Compartmentalising and Reflection

Since my tutorial with Paula, I have been trying to establish ‘what really excites me about the arts’ and ‘what I am passionate about’ to try and bring elements of this into my inquiry and, in particular, my artefact.

I feel that the Artefact will be one of my greatest challenges of the module (along with many other aspects I’m sure!), as I want to push myself to be creative. On Lara’s advice, I have realised that I should use my community of practice in the BAPP Arts course and use the expertise of the previous Module 3 students. The diversity and creativity of the Artefacts produced by previous Module 3s have been amazing. I found that Michelle had posed some fantastic advice on Module 3, which I really appreciated too. This process also gave me confidence that the Artefact ideas often evolve along the inquiry – something that I have been concerned about.

I have felt like I have spent a lot of time reflecting today about what I am passionate about. I spend time looking back through my Module 1 and 2 blog posts and came across my post, InspirationalReading… I then remembered I had started (but not finished) a diary as part of my reflective practices for Ken Robinson’s (2014) ‘Finding Your Element: Discover Your Passions and Talents and Transform Your Life’. I then spent time looking though the diary and found the collage I had created for ‘EXERCISE THREE: PICTURE YOURSELF’. Looking back through this, I realised that pictures, colour and visual sources are something that I am really passionate about. I don’t profess to be remotely ‘good’ at art but I do find that drawing, diagrams and collages help me to reflect, learn and organise my time. I am now going to ensure that I make time every week to continue reading this book and completing my diary as it may help me find the ‘creative’ side of my inquiry as the majority of the work relies on reflecting upon current professional practices.

I have found today that I have become confused at points, as I have had so many different thought relating to different aspects of Module 3: artefact, literature review, inquiry preparation. I decided to use a technique that was introduced on the induction day by Paula called ‘Compartmentalising’ (Induction - Campus Session). Reflecting upon my earlier thoughts about image, colour and drawing, I am going to try and a diagram I created using an existing picture to help me organise my thinking for Module 3 more clearly alongside my updated Gantt chart.

Reference List

Robinson, K & Aronica, L. (2014) Finding Your Element: How to Discover you Passions and Talents and Transform your Life. Kindle Edition: Penguin Books

Arts Based Research Book: Smith & Dean (2009) Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in Creative Arts

As past of my action planning from the tutorial yesterday, today used the reading list to look further into arts based research using the book above. I found this a really interesting exercise and it helped me to reflect upon the ideas from my tutorial yesterday.

Dean & Smith (2009) state that arts practice is a creative process. I found the idea that practice based research is about communicating ideas across fields and across disciplines of inquiry (Sullivan, 2009) very interesting because it related very closely to the trans-disciplinary work of the BAPP Arts course. I also found the chapter written by Mottram (2009) gave an interesting insight into the area of arts based inquiry when discussing the how knowledge of arts based practitioners is often, ‘tacit, unspoken knowledge acquired by practice within creative fields (Mottram, 2009, p. 232). I found this interesting because it reminds me that often performing arts specialists have a common understanding that is difficult to translate or communicate to other fields; for example ‘tacit’ feelings when performing.

I particularly found Bell’s (2009) chapter ‘The Academic Mode of Production’ really helped me to analyse the reflections I have been having in my Learning Journal and with Paula about incorporating both the creativity of an arts practitioner with my own professional practices. Bell (2009, p 253) describes this partnership in her own research work in the follow way ‘In reality this has been a ‘marriage of convenience’ as I have struggled to accommodate create interest in tandem with the development of a ‘credible’ research profile’ (p 253). She further argues that, ‘we still debate the relative value of works produced ‘by the heart rather than by the head’’ (Bell, 2009, p 260).

For me, these two quotes proved to be very significant. I think, as Paula discussed yesterday, that I have been very focused on the value of ‘works produced by the head’, to use Bell’s phrase, and that I have forgotten the passion that I have for the arts and particularly the feeling of performance and the spontaneity of the arts. This isn’t to say that I don’t have a passion for English and education, in fact I feel the complete opposite about these two areas. I find articles, theories and videos in education that I find really interesting and make me passionate (like autonomy supportive teaching blog) it is just that I need to embrace this more in my inquiry to find how these things link together in arts based practice and where I stand in this.

