Artefact Updates

I realised that it I has been a while since I have posted a blog! I think that all BAPP Arts students can all identify that trying to complete a draft of the Critical Review as well as appendices and an artefact is enough to keep us all busy. However, I have been visiting the blogs today and therefore I have found myself reflecting upon my own module work in more detail…

Module Updates…

Last week, I handed in a first draft on my Critical Review for feedback from Paula; this week, I have started to film my artefact as well as gathering the evidence from my work place, reflective journal and learning journal to form my appendices.

My ideas for my artefact have remained very similar to my previous post (Artefact Summary). Yet, I have made minor changes such as adding in more theories from my literature review as a result of the online session, where Paula reminded me that teachers would be interested in how the theory compares with practice. I have really enjoyed filming my artefact this week, although it has not been without its stresses! I spent a considerable amount of time planning each section of my artefact for filming, as well as writing the script for the accompanying voice over, which I think has made this process easier. I have enjoyed the planning and filming process, as I feel this has given me time to reflect upon what I have achieved in the modules, including the starting points, literature review, inquiry tools, findings and my shift in thinking. I have found it really satisfying to see all of the work I have undertaken summarised visually. I also hope that this visual film helps to reflect the ‘journey’ I have undertaken in this module, which I feel has been complex, at times confusing, hard work but very rewarding. Having said this, I still have the remainder of the film to complete!

New Ideas from the Blogs…

At this stage in the inquiry, I find it easy to become ‘disconnected’ as I tend to forget to blog during the last few weeks of study. However, I spent time today reading the blogs and trying to ‘reconnect’ with the reality of the BAPP Arts students! I found both Lara and Lisa’s blogs on the online sessions helped my thinking greatly today. Thank you so much to both of you for posting these, as I know you must be extremely busy!

I found Lisa’s blog really helpful as she outlined that Adesola said that you should consider what you tools you used to carry out your inquiry and what documents you looked at. When I asked myself this question, I devised the following list:

What documentation have I looked at?

Government policy, books, journals, articles, videos

What have I done?

Observations, interviews and literature review

Where have I received the majority of my information?

Lesson observation, interviews with people in my place of work, books/policy

What documents do teachers look at?

Lesson plans, government policy, curriculum, news, networking websites for resources, Internet for new lesson ideas

How do teachers communicate?

Meetings, Emails, face-to-face conversations, TES forums, LinkedIn

Through completing this exercise I was able to see that the majority of the information I had received had either come from journals, policies and lesson observation. As Lisa identifies, I did not want to use something written, as I wanted to explore the creative side of my inquiry in addition to creating something representational of my module journey. Yet I did feel there was something ‘missing’ from my artefact – particularly in terms of my ‘solutions’ and further thinking.

Lara’s blog also helped me to understand this dilemma in more detail. Using the questions she identified in her blog (Link), I again decided to record my ‘answers’ to these questions:

What tools have we come across in our research?

I think the main discovery for me was the importance of planning in engaging students and planning and using task variety in lessons (such as film, music, physical tasks, speaking and listening, group work, support strategies, visual diagrams, problem solving and competitive tasks)

What tools did I use?

I used a literature review, lesson observations in English and Drama and individual interviews.

What surprised me?

I was surprised that students perceptions of subject ‘relevance’ greatly affected their engagement levels. Even with carefully planning and structured lessons, students have to see the value in the work they are completing (which I did not believe would have such an impact on engagement levels). I was also surprised at how much teachers perceived planning as an engagement strategy, particularly with groups that they believed were or had the potential to become ‘disengaged’

What encouraged me? What kept me going?

I think the complexity of the inquiry kept me going. I found out various interesting theories from articles and books and I wanted to see how these compared to my practice. I think I was encouraged by the network of BAPP students as well as the support offered to me by my colleagues at work. I have actually found the artefact itself has keep me inspired to work, as it is something different and not written.

Reflection and Alterations…

Although I had originally planned to use a lesson plan as part of my artefact with a LinkedIn slide share, as a result of answering these questions, I became aware that I was concerned that my artefact did not make full use of my inquiry tools and documents that I used in my inquiry. Therefore, I thought I needed to consider what documents teachers use in their practices. I found myself time and time again returning to lesson plans, curriculum and TES for new ideas.

