Paula Nottingham

thinking about your inquiry finding connectionsstarting the analysis drafting as a creative process

Module 3 BAPP Arts WBS3760 Session 2 Thinking Creatively25/10/16

The power of inquiry - looking at the bigger picture and bringing out meaning and advocacy.

NYC skyline with freedom tower

Points to get out of the session

Ideas about how to communicate the inquiry and continuing to network

Ideas about drafting the inquiry – the Critical Review as a first step

Progress on your practitioner

research and analysis task

Thinking creatively

Where are you now? Evaluate…

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

Mid way review- Module 3

Completing your Portfolio

This course work represents what you have done for the entire professional inquiry – ALSO it is useful to mention other activities that have helped you to understand your topic/area – e.g. going to performances you have been a art of or have seen, workshops, training – relate and reflect on your entire experience!

Critical Review written/communicating the inquiry

with an academic

audience in mind

Professional Artefact

communicating the inquiry with a

professional audience in mind

Oral Presentation for tutors and

peers

+ blogging and work with peers on programme and workplace

Professional Inquiry

doing research and activities

and then explaining what you found out

and outcomes to others

Module 3 Assessment will be in 3 main partsPart 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 or impact for your practice (any implications, impacts, or outcomes?). The critical review should emerge from the inquiry+ Blogs and Networking with PeersPart 2: The Professional Artefact MORE later on this a product or a work in progress that is created - it can be a document, an event, or an activity (be creative if it is for creative professionals?) - it can be something that informs others in your community of practice or workplace - the artefact should emerge from the inquiryPart 3: The Oral Presentation (more later – this is submitted after the parts 1 and 2) 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’

Thinking creativelyDo you have any examples of creativity you admire? How can you explain ‘creativity’ to others – defining what you mean and using sources of expertise to develop that thinking (analysis) and explain that to others?My example is Solange – here is and article that could help me explain.Use this way of thinking to develop your inquiry...

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-profound-power-of-the-new-solange-videos

Thinking creatively in your inquiry

Twyla Thwarp suggests in The Creative Habit (2003, p. 196) that “A groove is the best place in the world. It’s where I strive to be, because when you’re in it you have the freedom to explore, where everything you question leads you to new avenues and new routes, everything you touch miraculously touches something and transforms it for the better.”

Anne West suggests in Mapping (2011, p. 224) Communicating with an audience is the culminating step in the process. It involves shifting form reading our work to writing and speaking about it. We now become authors, which implies responsibility and action. In giving voice to our work, we embrace and sift all previous raw material, moving it to a higher level of synthesis while offering it to others for their consideration.”

Mihaly Csikszenrmihalyi talks about ‘flow’ and suggests that emersing yourself in a ‘domain’ that you truly love will allow the “foundations for creativity” to be in place”. (2006)

https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=enPronounced Chick – sent – me - high

http://annewest.net

http://www.twylatharp.org

As a creative professional – embed ideas about creativity in your inquiry analysis – here are some examples

Thinking creatively

http://www.normanjackson.co.uk/creativity.html

Norman Jackson – an advocate for life wide learning

https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley?language=en

Ken Robinson – an advocate for creative education

https://www.ted.com/playlists/125/tv_special_ted_talks_educatio

Can you think of more?

Try this exercise!Use talking to start your writing

Tell someone else (or think aloud) an example from your ‘emerging findings’ (what people have told your about your topic in your practitioner research). Try this for 4 minutes……………………………………………………………………Use your experience (interpretation of something that is common or exceptional) and your literature to talk about what you found out.

http://cooking.lovetoknow.com/breakfast-recipes/one-egg-waffle-recipe

Cassie says it is okay to ‘waffle’ a bit! Often the 1st draft is a bit rough – so have several versions – save as Version 1 – Version 2 etc.

The Dinner Party blog – how to explain the literature for your inquiry http://paulanottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/the-dinner-party-literature-for-your.html

As the host introduce people and then invite them to talk about your work over dinner

Introduce people here as host - ideas and debates in the literature

Lead discussion – analysis of you inquiry

Writing with style and purpose

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 – use your sources to define terms and as the experts ‘see’ the issues that you have explored in your inquiry

Remember that you can add visual elements to show what you mean – like diagrams and or illustrations to the text

Start the bibliography as you do this writing using Harvard style (remember you can use Cite Them Right).

Effective Writing

Drafting is a creative Process!

When you start writing the ideas 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. Use paragraphs as units to bring out 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)

Wordy version :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)

More concise version: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)

The Elements of Style (1959) Strunk and White

Example using Literature

Here is a quote about performance and motivation in dance – the quote will be discussed on the next slide…

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 behaviour 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). The task of teaching is to promote cognitive, behavioural, and affective results from students. How to motivate learners to achieve the desired ends or discourage them from undesirable outcomes is a central problem for a teacher in any field.

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 suggests 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). 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” (2001, p.25). I wanted to embed these techniques as examples of good practice in the dance class and incorporated this thinking into an intervention that I helped plan in my workplace….

I may not totally agree with Lazaroff about everything e.g. about discouraging students from “undesirable outcomes” - that point might be contradicted by another literature source – so part of a ‘debate’ in the literature.

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? 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.

Analysis of Findings: ‘coding’ to organise

Organise the data to look for themes – this is sometimes referred to as ‘coding’ in the research books – you can have this as a digital version – or use post it notes or cards to ‘see’ what people have said and to identify emerging themes

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? What were the outcomes?

Professional Artefact

The Artefact is another way of explaining your inquiry that includes the outputs from the inquiry (so what you ‘do’ is in the inquiry itself). There will be more later on this but for now it might be good to think bout who your professional audience might be… who are you talking to to explain what you have done and found out?

You can be creative about this process, think about a format that might be unique. Make sure to leave enough time to do what you want to do!

Think back to the ideas around professional communication? Think about images you will need and permissions and copyright… if they are not your images how can you incorporate them into your own work?

MORE ON the ARTEFACT IN NEXT SESSIONTalk to your tutor if needed…

Blasts from the Past Analysing document (revisited from Reader 6)

Documents are a bit different than literature. A document could be something that an author has not written to critique something – but a text (including audio-visual and visual) that exists as a part of your job, e.g. it could be a policy document from an educational context or a contract.

You might also have documents given to you by someone you interview as an example of how they work – e.g. a script.

Advice is in the Reader on how to ‘analyse’ documents for meaning. ALSO USE RESEARCH LITERATURE

Analysing Observations (revisited)

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 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.

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.

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?

You are reviewing literature in the Evaluation section – this 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. If you have done a separate ‘literature review’ you can put in it as an appendix.

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 a form of communication that is ‘speaking’ to your own community of practice – it can be a ‘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’?

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.

New questions????

• Who can be a part of a SIG?– This does not just need to be for people who are doing similar topics

– anyone can join in and talk to others on the course about their work!

• Are the inquiry questions different than the interview questions?– Yes the inquiry questions are your questions – what you ask people

is related to this but it helps you to see other people’s interpretations

• Literature – time range– You can look at older literature to give you a perspective about

changes – but look also for what has been written on your topic in the last 5 years so you will get up-to-date practice

Points to get out of the session

Develop the ideas using your community – how can you explain what you found out?

Creatively draft your Introduction and Evaluation sections of the Critical Review

Develop an understanding of what findings are

and the analysis task is about to discuss with your adviser

Think creatively about the inquiry

and communicating it to others