Skype Session 25.11.16

Hello Everyone,

Last night I joined the group skype session with Adesola, where we talked about the oral presentation and the artefact. The most beneficial part of the skype session for me was when we talked about the artefact. When Adesola explained to us what the artefact was I was surprised. I had completely interpreted the artefact incorrectly. I thought the artefact was a representation of what you had found from your inquiry to present to your professional practise community. But it is not.

The Artefact is another form of representation to tell the story of your inquiry. Just like the written and oral version. It should represent exactly what happened from the beginning to the end of your inquiry, the only difference is that the artefact is the version you would give to your professional practise community if asked about what you did during your time in the BAPP. As the artefact is the explanation of your inquiry to your professional community it needs to be represented in a way that links to your professional practise. So you have to choose a form of representation that relates to your professional community.

Adesola gave us a very good example of a past student. This student was looking at how looking after yourself as a performer (eating healthy, exercising, warming up and down) would prolong your career in the long run. So, to show their research this student created a video game that let you level up when you did some of these things. This student chose to talk about the video game they imagined as they thought that would be the best representation for the community they were trying to reach.

Now with this revelation, I must brainstorm of what might be the best representation for my inquiry to my professional practise.

Thank you for reading!

Cassie V.

Driving in the U.K.

Hello Everyone,

So, during the week, it was my first time ever driving on U.K. roads…and there was one major difference that stood out to me from the roads in the U.A.E.

This was the size of the road lanes. Oh, my goodness, they are incredibly tight! I could be feeling this more because I am so used to another two feet on either side of me. This aspect of driving in the U.K.  scared me and made me nervous. It reminded me of a scene from the movie ‘The Holiday’. Where Cameron Diaz’s character is driving on U.K. roads for the first time too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymGpwwkyrxk – Link for the scene in the movie.

For the first half, an hour I was convinced that other drivers were going to hit my car! Until my partner pointed out that if I look at the roads there is a distinct pattern on them/a guide. He said-

‘Just look at the road there is a shiny part then a darker part then again another shiny part. Put yourself in the middle of the dark middle part and you will be fine. The road is like that because of wear and tear of where other people drive on the road. So really if you follow that path you will be okay.’

He was right! As soon as I chose to go down one guide down the road I felt reassured that myself, passengers and the car was a lot safer. I am still quite nervous about how much or should I say how much space isn’t there, I have for the lanes but I feel comforted that I have a guide of where I should be.

On reflection, I realised that this is how I feel about the Module 3. I am so nervous that something is going to go wrong or I will do something wrong that I start to feel stressed. I started to think of what I feel is a guide just like the road to help reassure me. I decided my guides or path that I use to reassure my self is a variety of things on the course. The module handbook, the readers, skype sessions and the SIG groups. I find reaching out to these contacts extremely useful because it calms me to talk about everything that may be a worry or to do with my inquiry. So even though I might start to feel nervous and scared and make the facial expressions that Cameron Diaz does in ‘The Holiday’ while this journey continues, I know that to find my path/guide I just need to reach out to some of the above example.

To add onto SIG groups, when talking to Paula during the skype session last Tuesday, we briefly talked about the definition of what makes a SIG group. I believed that your SIG group was only a SIG group if your inquiry topics were similar but per Paula, it doesn’t have to be just that! It can be with people with different topics if you talk about your inquiry and help each other out as another form of communication within the course, that makes it a SIG group. So, I started that session with one SIG group and ended it with three!

Thanks for reading.

Cassie V.   

25.10.16 Skype Session

Hello Everyone!

Last Tuesday I attended Paula’s skype session and it was brilliant! We covered so many topics that reassured me that I was on the right track for this inquiry. It was great to talk about our inquiries and relate it to the topic which Paula had arranged for the skype session; Creativity and Analysis.

I will be writing about some of the analysis points that we covered. Within the skype session Paula introduced the analysis triangle. See below.

