Learning Journey

Though I covered my learning journey briefly in my critical refection I felt that it was much broader than I could detail and wanted to share some deeper thoughts. I've made this a separate appendix within my Critical Review, but wanted to share my journey with you fellow BAPPers! 

My learning journey

Literature

For my Inquiry I created an appendix that includes a link to a review of some of the literature and documents that didn't make it into the bulk if my inquiry. 

Thought other might find it interesting, so have shared it via the link below. 

Review of literature and documents

Mind maps

So at the moment it's all write, write, write. Whilst collecting my thoughts, data and literature to write up into my critical review one thing I do before every section is a mind map. It's honestly the most helpful exercise I've done. It enables me to see exactly what information is required from me for that section and what points specific to my inquiry I nee to include. As my basis I used the topic headings that if discovered from the 2nd campus session, when we discussed what points were important to include.
Here's mine for the 'Evaluation of the inquiry Process'

Campus session 3

I attended the 10-1 module 3 campus session... alone!!! So for those of you who didn’t make it, here are some of the things I learnt.  

During my planning for the critical review a section that I’ve struggled to fully understand is the Analysis bit. So I was extremely happy when lots of the slides Paula wrote about are further explanations of analysis and the components to analysing. 

Tip 1: View the slide share on Paula’s blog for campus session 3. Paula: Campus session 3 Slideshare

Tip 2: There is a difference between literature and documents. Documents may come in the form of websites, leaflets, blogs etc. 

Tip 3: Interpret the evidence rather than give your opinion.

Tip 4: When reading back through your draft constantly ask ‘What do you mean?’ This will help to stop you from being vague.

Tip 5: Don’t be put off with lack of response with your data collection, these are findings, ask why it happened and what you would have done differently.

BIG REQUEST: Had an idea that could make our lives quite a bit easier. I believe it would be really helpful to us all if we add a text box at the top of our blogs containing a brief summary of our inquiry topic. When reading through others blogs I’ve found that I don’t always feel I can comment as I don’t know enough of there inquiry outline and don’t have enough time to read back through all their other blogs to find the original topic. A couple lines description would be really helpful! 

Hope everyone’s getting on okay. We’re in the last few weeks so time to power on through!

Thoughts and update

Sometimes its good just to stop, collect your thoughts and review where you've been and where you're going next. Over the last couple of days I've been going back through the module handbook and the reader. I found this extremely helpful as it allows you to re-group and get back to the facts of what is needed and expected from your inquiry. I find that I tend to keep the mill ticking behind the scenes, but one of the main objectives of the course is to share. Share your learning process, discoveries, highs and lows of your inquiry. Fact: I don't blog or interact via my SIG enough. Though blogging is entirely off my own back SIG interaction only works if everyone does it! So lets aim to share and discover as much as we can over the next few weeks. I always try and keep up with other blogs, and comment where I feel I have knowledge to add, and am really interested to hear where everyones at with their inquiry, so keep blogging!! 

Something I've discovered is people are more willing to help than you might realise. When asked the question "So what have you been up to?" something I'm always keen to share is my BAPP studies and more specifically my topic of inquiry. This has often lead to interesting discussions, and also an enthusiastic offer to help. I'm not simply talking of professional peers, that for me are an integral part of my inquiry. For example I got into my BAPP discussion with my mums boss. This then lead to a package of lent books specifically on practitioner research and research projects. She had recently gained a degree through part time study in which she had to do a research project. She understood the style of study I was undertaking and has lent me a number of books she found most helpful when undertaking her inquiry. One book that has help immensely is by Judith Bell 'Doing Your Research Project' this book offers pointers on every stage of practitioner research including planning, ethics, data collecting, inquiry tools, interpreting evidence and writing it up. It’s a book that I’ve referred to many times and is specifically written for first-time researchers. 

My inquiry: In the early stages of my inquiry I was worried as from my written schedule I was very behind. Certain aspects were on track- diaries and literature, but I’d hit a bit of a bump with my interviews. In my plan I had hoped to interview four separate groups. A) Unemployed professionals, B) employed professionals, C) teachers who are still have professional performance jobs and D) teachers who have stopped working in the performance industry. Our industry changes so quickly and something, looking back, that I should have done is look at the contracts of group B- Employed professionals. Though employed at the time of my Inquiry plan, by the time of conducting my interview many had changed from employed to unemployed within the performance industry. This meant that I’ve had a lot more data from group A and hardly any from group B. For this reason I decided to cut group B and focus on group A. I also decided to combine groups C and D. As the majority of knowledge from both groups is looking back and not forward on their experience of the industry I decided it would be more helpful to review them one group. Though not quite on schedule with the interviews, all are now scheduled and will be finished by the end of next week. Because of the interviews being behind it’s meant that I’ve also had to push the focus group back. Though not ideal I’m continuing with literature research and the information I’m collecting from that combined with my interviews will only strengthen the purpose of my focus group. All in all it simply means that I have less time to actually write up my inquiry, for this reason I’ve written a stricter, more detailed plan for the last few weeks of my inquiry. 

So all in all things are starting to come together as I move through the analytical process. Lots to do, but have a clear direction on where things are going, and how to achieve them!

Campus session 2

During the campus session last wednesday we participated in an exercise where we went through the requirements for our Critical Review by explaining what information we would put in each section (Introduction, Evaluation and Analysis) to the group with everyone else taking notes. This was an extremely helpful exercise as you realise exactly what points you should be making for each section and from the notes others made, you can see what information specific to your inquiry should be made. 

Some notes that might be helpful...

Introduction: 

• Include your main aims and objectives.
• A small description of your professional practice, so the reader can see where you fit into your inquiry.
• Inquiry questions.
• Highlight why your inquiry is important to others. 
• If you are using words throughout your inquiry that have a broad meaning e.g Culture, define it as how you wish it to be interpreted. 

Evaluation:

• Main Events- what you’ve learnt.
• Ethics: The impact of the tools you’ve used and there limitations.
• Ethics: Explain where you, you’re knowledge, position and experience fit into your inquiry and how people experience you.
• Reference the literature that has informed your inquiry.
• Refer to blogs.

Analysis:

To form analysis it might be helpful to use this triangle: 

                                         Data

 Literature                                                                  Your experience

The collection of these three elements together form your analysis. 

Back to BAPP

I hope that everyone has had a good summer and managed to have some relaxation time, as I fear it stops now! 

Had a great chat with Paula on monday and left with lots to think about, but also active achievable goals for the coming weeks and approach to this module. 
One of the main things we discussed was to look back before racing forward. The purpose of last terms module was to explain and set up the Inquiry we'd like to investigate. From this we gained feedback on how to continue, but with the summer break this may not necessarily have been put into practice. Paula encouraged me to look back at the feedback gained and continue to mould my investigation with that in mind. Keep adding!

Another key piece of advice was to write everything down. Don't just think it, write it. Allow your writing to represent your thinking. I tend to keep things in my head until they work, or I've sorted exactly what I want to do, but part of what they want to see in this module is your thought process and the journey you took to get there. 

Keep thinking critically. this is something that at the moment, I explore the most in my personal journal. It allows me to gather all my thoughts and not just state them, but critically reflect upon why and how a) they happen and b) I can change/improve them. 

Looking forward to hearing from you all soon!