Another part of this book that I found useful for my reflective practices was the Chapter ‘Appendix: Questionnaire to Creative Arts Practitioners’ (http://lib.myilibrary.com/Open.aspx?id=270304&src=0). I used the questionnaire questions to reflect upon the discussions Paula and I had on my inquiry needing more of an arts based focus. The questions in the questionnaire focused on the topic of ‘research’ and ‘creative work’. I completed the questionnaire in my Learning Journal and I found it interesting to reflect on my thoughts of my inquiry plan so far. I don’t feel that it is appropriate to share all of my answers but one of the questions I found particularly interesting was the extract below. From this exercise, I could see that I need to incorporate my ‘creative practices’ into my inquiry more, something that I think I need to improve during Module 3.

Reference List

Smith, H. and Dean, R. T. (2009) “Introduction: Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice - Towards the Iterative Cyclic Web” in H Smith & R T Dean (eds), Practice-led Research, Research-Led Practice in the Creative Arts Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 1-40

Smith, H. and Dean, R. T. (2009) “Appendix: Questionnaire to Creative Arts Practitioners” in H Smith & R T Dean (eds), Practice-led Research, Research-Led Practice in the Creative Arts Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 264-266

Mottram, J. (2009) “Asking Questions of Art: Higher Education, Resaech and Creative Practice” in H Smith & R T Dean (eds), Practice-led Research, Research-Led Practice in the Creative Arts Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 229-251

Bell, S. (2009) “The Academic Mode of Production” in H Smith & R T Dean (eds), Practice-led Research, Research-Led Practice in the Creative Arts Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 252-263

Tutorial with Paula 26th February

Last night I had a tutorial with Paula to discuss my One Page Summary for my inquiry. We discussed ideas for my artefact, as well as the conditions of my inquiry from the ethics board.

Artefact

Paula talked about the artefact being like a ‘product’ that is developed from the research. It is about communicating an idea to an audience. I still don’t know what type of artefact I would like to create, however we discussed the idea of challenging myself to produce something really creative. I said I would like to create something with audio-visual or audio. We also talked about the need to find something that ‘excites’ me or that I am ‘passionate’ about and bring that into my artefact. I have an idea that my professional audience would be teachers, as this fits within my professional practices. But I think the challenge of the artefact will be to create something that is useful for my professional audience, but combines aspects of creativity.

ACTION PLAN: I am going to research some ideas that previous BAPP Arts students have used for their artefacts.

ACTION PLAN: Undertake some web research to fine ideas/videos that excite me or that I am passionate about (using Google/YouTube/Blogs)

'Wordle' of my reflections and action plans from the online session and tutorial

Inquiry Plan

We also discussed the idea that I need to look into some more ‘arts based’ research books. I have used insider researcher books and educational research books, but Paula reminded me that the inquiry is arts based. I am an arts practitioner even though I work in a school and I think this is something that I have not taken into full consideration during the inquiry plan. I feel that sometimes, working in a school full time, that I become so immersed in the world of education (particularly with exam season approaching), that I sometimes find it difficult to ‘marry together’ my background in Performing Arts with a school curriculum.

ACTION PLAN: Look for Arts-based research books and study these carefully.

ACTION PLAN: Look for literature of Drama – finding something that excites me as an arts practitioner or something that I am passionate about.

Online Session 25th February: What is an Inquiry?

In the online session last night with Paula, Tom, Ellie, Lisa, Lara we started by asking and questions that we wanted to discuss during the session:

• What is the literature review about?
• What are the timings of the Inquiry?
• How do you make sure your Inquiry is anonymous – in journal extracts?

Professional Inquiry

I found that the online session helped me to understand which ‘inquiry stage’ we are in at the moment. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I was feeling a bit lost about where we should be in the inquiry process. Paula said we should still be in Stage 1 and possibly moving into Stage 2 as we are looking at literature.

One part of the discussion that I would really like to try was ‘Pinpointing’ where you are in the inquiry by discussing this with BAPP peers over skype by asking the following questions: 

Where are you now?