                                                                                      Data

                                                      Literature                                            Experience     

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Triangle_model_of_love.png 

We talked about how you needed all three of the parts of this triangle to create a strong analysis review.  We decided to start with literature. The last skype session Paula mentioned we needed about 10-20 resources for the literature section. Now when I heard this, I was quite unsure how I would be able to read that many books in such a short time, plus write it, submit drafts and prepare for the artefact and the oral presentation. Considering this journey ahead, I started to re think what other resources there might be. I remembered from my high school days that we were encouraged to look at TED videos. I started there and I can’t believe the amount of different resources I found just from thinking outside the norm. So, don’t worry about the 10-20 amount of resources being all books for this inquiry, I mean if you want that, that’s absolutely your decision but, for myself I will be using a varied amount of different resources to get the greatest understanding for my topic area.

Secondly we talked about the data and how our research methods were going. Linda mentioned how she loved interviewing everybody for her inquiry. After a while we talked about how when we interview that we must accept their answers for their answers, even if they aren’t ones we were expecting. These interviews will give us opinions and different views on our topics, we shouldn’t be afraid of that, we should embrace it! As it all helps to find what our response will be to the inquiry.

Thirdly, we talked briefly about how our experiences will also affect our results in the inquiry. All of the above all play a very important part when you write your analysis section, and from these three parts of a triangle you will form opinions and interpretations. Paula explained very clearly that there is a huge difference between one’s opinion and interpretation of the results. She used these examples-

1.       Opinion- ‘I like the colour green or red’

2.       Interpretation- ‘Is based on the results that you have collected’

These two words in my thoughts sum up the entirety of the analysis section because the inquiry is based on a topic of interest to you, this means that you would already form an opinion on what you would like the results to be. As well as being human we make our own opinions on the information of what people say and do. It is only natural! Even though your opinion is important, I think it is important to remember that you will need to form an opinion on the interpretation of the results. I like to think of it as a sort of wave structure-

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=wave+sound&view=detailv2&&id=84B595EB0AF8C744E9D89232902F26A6B1BCFF5A&selectedIndex=14&ccid=MxoR0O8E&simid=608043975921896180&thid=OIP.M331a11d0ef04f6bf8bc6d70f82e9bd21o0&ajaxhist=0

Here is my wave link to how to create your analysis response.

Inquiry Focus                             Literature Review                                   Personal Experience

                         Data Collection                                 Data Interpretation                                    Conclusion/Opinion/Findings

Make sure you make decisions/opinions based on the evidence from your data collection methods, experience and the literature! Don’t make them just because that’s what you would prefer the result to be.

I found this skype session so helpful, and if you missed it, there is an amazing slideshow on Paula’s blog to help explain this next part in the journey.

Thank you for reading!

Cassie V.

Planning Approach for Module 3

Hello Everyone,

So I have just thoroughly read through the module 3 reader and handbook again and my brain feels like it’s going to explode with all the information I have just received. I was going to make a journal entry but I thought it might be nice to put up my thoughts at this point on my blog to see if anyone else is feeling the way I am.

So as mentioned above my brain feels like it is about to explode! There is so much information in those books! All useful, but a lot to take in, in one afternoon and I am 100% sure that I will be referring back to them a lot this module to make sure that I haven't missed anything. I believe the most important and helpful point I got from the reader and handbook, is how essential it is to be on top of time management within this module. I really appreciate how it has two visual images of how to set out your work this term. The first being the timeline of task 7A and the second being let’s call it the Module 3 Stages Arrow, I preferred the Module 3 Stages Arrow as it listed particular elements that had to be included in your final portfolio. But, I also believe that without the three aspects- the 7A task timeline, the Module 3 stage arrow and the module reader and handbook you won't be able to organise yourself.

So where does that leave me...I had just finished reading the handbook and reader and I felt extremely overwhelmed. So I went to my learning space and looked through some of the past module 3 blogs. I found an idea on James O'Brian's blog -http://jamesbapp.blogspot.co.uk/ 

James mentioned that he organised himself by setting himself weekly goals to help keep on track of this module. I am going to take his advice and do this for myself. I will start making weekly goals (lists) of what I want to achieve each week. I will also set up reminders on my phone for myself to make sure that I keep on top of it. Maybe a very annoying alarm that I set goes off every half hour to make sure I keep up with it!

