Campus Session 2 Module 3 BAPP WBS3760 28 October 2014

Communicating with blogs and SIGs – continuing practice.

Three points to get out of the session

An idea about how to develop and create the professional artefact

An idea about how to draft the Critical Review

An idea about the analysis task

An idea about the analysis task

Where are you now? Evaluate…

You could still be in several places at once now – keep monitoring progress.

Know where you are… mapping progress

Final Module 3 Assessment – 3 main parts

Part 1: The Critical ReviewIt is primarily written but can contain visual or audio visual elements showing the process of investigating a topic (practitioner research) with analysis that has implications for your practice.

Part 2: The Professional Artefacta product or a work in progress that is created - it can be a document, an event, or an activity - it can be something that informs others in your community of practice or workplace - the artefact should emerge from the inquiry

Part 3: The Oral Presentation (more later – this is submitted after the parts 1 and 2)an in person/ audio-visual demonstration that shows that you have progressed in your ability to show knowledge and understanding that is based on your ‘inquiry’

Starting to write your Critical Review

Use the updates that you wrote earlier – and rehearse the writing by telling someone else about your work…

Use the format outlined in the handbook to start the Introduction and Evaluation.

Think about communicating in the ‘reportage’ style – so this is a form of a report written in the first person “I”

Writing with style and purpose – editing drafts using paragraphs

The Elements of Style (1959) Strunk and White

Chapter II Elementary Principles of Compositions

“Writing to be effective, must follow closely the thoughts of the writer, but not necessarily in the order in which those thoughts occur.”

Start by writing down a draft – and then continue to edit this. In a formal writing style you say what you mean first and then explain - so reshaping a descriptive narrative to add meaning….

Effective Writing- try to edit with purpose to say what you mean in fewer words…

Strunk and White example on the issue of wordiness (1959, p. 19)

Macbeth was very ambitious. This led him to wish to become king of Scotland. The witches told him that this wish of his would come true. The kind of Scotland at this time was Duncan. Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth murdered Duncan. He was thus enabled to succeed Duncan. He was thus enabled to succeed Duncan as king, (51 words)

Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth achieved his ambition and realized the prediction of the witches by murdering Duncan and becoming king of Scotland in his place, (26 words)

Effective Writing Exercise

Reading aloud what has been written is a good way to understand it. This can be done with your own writing…

Ideas about this do not always come out in an orderly fashion – but your job is to reorder them (like Strunk and White suggest) to make sense of the argument.

In you own drafting and editing processes – reordering and ‘shaping’ the text strives to make it more meaningful and more concise.

Effective Writing Exercise

Lazaroff, Elizabeth M (2001) ‘Performance and Motivation in Dance Education’, Arts Education Policy Review, 103, 2; pp.23-26.

Motivation is the internal process that initiates, guides, and perpetuates behavior over time. Motivation is a crucial issue in education, as in other fields concerned with mobilizing others to act, because it is the core of biological, cognitive and social regulation (Ryan and Deci 2000).

 This quote is written verbatim from the source, see the Harvard reference for this source above… but what does it mean and how can I use this source in my writing?

Effective Writing Exercise

When you are looking at literature you are looking for meaning – so is this saying motivation is fundamental or an added extra to the process of education? So if I could say in my writing:

I was interested in developing an understanding of motivation for teaching dance. Lazaroff says motivation is essential to education and cites Ryan and Deci (2000) to say that “it is at the core of biological, cognitive and social regulation” (2001, p. 26). I wanted to embed the techniques that might motivate my students into my dance instruction. Using the dance teacher ‘David’ as an example, Lazaroff suggested techniques such as “modelling and repetition, the verbal directions including praise and corrections, music, group learning, and intense physical activity” were used as examples of good practice (2001, p.25).

Later when I was talking about my own work I could use Lazaroff to talk about aspects of motivation and/or technique.

Part 1: A Critical ReviewThese are the headings you will use for the start of writing up your

Critical Review..