I decided that I needed to think more carefully about the solutions to my artefact, and especially how I was going to use a ‘lesson plan’ in an exciting way in my inquiry. I used my network on TES, my colleagues’ resources and Pinterest to find that lesson planning does not have to be boring! In fact, it can be made more interesting than simply filling out a form.

(Image Source: posted by Hammond (2012) on Citizenship Ideas (2015) original plan Morrison McGill available from: http://www.citizenshipideas.com/5-minute-lesson-planner-thanks-to-teacher-simon/) 

I plan to create what I believe would be an ‘engaging’ lesson plan, not only in terms of engaging the students in a cross-curricular English and Drama lesson, but engaging to look at for teachers also. Before planning the lesson I referred to the Primary National Curriculum for English (Department for Education, 2015) to ensure I was including relevant tasks to enhance the required skills, therefore making use of professional documentation. I began to plan this lesson using the strategies and activities that practitioners in my place of work found engaged students, based on my inquiry findings. I have tried to include: a mixture of student-led and teacher-led activities, group work, support materials, visual sources, practical Drama, modelling and speaking and listening.

I plan to incorporate my lesson plan into my artefact in sections, explain why I believe it would engage students in their learning, based on my finding. Furthermore, I am also able to add this lesson plan resource to the TES website, utilising my professional network. I would then have video that explains my inquiry process to my professional community, but I would also have a resource that I could use in the future.

Doubt…

This artefact still needs some adjustments and I need to I think carefully to ensure that my artefact communicates the important aspects of my inquiry. I am excited to work on this new challenge, and I feel that questioning my initial ideas has made me realise that simply ‘listing’ or ‘describing’ my ideas would not be enough for my professional audience.

I am at the stage in the Module where I am starting to doubt my decisions about my artefact and my Critical Review. When I have conversations with teaching professional about my inquiry and my findings some have said ‘it sounds like you enjoyed this and found it really valuable’, but I am worried that this will not be as communicated as effectively in my submission. Does anyone else feel the same?

Reference List

Department for Education (2015) The National Curriculum in England: Key Stages 1 and 2 framework document. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/425601/PRIMARY_national_curriculum.pdf [Accessed on 17th April 2016]

Evaluation of Inquiry Tools: a short overview

Below is an adapted and shorted evaluation of my observation and interview inquiry tools. I learnt a great deal from the whole inquiry process, not solely through the data analysis and findings. I found that great skill, sensitivity and organisation is needed by the insider researcher to carry out an inquiry successfully...

Observations

I used semi-structured observation forms to record qualitative data as both a participant observer and a none-participant observer. I recorded the class information at the top of each observation form including the class name, lesson period and data. Throughout the observation I recorded the type of task and name of the tasks in addition to the starting and ending time of each tasks. 

As requested by the ethics board, I needed to make some adjustments to my observation consent, . It was decided that I would need to send a letter home to parents outlining my inquiry aims, objectives and why I was wishing to observe a class before starting any official observations. This process took far more organisation and time than I first anticipated, however upon reflection I felt that it was an important stage in my inquiry to comply with ethical standards, simultaneously increasing my awareness of the potential harm caused to students if my inquiry was not carried out properly.

I used reflection-in-action (Schon, 1987) to record events during observations. However, as a participant observer in English lessons, I found recording the information whilst carrying out my duties a challenging process. I found at times that I was unable to record information immediately as I had been directed to work with a groups. Although unavoidable in my every day practices, ideally if I were to repeat the observation tool, I would try to have less involvement in the lessons, to ensure that I was able to observe teaching approaches more thoroughly.