Throughout thinking about how to keep myself up to date and not fall behind this module I started to stress about how many obstacles I still had to face this term and how on earth I was going to get through them all. Obviously there will be a lot of support from friends, family, university, tutors and SIG groups, but I think the most important thing is that I keep confidence in myself. I then found this quote-

'If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.'- Michael Jordan
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/achieve.html

It reminded me of what I tell the children I teach when they find something too difficult or too much to do. I always say- 'Never say you can't do something just because it’s too tricky, believe in yourself and you will be able to work through your obstacles and achieve the best you can.'

Above is a photo that I took over these summer holidays. I wanted to find a photo of how I was feeling/lie ahead this module. I was inspired to do so from my past journal entries and from the rainbow picture from the mylearning site. At the point this photo was taken I thought 'How marvellous'. Now, I see this photo as a reflection of the journey ahead. The rocks representing the tasks/sections that must be done to reach the serene water which represents finishing module 3. But I think what is greater insight in this photo is that you must be dedicated and work hard to achieve what you want. 

After writing this blog post I am feeling a lot calmer and more positive about having the time to complete this module and how I will approach this module.

Thank you for reading!

Cassie V.

First Skype Session 16.9.16

Welcome back everyone!

New Term, New Module, New Discoveries!

On Friday evening the skype orientation session took place. The session was joined by module 2 and 3 student’s. It was a great first skype session because everyone was very enthusiastic to get back into the BAPP. I found it particularly helpful because it set a clear structure of what the first steps are in the next module.

To begin with, Adesola covered a set of steps to begin the new term that could be used for either Module 2 or 3.

1.       Look at your last module feedback- Look at what worked and what didn’t work in your last module. What did you find was useful and what wasn’t useful?

2.       Organisation

3.       Look at the next module- Handbook etc.

She also mentioned, that whatever happened in the previous module, this next module is a new beginning! Don’t regret what you didn’t do in the previous module, take what you have learnt and apply it to the new module.

4.       Once you have looked at the handbook, come to terms with what your end product must be. Look at the assessment what they must contain and the amount of time you have to complete each section. As well as adding extra time when you organise for drafts to be sent and received back to edit.

5.       Reconnect with the BAPP community whether that be blogs, Facebooks pages and or SIG groups.

I found this incredibly helpful because I now know where to start with Module 3. Personally, I am feeling quite anxious with how module 3 will turn out. But during the skype session Adesola mentioned that-

‘’Module 3 is where you carry out what you thought to happen from your Module 2 inquiry plan.’’

Further in the conversation it was suggested that Module 3 is to find out what works and what doesn’t work. Through module 3 you should be able to begin discovering practitioner research and endeavouring to use ideas. Again as Adesola stated on her blog-

‘’It is not about doing exactly what you said you would do (if it is exactly as you thought why bother doing it!!!). It about learning form the activity of trying to do an inquiry.’’ http://adesolaa.blogspot.co.uk/

Overall, I found this skype session has set me on the right track to start this module. Focus on organisation and what you have to actually do.

Welcome back everybody!

Cassie

Module 2 Skype Session with Adesola- 16.04.2016

Hello Everyone,

Today we had a skype session with Adesola about Part 6. We discussed about our inquiry plans and any questions that we had about it. We broadly discussed the structure of the inquiry plan. Adesola went on to describe that its like making a cake. For more information on this please refer to Zoe’s blog, she will be writing about the cake analogy for the inquiry plan.

For myself I will be writing about a particular section that we discussed quite thoroughly today. This section is- Approach to analysis. When we first started to talk about this section, I really wasn’t sure what it really meant, but as Adesola gave us examples, it became a lot clearer what this section is about.

Adesola described this section as ‘The heart of the essay’ because this is the part where you are mixing all the information relevant to the inquiry -

1.       Your inquiry

2.       Your previous experience

3.       The data that you will collect

This section is about showing how you will process the information, of how you approach and will understand the data you eventually gain, and how you will justify it.

We also discussed that this section might be the best section to write first so that you can plan out your avenues of inquiry, source the information relevant and how you will deal with it. Adesola suggested doing this first, as then you will have a solid outline of your inquiry process and then will be able to look back at the other parts for the inquiry plan and confirm they are all on the right track.

Thanks for reading.