• Introduction - relevant to the context of the inquiry and how it relates to your workplace or community of practice

• Evaluation of the Inquiry Process - practitioner research tools used (observation, surveys, interviews, focus groups), the literature review, the ethical implications and other activities undertaken as a part of the process (e.g. performances, workshops, trying out new strategies, etc.)

Thinking it through group exercises

• In groups of two – listen to your partner’s accounts of their Introduction and Evaluation of the Inquiry Process to their Critical Review

• Write down what your partner is saying – concentrating on the main points and the aspects of what they say that are significant OR if you are alone – PRETEND that you are telling someone else what you are doing… you can also practice this with your adviser (who has had experience in listening)

Doing this oral exercise will mean that you have started to draft your critical review through an oral process.

Looking Ahead to the next Task

• Week 4 OR 5 OR 6 (this might depend on where you are in the process!): Send adviser 1-2 paragraphs as a sample of your inquiry analysis. Formative feedback will be given on the structure, the quality of the arguments and the quality of the supporting evidence discussed.

This task is getting everyone into the mindset of being able to take an ‘emerging’ finding (what you found out from someone in your practitioner research) and to think about what it means.

Analysis of Findings: possible points to consider

The professional inquiry has been a way to gather data about a phenomenon e.g.an eventa development a change.

What did the data indicate about your topic, research question or hypothesis? What did you find out?

The inquiry tools that you used should have provided you with the evidence that you need for your inquiry. If not… why not?

Findings are interesting because they relate to how things actually are in your work environment.

Data – findings from your inquiry (evidence)

Experience –relating your insider-researcher understanding

Literature – expertise from others and from a collected body of knowledge in your field and beyond

Think of analysis as a triangle of data to develop meaning that you can tell others using your own point of view

(Adesola with Paula added)

Analysis of Findings: critical arguments

How do your findings relate to your literature i.e. earlier perceptions of the topic or critical arguments about the topic/issues/phenomenon? Use examples from your literature.

Conclusion of this section - what implications/benefits/impact did your inquiry have to your professional practice? Your workplace? Your community of practice?

What additional knowledge and understanding do you have about your professional practice? Possible further inquiry topics?

How did your own professional activities/events/interventions relate to the findings from your inquiry?

Group Exercise 2 Analysis Review

Tell your partner (or think aloud) an example from your ‘emerging findings’ (what people have told your about your topic in your practitioner research)

Tell your partner what you think this finding means as a way of understanding your topic - use your experience (your interpretation of something that is common or exceptional) and your literature and your experience to add more depth of understanding to your analysis.

This finding should relate back to your inquiry question(s) – what you were trying to find out.

 

Analysing Observations (revisited from Reader 6)

The data is gathered and displayed as descriptions, quotes, diagrams to show relationships, quantitative charts/displays to show quantitative data, audio, audio-visual, and photographic evidence, etc.

Your observations record what has happened sensitively and appropriately to issues of ethics, permission and confidentiality.

You need to report an understanding of the context for the event or meeting that was observed in order to draw conclusions from the data.

Analysing the survey/questionnaire data (revisited)

The framework for data analysis of replies determined in advance.

Coding your questionnaire: There are five steps involved in the coding process (Survey Monkey can export this data): 1. Develop the coding frame for both pre-coded (closed) and open questions.2. Create a codebook and coding instructions.3. Code the questionnaires.4. Transfer the values to a computer (as in an Excel spreadsheet).5. Check and clean the data (you can make simple graphs with the data).

Interpretation involves identifying significant results, trends, patterns, similarities and differences and offering an explanation for them. This can be expressed in the form of numbers or words in your findings.

Analysing interviews and focus groups (revisited)

The analysis of data collected from interviews can be complex. It has been collected within a certain context and must be analysed with that in mind.

The qualitative researcher can categorise (code) data that has emerged into themes. Quotes can be selected because they typify the data (common responses) or there might be some statements that are significant though only said once (significant).

The data is organised so that comparisons, contrasts and insights can be made with the aim of finding the meaning of the evidence presented.

  Professional ArtefactWho is your audience?

 

A good way to start thinking about the professional artefact is to decide who your professional audience will be? This decision will help you will know what part of your inquiry you can develop into an inquiry.