1. Your topic area and inquiry questions
2. Ethical issues that are involved in your inquiry
3. What you have done so far in terms of researching literature
4. What you have done so far in terms of gathering data
5. Have your partner write this on for you and give/send it to you.

I would really like to try this because I feel that the more I discuss my inquiry with others, the clearer I am about developing an ‘Action Plan’. If any other Module 3 BAPP Arts students would like to try this, comment below and we can try and organise a time?

Middlesex University (2016) Module 3 Handbook (p. 13)

 I think another part of the discussion that I found useful, is when Paula asked us, ‘What is an inquiry?’ and how we would explain this in terms of our own inquiry. The group came up with the following ideas and were in much agreement over these points:

• Something that is important for your professional practice
• Helping others to find out more / the inquiry will benefit others in your place of work
• Research to improve practice
• Action Research
• Giving you more knowledge to ‘defend’ your professional opinions and standpoints

In my opinion, I think a professional inquiry is carrying out research that is important in my own professional practices. For me, carrying out an inquiry will give me more knowledge about a specific area of teaching that will help me to develop my current professional practices as well as my practices in the future. Also, I believe that this inquiry will allow me to build of specific knowledge so that I am able to carry out further research in the future (possible on the PGCE course next year, or in a masters).

Literature Review

The literature review is looking at 10-20 sources. I have found Summon to be a fantastic resource and I have found a variety of interesting articles that have helped with my inquiry so far. Paula said that it is also useful to look at the Library Guides as well. The literature review is not about looking at separate sources and ideas, but putting these together and looking at the ‘whole picture’. You might look  authors representing a position or opposing a position and where you are in that discussion and where you want to take those opinions.

Overall, I found last nights session a really positive experience. It was so useful to come together to discus problems and ideas because they often apply to more than one of our inquiries. I also can find that the structure of the course can mean that you miss the support of your peers. Therefore, I would really like to try to have more Skype/phone conversations outside of the online sessions with the Module 3s during this study period.

Journal Thoughts – Building Effective professional Teacher-Student Relationships

The focus for my inquiry shifted slightly as I progressed through Module 2. With tutor and peer discussions, I realised that focusing my inquiry on student opinion was not ethical. Therefore, my planned inquiry in now focusing on the teaching approaches that contribute to classroom engagement. Since then I have been focusing my literature research on teaching methods and instructional style (Jang, Reeve & Deci, 2010) that contribute to classroom engagement.

I read a really interesting article today by Reeve (2009), which discusses the relationship between teachers’, ‘controlling style’ and ‘autonomy support’ (p 159). Autonomy is defined in education as ‘a student’s belief that he or she has some sense of meaningful control’ (Sibthorpe et al., 2008, p 137). In this article, Reeve (2009) theories that teachers who are controlling have less engagement in their classrooms. In contrast, autonomy support leads to better engagement and, ultimately, better learning outcomes.

It is clear in this article that Reeve (2009) believes teachers need take the following actions to improve student engagement: give rationales for setting certain tasks, especially uninteresting activities; give information using language that is none controlling, in an appropriate tone; acknowledge students negative feelings. Interestingly, he states that teachers’ may adopt this controlling style for several reasons: in order to maintain good behaviour management; pressure from the organisation; pressures from the students; pressures of responsibility and results and teachers reaction to students negativity towards a task (Reeve, 2009).

I believe that the ‘pressures’ Reeve (2009) analyses in this article are the very clear ‘reality’ for teachers in today’s climate. The responsibility of teachers to cover exam syllabuses (in such short periods of time) and, even more so, ensure all students make adequate progress, will inevitably affect their teaching style. Has anyone had similar experiences of this?