Cassie Vercoe

Task 5a- Ethics

Hello Everyone,

After reading reader 5, I have come to the conclusion that ethics and a person’s moral values are similar. This dawned on me after completing one of the activities from reader 5.

The activity was to list the Virtues/Moral of yourself and then what is expected in your workplace. This is what I came up with!

Personal	Professional
Kindness	Commitment
Respect	Diligence
Patience	Discipline
Ambition	Excellence
Benevolence	Honesty
Caring	Persistence
Creativity	Respect
Empathy	Reliability
Reliability	Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness	Empathy
Honesty	Creativity
Commitment	Caring
	Kindness

As you can see above the adjectives highlighted in yellow are the ones that I have deemed for my virtues/morals personally and for the ones at work.

When thinking about the type of ethics that my work establishment hold, I think these would be a part of them. As I work in a school I think the ethics my work place holds, is both for yourself but also for the wellbeing of its pupils and the staff body.

1.       Confidentiality

2.       Create a caring and supportive learning environment for children

3.       Honesty

4.       Safeguarding

I am sure there are a lot more but these are the ones that come into my mind straight away.

Thanks for reading.

Cassie V.

Brainstorm

Hello Everyone,

I have been talking to my best friend Linda who is also doing the course and we were discussing how we were both getting along with Module 2 and how we both find that we are uncertain of where we are on the course in regards to how much we should have done by now. We discussed our topics further to each other, they are quite different however, I think we both found minor interlinks and helped each other out. After the talk with Linda, I brought up the topic with my dad to discuss how I was feeling a little lost and unsure of where I am on the course. It suddenly hit me as we were discussing one of my branch inquiries (Refer to earlier blog post- Module 2 Skype Session). The branch inquiry I am referring to is looking at different performing arts curriculum from different countries. As I work in an International school, my interest was sparked to find out if the curriculum on the performing arts was different in different country curriculums. While discussing this research I realised something.

The course – Bachelor of Arts for Professional Practise – Distance learning curriculum, is incredibly different to the type of curriculum I had in Primary and Secondary school! For the first 13 years of my schooling there was always a structure of

1.       Read this.

2.       Do Assignment

3.       Read this.

4.       Do Assignment

Etc.

I find that the professional practise course especially now, while looking into our own inquiries. Gives us the freedom to choose without a guideline of what to read and how to carry out our research, it can be a little daunting! I don’t think it’s a bad thing, because I love being able to research what I am interested in but I think it’s also made me a little more hesitant, as there is no list of what to research and how. Which looking back on it I always had when I was in primary and secondary school! The readers for each section of the module 2 are really useful as I have been looking back on them and each time I keep finding something new that helps me direct my research. But with no set research topic, you must decide what you like, you have the freedom to choose what you want! You have to have the confidence and the certainty to believe in what you research. Is anyone else finding it challenging?

Adding onto the idea of a set curriculum. A few weeks ago, I was talking to my colleague about the different types of curriculum/learning structure and she mentioned to me a type of curriculum that allows the children to decide what they want to learn about for that year. For example- When we were teaching how to halve something we used images of pizzas. We used pizzas because our overall topic for that period was ‘Food’, but the children didn’t choose it, the topic of ‘Food’ is in the set curriculum. The curriculum my friend was talking about was the ‘Montessori Theory’ here is the link if you would like to read a bit more about it - http://www.montessori.org.uk/what_is_montessori/the_philosophy

Through reading and researching through different curriculums it has given me more information for my branch inquiry.

 It does make me wonder that if I am finding the prospect of having a lot of freedom in my research daunting is because my prior research projects have always been set out clearly for me? Let me know what you think on this topic, I would love to hear if you have the same or different opinion on it.

Thanks for reading,

Cassie V.

Task 4a- Intial Thoughts

Reader 4 Initial Thoughts

So after reading the reader 4 I was very confused, so confused I had to read it through again to fully understand it. But what truly clarified what this reader and the module was about, was talking to my tutor Adesola. I knew that the next module was about creating an inquiry into your professional practise. As I am a learning support assistant for early year’s children, I have previously touched base briefly in Module 1 on how everyone learns differently. Looking into Howard Gardner’s theories of different learners. From this discussion with Adesola, I had a concrete idea of what I wanted to investigate within my professional practise.

