This document provides guidance for students on their Module 3 assessment for the BAPP program. It discusses the three main parts of the assessment: 1) A Critical Review which is a written report with optional visual/audio elements discussing an investigation into a topic with implications for practice. 2) A Professional Artefact which is a creative work for others in the student's field. 3) An Oral Presentation demonstrating knowledge and understanding based on the inquiry. It offers advice on developing ideas, drafting, analyzing findings, and relating the inquiry to literature and the student's own practice.
1. Module 3 BAPP WBS3760
29/10/15
thinking creatively about it all
thinking about your inquiry
thinking about analysis
beginning to write
thinking about the artefact
2. 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
Progress on
your practitioner
research and
analysis task
Progress on
your practitioner
research and
analysis task
Thinking
creatively
Thinking
creatively
3. Where are you now? Evaluate…
You could still be in several places at once now – keep monitoring progress.
5. Module 3 Assessment will be in 3 main parts
Part 1: The Critical Review
It 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
outcomes?).
Part 2: The Professional Artefact
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 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’
6. Thinking creatively
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 suggests that
emersing yourself in a ‘domain’ that you
truly love will allow the “foundations for
creativity” to be in place”. (2006)
7. 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.
8. 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”
9. 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).
10. Effective Writing
Reading aloud what has been written is a good way to
understand what has been written
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.
11. 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
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. Part 1: A Critical Review
These 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.)
15. 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.
16. Analysis of Findings: possible points to consider
The professional inquiry
has been a way to
gather data about a
phenomenon e.g.
an event
a 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.
17. 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)
18.
19. 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/interventi
ons relate to the findings
from your inquiry? What
were the outcomes?
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. 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.
24. Professional Artefact
Who is your audience or professional community of
practice – who are you talking to?
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?
SEND IDEAS TO ADVISER to see what they think…
25. Examples of a professional artefact from Alumni
http://corindahall.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/doc
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
http://john-paulbirss.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/my-artefact.html
http://www.hollievictoriasmith.blogspot.co.uk
26. 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.
27. 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.
28. 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.
29. 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.
30. 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.
31. 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.
33. Three points to get out of the session
Develop the ideas
for your professional
artefact using your
community – how
can you explain what
you found out?
Start to write your
Introduction and Evaluation
sections of the Critical
Review.
Develop an
understanding of
what findings are
and the analysis task
is about to send to
your adviser.
Develop an
understanding of
what findings are
and the analysis task
is about to send to
your adviser.
Think creatively
about the inquiry
and communicating
it to others
Think creatively
about the inquiry
and communicating
it to others