distil data. The practical workshops, learning how to use the digital print space at LCC, how to pay for my printouts, a Risograph induction and how to print my cards using this technique.
• What next? Using the cards I create, develop a workshop. I would like to be part of a responsible design practice – creating a unit for my students (This will happen as our course is currently under revalidation with the new course beginning in September 2024)  
• What I found challenging? I sent questionnaires to staff members I had engaged with for my project, the lack of response made me realise that I needed to make the experience less formal. I evaluated what I had created and made significant changes. I invited my participants to meet me and conduct interviews with each where the questions I was posing could be asked and we could discuss those themes together, I found this incredibly rewarding.
• Attend 12:00pm session about our presentations
• 29th of November 2:00 to 4:00pm Cross-programme event
• Blog post – a visual plan of my work
• I am reminded to capture new, raw material – write notes, capture the energy. Edit later not as I go. Drive the idea, think about the focus later. I could give my questions to another colleague on the PgCert for feedback. Check – are my questions clear? Are there different ways to say what I am asking? Refinement of writing. WIDEL – write it down, edit later. (Francis 2009:207) Capture the raw material.
• Look at Rachel’s references
• What next for me? I love Graphic design, the English language & History – apply for the MA? One day, a PhD? Design, writing, research.

Monday 6^th November

Points to go over with Tim

1. I have written my questions for my student & staff questionnaires and workshop.
2. I have had my ethics form signed off.
3. I have written & created my consent forms, my question sheets for staff & students and the information sheet to explain my Action Research project.
4. I hosted my first student session last week – Friday 3^rd November.
5. I will host my second student session this week – Friday 10^th November.
6. I sent my questions via email to the 4 members of staff that I selected and want to engage in my project.
7. I will send them a reminder this week about my submission date – 16^th of November.
8. I should have all my data by the following Monday 20^th November to analyse and distil for the content of my cards.
9. Next week put together a ‘work in progress’ presentation
10. Try to use Orb
11. Book risograph printing induction at LCC – find out how
12. Design & make cards
13. Urgent – catch up on blog posts
14. Conduct reading on research methods, consider and write about why I chose the method/s I have used
15. Present WIP 4^th December
16. Try cards out in a Professional Practice Unit session I teach with year 2 BA(Hons) students as a cross-school programme of events
17. 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 10^th of November moves to the 17^th 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

1. Will staff respond to my questionnaires?
2. Will I get the data that I can use to create the questions for my prompt cards?
3. Don’t have a preconception, wait and see.
4. 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 13^th 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 16^th November, send invitation
• Second workshop with students booked for Friday 17^th 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

1. Completed workshop one with students
2. 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.
3. 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
4. I’ve talked to staff and they have said I can do a walk in session this week, do it ASAP
5. Complete blog posts on ethics form questions &consent forms for staff & students
6. 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
7. Thursday – go in and do Risograph induction
8. Do second workshop with students on Friday
9. Saturday / Sunday Review data content to start thinking about making cards
10. Plan my presentation for Monday 4^th December