I made use my Learning Journal to record my reflections after each observation using reflection-on-action (Schon, 1987) Within a busy working day, I often found that I was moving from one observation to the next, proving me with little time to reflect upon important events. I had to adapt the way I used my Learning Journal as an inquiry tool to ensure that this process did not interfere with my professional responsibilities. I referred back to the reflective journal work in Module 1 and found that I had identified that ‘listing’ reflections aided my reflections when I had little time to write a full reflection (http://jessicaplant.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/task-2b-reflective-writing.html), therefore I utilised this form of reflection and later develop these in more extensive written passages at a more convenient time. After discussion with my SIG, if completing this process again, I would ensure that my Learning Journal was more structured from the start of my inquiry.

I found that time was a significant constraint within my inquiry observations. I had substantially underestimated the amount of time needed to complete administrative tasks such as sending email confirmations and returning of consent forms, and found I had to update my Gantt chart considerably. I realised that I had not considered the limitations of the short school term and the addition of an exam week where students were taken off timetable for one week, effectively limiting my viable observation period.

I believe that the semi-structured observations were an effective inquiry tool because they allowed me to identify teaching approaches that were adopted by Drama and English specialists to engage students in their work. Using a semi-structured style allowed me to adapt my observation technique to incorporate events that I believed were of value . Furthermore, it enabled me to explore whether the approaches identified in the literature had any correlations in a real life context. I was surprised to note that the formal observations forced me to examine and reflect upon situations and explore their meaning and context that I otherwise would not have considered within my normal practices.

Interviews

I carried out four semi-structured interviews with teaching staff. I wanted the interviews to provide me with practitioners’ opinions of the teaching approaches that they adopt to engage students in their subjects to explore whether their opinions correlated with my observation data and literature findings.

I found devising questions challenging and my planned questions from Module 2 evolved greatly as I prepared for the inquiry interviews. The literature review process had made me realise that curriculum context and planning have an impact on classroom engagement. I wanted to explore these aspects in more detail within my workplace through in my interview questions, as I believed these topics would become important in ‘placing’ my inquiry context. Using feedback from my existing network of BAPP Arts peers academic advisor, I altered the inquiry questions again, ensuring that I would gain the appropriate data to answer my inquiry questions, without any bias. I asked the participants a maximum of nineteen questions centering around the topics of: engagement definitions; teaching approaches and tasks to engage; disengagement; planning and external factors in planning to engage; curriculum links between Drama and English in the curriculum and within the Academy.  

Having reflected upon the effectiveness of my Learning Journal in recording my observation reflections, I ensured that I used my Learning Journal much more stringently through the interview stage. 

If I were to repeat this process, I would improve my interviewing technique. When transcribing my interviews at a later inquiry stage, I found that I would question the participants’ answers when listening, but I did not do this in the actual interview. I believe that remaining unbiased overly concerned me and that I believed questioning an answer would be seen as leading. Furthermore due to my weak aural skills, I found it difficult to listen to participants’ answers, follow their train of thought and use reflection simultaneously and found that I would ask questions that participants had already answered inadvertently. In this case I would become disconcerted and I now recognise that I should have taken time to reflect upon answers during the interviews and pause where necessary to gather my thoughts, asking participants to expand on certain points that interested me.

I feel that a semi-structured interview was effective as it allowed me to probe further to explore interesting elements of each interview, particularly the approaches staff use to engage students. I found that this type of interview allowed me to rephrase questions to ensure I received data that related to my inquiry questions. I was able to obtain a real variety of information that allowed me to make comparisons and contrasts both between the interviewees and the literature.

Summary of Artefact and Formative Feedback

Below is an outline of the Artefact One Page Summary that I sent to Paula last week. I have included her feedback but any other comments would be greatly appreciated…

I would like to create a video. I plan to use a large sheet of white paper, which will be attached to one on the Interacting White Boards in one of my school’s classrooms. I will film myself drawing key words and pictures that I think represent my inquiry process (literature review, inquiry tools and methods, data analysis findings, questions) and my solutions. I will have cameras fixed on both the smaller sections of each part of the board I am working in, and a camera that will remain in the same position for the whole film. The key words and small drawings will eventually create a large mind map to represent the complications and developments of my inquiry and findings. The video will end on a ‘zoom’ out to show the overview of the inquiry process, findings and solutions. I will then work with the creative team in my Performing Arts Department to edit the video between the close ups of each section and the larger overview. I plan to speed up the drawing sections of the film and then team this with a voice over, where I explain my inquiry in more detail.