Inquiry- Are the skills/techniques learnt from a performing arts background transferable and beneficial into an early year’s classroom?

This was a good starting point, but I learnt from the group skype session with Adesola that one main inquiry would be too limiting and that you had to have branch questions as well, that still link back to your initial inquiry.

So my branch inquiries are –

1.       If the classroom teacher/LSA implement performing techniques while teaching, does this advantage or disadvantage the children’s learning?

2.       How important is the arts in formal education and how important are they in a child’s personable development?

3.       Are the artistic techniques aided to teach in the classroom seen as a way of persuasion or coercion?

These branch questions are still very broad to each other, however they all link back to the main Hypothesis/Inquiry. From being an LSA for almost a year now, every day I am learning something new and questioning different techniques. I was surprised when first starting off all the interlinks I was finding was with my performing arts background. Please comment below, I would love to find out if anyone else has a similar inquiry.

Thanks for reading.

Cassie V.

Module 2 Skype Session

Hello Everyone,

Yesterday we had the first module 2 skype session run by Adesola. Our group consisted of myself, Francois, Nicole and Charnelle. To begin with we all had a lot of questions that was related to the main topic of Module 2 ‘The Professional Inquiry’. As you can imagine, all our questions were very varied and specific to the area of our interests. So instead of starting off talking about why and what we were going to study, Adesola talked about what the Module 2 was really for, and this for myself clarified any worries that I had. Adesola made it clear that Module 2 was-

1.       Find an interest/inquiry in your professional practise.

2.       Find more information on this topic

3.       Map the information

4.       Investigate the Methods which you gather your information

5.       Ethics

To have these steps clarified was really helpful as I now know how to carry out this Module. Each aspect of the conversation was really beneficial but the two steps that stood out for me was.

Map the information and Investigate the methods which you gather your information.

I think I connected with these two steps as I had similar ones that I came to the session with. I learnt that you had to map the information you find. You may have an initial idea of what your inquiry is about but you also need to research different aspects that come from that first initial idea. After the skype session I started brainstorming what this could be similar to and I came up with a visual image to describe what I think as mapping.

                                          (Wikipedia, 2016)

1. Roots= Your Experiences

1a. Your experiences all influence what your inquiry will be about.

2. Trunk= Your Inquiry

2a. Your inquiry research methods will lead you into sub inquiries

3. Branches= Your Sub Inquiries

Side note- I did draw my own tree using Word, however it wouldn't load on my blog. I hope this Wikipedia Image is clear with the directions below it.

The above image and the skype session has helped me start my research in a more thorough investigation. As Adesola stated on skype- ‘It’s not what you need to know but it’s about what you don’t know as well’. This module in the skype session was stated by Francois and Adesola to be interlinked with module 3. The module 2 leads into module 3, and the main purpose of module 2 is to find a stable idea of what your inquiry should be about, to research into your inquiry and look at what other topics come from your initial idea, from this process you will hopefully know what you really want to inquire about in Module 3.

To achieve this, you must do the investigative process. Each inquiry will be different, and in hand the methods of research will be different. I didn’t realise how important the research methods would be for your inquiry. For this module you need to also research what investigative methods would be best for your inquiry as this will affect you in the long run. Adesola gave us a very good example to show you how important this part of Module 2 was. She gave us an example of when a former students research methods didn’t work out which affected their results of their inquiry. However, they knew it wasn’t at their fault as they had done the proper preparation into how to gain their information. This eliminated any anomalies of their own and they could focus on other reasons for why the research didn’t add up. Adesola said ‘Make sure you know its planned out before hand, so then you know it’s not your fault. Don’t make it your fault.’ This will stay with me during this module so that I know if my results aren’t as I predicted then its not from my lack of preparation but from another reason.

Overall, the skype session was very helpful, it was good to discuss as it has clarified all the questions I had. This is just the beginning of this Module and I already know it’s going to be one full of questions that need to be answered from me and about my inquiry! Thank you Adesola for a great start to the next Module!

Thanks for reading.

Cassie V.

Bibliography

Wikipedia, 2016. Roots. [Online]
Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root
[Accessed 26 February 2016].