Think about images you will need and permissions…SEND IDEAS TO ADVISER in an email to see what they think…

Examples of a professional artefact from Alumni

http://corindahall.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/documentary-film-on-salsa-dance.html

http://tmcofliam.blogspot.co.uk

Look at other examples from our alumni.

http://seraclops.blogspot.co.uk

http://georgiebird123.blogspot.co.uk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq4E1HCcBoE

1. Q&A from Module 3 BAPP

1. The questions that you ask in the interview survey, should you comment on each answer? (i.e. the Interview has 14 questions and the Survey has 24 questions). How many graphs do you put in?

Often there is not space to look at every response, so you may want to focus on the most significant findings and the ones that most participants used (more common) – in some cases these might be the same BUT in the interviews only a few might have brought up important issues that you want to talk about. You can use your appendices to show findings that you were unable to spend much time on in your analysis and refer the reader when needed.

Put in the number of graphs (data) or quotes (data) that relate to your main points of analysis.

2. Q&A from Module 3 BAPP

2. Does it matter if the information you’ve gathered is rubbish as long as you comment that it is rubbish?

Difficult one… in this process you try to ask the right interview/survey etc. questions to gather the data that you need to address your research questions or hypothesis. However, there might be some of the questions that did not lead to data that you expected or that was useful as findings. In this case, you rely on the data that has been useful and comment within the evaluation and perhaps in the critical learning sections about the process BUT some unexpected data is genuine so should be reported as a part of the inquiry.

Think this through – if your inquiry process has not allowed you to explore the specific issues in your inquiry topic using primary evidence from other people and literature, you need to discuss this with your adviser.

3. Q&A from Module 3 BAPP

3. What does the literature review in the Evaluation section cite?

The literature review covers the sources you have used, the people and theories examined as knowledge and understanding mainly from written sources BUT also videos, audio tapes, etc. Investigating your topic by looking at what others have said about it allows you and the reader to understand the context of your inquiry.

You can quote and paraphrase from your literature to describe this context and theorise your findings in your analysis – to compare the findings to the debates in your field, back up certain findings, use larger data sets that discuss your indicative findings, give a historical setting, etc.

4. Q&A from Module 3 BAPP

4. How much do we mention the Professional Artefact in the Critical Review?

Yes, it is appropriate to mention the Professional Artefact in your Critical Review, especially in your analysis or critical reflection. You might also consider an explanatory section to your artefact– we discussed the addition of a cover or written insert often found in CDs to show what they are about and give credits.

The final ‘shape’ of the artefact and how it is explained is up to you, but it would make sense to cover this explanation somewhere in the work you submit.

5. Q&A from Module 3 BAPP

5. What is the difference between the inquiry and the professional artefact?

The inquiry is the process you have used for exploring a research question or hypothesis – the topic area that you have focused on during the module. Your inquiry includes your practitioner research and might include a workshop or teaching intervention, but the process of questioning and exploring the topic would have informed your practice in order for you to do that activity.

The professional artefact exhibits the knowledge and understanding from the inquiry findings, like the critical review, but will be some type of product or ‘work in progress’ you have made for a professional audience.

6. Q&A from Module 3 BAPP

5. What is the difference between an ‘opinion’ and an ‘interpretation’?

This explanation comes from Paula’s work based learning but be aware that in different academic cultures (arts and humanities) the term ‘opinion’ might represent something else.

It might be helpful to think of an opinion as a personally held belief that could be used in your critical reflection and an interpretation as an analysis based on evidence – evidence that comes from the data you have gathered through your practitioner research and inquiry work (both the literature and the ‘tool’ like interview or survey) – so in your analysis section you will be interpreting your findings using critical thinking that relies on judgement e.g. what did you find out and what did it mean? based on evidence form your inquiry.

Three points to get out of the session

Develop the ideas for your professional artefact. Choose an audience to give whatever you do focus.

Communicating orally about your inquiry to start developing the Introduction and Evaluation sections of the Critical Review.

Develop an understanding of what the analysis

task is about to send to your adviser.

Develop an understanding of what the analysis

task is about to send to your adviser.