At the end of the video, I plan to create a ‘lesson plan’ of an engaging English lesson, making use of Dramatic approaches suitable for the Primary Curriculum. I will also create a LinkedIn slide share of my lesson plan and write the link to this on my video for the ‘audience’ to visit if they would like more information about this.

Professional Artefact Audience

The professional audience for my artefact will be teachers in both the Secondary and Primary sector. This way, I will be able to make use of the artefact in my current job and my future teaching practices.

Reasons for Creating a Video Artefact

Firstly, teachers (my professional audience) have very busy jobs. After a day of teaching, marking, data entry and lesson planning, I do not believe that a teacher would spend their valuable time reading a ‘written’ artefact like a lesson plan. A video is something that is concise and contains all the information that can be consumed more passively. Furthermore, I would like to incorporate a link to a LinkedIn Slide Share because I have observed that year 11 teachers use this to find alternative to PowerPoint for exam preparation lessons. I have felt that widening my community of practice has been an important part of my learning; therefore I would like to use this form of professional networking and communication in my artefact.

Secondly, I feel it would be hypocritical to create an artefact that isn’t engaging, after my inquiry has focused on engagement. In my inquiry, I have found that teachers in my place of work to engage students adopt visual sources. A video will make use of all of this engagement strategy. In addition, all of the practitioners I observed and interviewed identified that group work was an engagement strategy. Furthermore, literature identifies that group work enhances creativity, something that the artefact is meant to be based on. By creating a video, I can work collaboratively with the Performing Arts technician and team, to produce a more creative artefact.

Finally, I feel it is important to make an artefact that is not only useful to my professional audience, but that is useful to me. I would like to have a video that I could show to possible future employers, which demonstrates the work that I have done and how my studies have impacted upon my teaching practices, almost like an addition to the online portfolio of work in my blog.

Inspiration and Initial Trial

When initially considering my artefact, I was told to find something that ‘made me excited’. I realised the first video I came across on the BAPP that made me really passionate was Ken Robinson’s (2010) ‘Changing education paradigms’. I liked the simplicity of each drawing and then the ‘zoom out’ into the larger picture. I feel it is appropriate to draw inspiration from this video because this source was the initial starting point for my inquiry into engagement. 

(https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms)

Below is a picture of the ‘trial’ artefact that I filmed at my school to see if my concept for the video would work using my literature review. The idea adapted from a piece of A4 paper to the Interactive Whiteboard so that the detail could be seen more clearly. In the artefact, I would film myself creating similar images to the one below.

Feedback from Paula

Paula said that sometimes the planning of the project can become muddled and this means that it does not come across as that exciting in the actual piece. Paula also said that I would need to use reflection-in-action when creating to video, to anticipate changes that will enviably need to take place when creating the audiovisual artefact. Any other feedback from fellow BAPP student would be greatly appreciated...

Online Chat 5th April: Shift in Focus

On Tuesday I joined the online chat with Adesola, Danni (also on Module 3) and Lauren (on Module 1). I wanted to join the session to make sure I was analysing my data properly, as this is a process that I have been working through over the course of the last couple of weeks. I also wanted to join the session to be able to speak to others on the course and gain new ideas and insights into how I can strengthen the approaches to my studies.

Data Analysis

Adesola asked me to explain what I am currently concerned about in my studies. I explained that I was analysing the data I had gathered from my observations and interviews using both Matrix Analysis and Thematic Analysis. I said that I was concerned about making ‘over generalisations’ with my data analysis. Danni suggested that I should to be careful of the wording in my write up. As she Identified, I have obviously noticed that certain things have taken place just in my inquiry and the way I write this up should reflect that.