Reference List

Reeve, J. (2009) 'Why Teachers Adopt a Controlling Motivating Style Towards Student and How hey Can Become ore Autonomy Supportive' Educational Psychologist, 44 (3), 159-175

Jang, H., Reeve, J. and Deci, E. L. (2010) 'Engaging Students in Learning Activities: It Is Not Autonomy SUpport of Structure but Autonomy Support and Structure' Journal of Educational Psychology, 102 (3), pp 588-600

Sibthorpe, J., Paisley, K., Gookin, J. and Furman, N. (2008) 'The Pedagogic Value of Student Autonomy in Adventure Education.' Journal of Experimental Education, 31 (2) 136-151

The Literature Review: Interesting Concepts

Today, I have been researching the topic of teacher involvement in classroom engagement, as this in now more focused to my inquiry. In his article titled, ‘The Relationship Between Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Motivation and Engagement and Teachers’ Enjoyment of and Confidence in Teaching’. Martin (2006) outlines the aim of the article to examine the relationship between teachers’ enjoyment and confidence and student motivation and engagement. Martin (2006) defines student engagement as ‘students’ energy and drive to engage, learn, work effectively, and achieve o their potential at school and the behaviours that follow from this energy and drive’ (p 73). 

He then establishes his standpoint that a classroom environment and effective teaching are significant contributors to student engagement, a widely received concept. One point that I found particularly relevant and poignant to my inquiry topic was that the student-teacher relationship is directly linked to students’ motivation levels (Martin, 2006). In particular he states that, ‘Teachers higher in warmth tend to develop greater confidence in students’ (Martin, 2006, p 75). This is something that I would like to explore further.

In the methodology section, Martin (2006) explains how the study was carried out by using the, ‘Student Motivation and Engagement Scale’ (Martin, 2001, 2003). Questionnaires based on the scale were distributed to 1, 019 teachers across both Primary and Secondary schools.

The data presented shows links between the student engagement and teachers’ confidence and enjoyment (Martin, 2006). If their students have ‘mastery’ over their work, teachers feel more enjoyment. Similarly, ‘persistence’ and ‘planning’ showed the strongest correlation to high levels of teacher confidence. However, Martin (2006) identifies that, ‘teachers’ excessive affective reliance on students’ motivation may render them somewhat vulnerable to shifts in their students’ level of motivation’ (Martin, 2006, p 86).

To conclude, Martin (2006) reiterates his argument that much of the previous literature has shown clear links between effective teaching and engagement, yet more research is needed to fully understand how much of an impact teachers’ confidence and enjoyment have on student motivation and engagement.

I found this article significant to my inquiry, as I would now like to research the theories of autonomy verses control and the student-teacher professional relationship in more detail. This way I can see if other literature agrees or disagrees with these ideas and question if these concepts do affect classroom engagement.

For any BAPP students involved in education and teaching, what are your thoughts on this relationship between teachers' enjoyment and confidence and student engagement?

Reference List

Martin, A. J. (2006) ‘The Relationship Between Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Motivation and Engagement and Teachers’ Enjoyment of and Confidence in Teaching’ Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 34 (1), 73-93

Beginning Module 3

As always, Christmas is a busy time of year. I attended interviews for PGCE courses in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. I am delighted to say that I have made the decision to undertake a Primary PGCE, hoping to combine all aspects of my current experience in Secondary English, Maths and Performing Arts. 

The break over Christmas has given me time to reflect on my Module 2 work, both the positives and where possible improvements could be made. In light of my recent PGCE offer, I am glad that I made the decision to limit my inquiry to just two specific subject areas (Drama and English), as Drama is now taught within the Primary English National Curriculum. This way, I can really utilise the subject specific knowledge of the practitioners in my place of work to enhance my own future teaching practices in a Primary setting.

The beginning of the modules is always a daunting time and I already have the feeling of being slightly overwhelmed! However, I am excited to push myself further in Module 3 by meeting my targets to improve my self-questioning and challenging my own conceptions. I have begun this module by consulting the handbook and reading through the blog posts of others. 

I think that one of my most difficult challenges during this module will time management and it seems that others on the course agree. Particularly as the course dates fall within three weeks of school holidays and the shortest term of the year! Lara's blog post really helped me today as she suggested a Gantt Chart website. I have used this resource today to create a 'work in progress' Gantt chart for my Module 3 BAPP Arts studies. Thanks, Lara!

My BAPP Arts schedule (http://gantter.com/)

Despite this, I am still slightly "disorientated" and I am not quite sure where to start! I don't think this is particularly helped by the fact that I am currently on half term. Any suggestions from fellow BAPP students would be much appreciated? Or just any feedback on how you have been finding Module 3 so far?