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].

Task 3a- Current Networks

Hello Everyone,

So after the skype session, I found a definition on what Professional Networking means-

‘Networking is a deliberate activity to build, reinforce and maintain relationships of trust with other people to further your goals. Professional networking is simply networking focused on professional goals’ (Hennigan, 2015).

In-cooperating this definition and our skype session, I realised that the only professional networking tools I use are Facebook and face to face interactions. As mentioned in previous blogs, I am not the most tech savvy person, so I can only use this as a reason for not being more intoned with my online professional networking. This I believe, has postponed my professional development already. We are as a world ever growing with our connections. The internet and web 2.0 are the ones we have to thank for that. The internet is a key tool in keeping up with professional networks, not only that but to use it as your own self advertisement.

In the aim of looking to advance my professional networking online, I have been looking at a lot of different tools of networking online. I found out there are many options to further your professional network. One tool being LinkedIn. I have heard of this tool before but I’ve never really known what it’s about or what it’s used for. But after reading and talking to a few colleagues about it I feel like this would be an improvement to my career if I were to create one.  What I also need to work on is using Facebook to its full capacity. At the moment I only have a social networking profile, but I believe I could use Facebook to represent my professional self as well. There are so many opportunities to build your networks online, that I think you just have to get started and stop worrying if it’s the right one for you, because how will you find out that answer until you try one.

Linking back to the skype session, Sophie mentioned that a professional relationship can become a personal one as well. You become friends with your work colleagues by being able to relate to them on subjects, experiences etc. this connection could open up opportunities for you in your work place. One of the vital fundamentals in relationships is trust, and in a workplace especially. Your colleagues that you have, trust you, and essentially your skills in your profession. This is why it is good to have networks with the people that you can talk to face to face, because you don’t know what opportunities each person brings to the table. You must represent yourself as your best self.

It would be good to hear if anyone else is on LinkedIn? And if they have any suggestions/experiences on it they would like to share.

Thanks again for reading.

Cassie V.

Bibliography

Hennigan, A. (2015, November 26). What is the definition of professional networking? Retrieved from Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-definition-of-professional-networking