Adesola then explained that the inquiry links back to Module 1; it is just ‘a little piece of your world’, where you explore something in the context of your work place and your experiences. I found it extremely useful to hear this advice because I hadn’t forgotten to link my inquiry to my professional practices, but I feel that my focus had ‘drifted’ a little bit away from this during my data analysis. I felt like this process had become more ridged and I was more focused on linking what I had found to the literature. Adesola then discussed how the inquiry connects to your practices and that the data is about exploring ideas that resonate with me and my experiences, so ‘how do I feel about this incident?’ Again, this was really useful to hear. I had been calling upon my own interpretations and ideas during my Matrix Analysis grid, but I feel this is something that I need to take a little longer to reflect upon when I am developing these grids.

Finding ‘Answers’

I also mentioned that I was finding it hard to ‘select’ important data because, after spending so much time carrying out the inquiry, every aspect of the data seems important to me. I was concerned that I was selecting too much data to enable me to make valid conclusions. Adesola then talked about how, although there are no such things as ‘answers’ on the BAPP, the ‘answers’ for the inquiry are inside or you. The inquiry is not about trying to find what is outside, the answers are in your experience and your practices. Adesola said that the data collection is not trying to find out the biggest thing that you’ve discovered either. Again for me this was extremely important for my current inquiry stage. I now believe that my data analysis so far is valid, as I have been selecting data that I feel is important to me.

Shift

One of the most significant parts of the session for me was the idea of a ‘shift in focus’. Adesola asked us the question ‘How important is it to you?’ She discussed the idea that in Module 3, and in fact all of the Modules, the ‘answers’ are actually describing the ‘shift in focus’ that you have had throughout the Module process. In Module 3, this process involves asking yourself: ‘What did I think about x before I started my inquiry? Now, what do I think about x after carrying out my inquiry?’

For me I asked myself the question, ‘What did I think about engagement before I started my inquiry? Now, what do I think about engagement after carrying out my inquiry?’

Before the inquiry, I thought that engagement was a concept that was easily definable and ‘obvious’ to all teachers. However, through looking at literature and interview participants, I have found that ‘engagement’ means different things to different researchers (Reschly and Christenson 2012) and practitioners. There are common themes that run between the ‘delimitations’ of engagement, but there is not one singular definition, suggesting that engagement is a concept that is structured around the beliefs of the practitioners. I also believed that ‘engaged students’ were students who were completing work that had been set without any displaying and poor behaviour. Now, I have realised through the literature and my observations that I was focusing on the idea of ‘behavioural engagement’ and in fact engagement is a multi-construct consisting of affective (emotional), behavioural and cognitive engagement (Fredricks, Blumenfeld and Paris 2004). I now believe that engaged students show enjoyment towards their work and question what is in front of them, and engaged students do not merely sit at a desk and work in silence. I have observed and discovered through observations and interviews that this state of enjoyment and questioning is something that in instilled by the teaching practitioners themselves in their classroom environment…

Adesola said that the inquiry is not about finding something ‘earth shattering’ but understanding something more clearly in your field and communicating that to other people. It is about a shift, and the critical review is just articulating that shift through the material, methods and processes that you have used to discover that shift.

Closing Points

Adesola finished the session by saying that now is the time to get the things done that you need to get done in order to complete the module. Although it is not the best it could be, it is better to have something down on paper rather than a brilliant idea still stuck in your head. For Me this was fantastic advice, as I know that I do need to just get something down to form a first draft. I feel this has been a process that I have been putting off because I feel there are so many unfinished answers from analysing my data. However, I feel that bringing my inquiry back to ‘my little corner’ will help me to understand that this research is about me any my practices and help me to write my first draft. Explaining the shift in thinking will also help me to draw my conclusions together in my analysis process.

Thank you to Adesola, Danni and Lauren for your thoughts and ideas. It was so useful to discuss my concerns with others and receive such useful advice.

Reference List

Christenson, S. L., Reschly A. L. (2012) “Jingle, Jangle and Conceptual Haziness: Evolution and Future Directions of the Engagement Construct” in S L Christenson, A L Reschly and C Wylie  (2012) Handbook of Research on Student Engagement London: Springer pp. 3-20

Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C. and Paris A. H. (2004) ‘School Engagement: Potential of the Concept, State of the Evidence’ Review of Educational Research, 74 (1), 59-109