Oral presentations

Firstly I want to comment how good it was to meet some new people on Monday. I thought the morning was a worthwhile experience as we finally got to put some faces to the blogs! It was great to see what the other members on the course were inquiring into and see how their journey may have differed to mine. Even though performing is something that it natural to me and something I have done for a number of years the thought of a presentation was daunting alien to me. Talking about something that is personal to you that you have been working on for the past year can leave you feeling exposed. I think the success of the presentation is all down to preparation and the rest is left up to crossing your fingers and hope that your nerves don't get the better of you. For me the course has taken me on quite a journey and I know that I will use this experience in my professional practise and take with me the skills I have gained from embarking on this course. I will continue to blog about my next steps and throughout my profession.

Last lap!

I am sorry I haven't posted a blog for a few weeks. I have been spending so much time on finishing off my analysis for the critical review of my inquiry. I was a little late in meeting the target date for letting Adesola have a draft of sections 1 and 2 of the critical review. But I did meet the target date for sections 3 and 4. I have now sent Adesola a draft of the whole document as of the 30th April and now wait for her comments so that I can finalise the work for the submission on the 14th May.
   I had a Skype conversation with Adesola on the 25th April during which we discussed my ideas for my artefact. She was very helpful in my decision about the overall scope and seemed happy with my approach. I now need to complete the work on the artefact which I intend to do before the end of this week. It will then leave next week free to make any last minute changes to my critical review when I have received Adesola's final comments.

Progress to Easter

I think I have made quite good progress over the easter period, I have been in touch with Adesola to let her know where I have got to on the main pieces of work and am today sending her the first two parts of my critical review. This is about two weeks later than the target date. However since I am also well on with sections 3 and 4 of the critical review I expect to be able to meet the target date of the week starting 23rd April. I hope to set up a Skype session with Adesola when she has read sections one and two to discuss her reactions and to have a further discussion about my artefact. My plan for the artefact is well advanced but I do not want to firm up my ideas until I have discussed them more fully with Adesola. I feel I am gradually catching up the two weeks lost at the beginning of the semester and still have every intension of meeting the deadline for submission of 14th May.

The next steps

My contract with Image Musical Theatre has now come to an end which is both exciting and daunting. However it does enable me to spend these next 6 weeks concentrating solely and intensely on completing module 3. I have completed the initial interviews with teachers and cast members and I am now trying to find the best framework to analyse the data I have collected. Since most of my data is qualitative I will analyse the answers within a framework but the more in-depth interviews I have conducted will result in me quoting some responses anonymously. I am still in touch with one or two teachers and all my cast members so I can follow up to a limited extent if I need to. I am reviewing my progress against the plan I have prepared and I am keeping up to date with all the tasks I have identified.

Interviews where I'm at.....

I have just finished conducting my interviews with both of my focus groups cast members and teachers. As advised by Adesola due to limited time I arranged a couple of lengthier interviews with teachers in advance. This approach was to ensure I could collect sufficient and valuable data, if I hadn't booked a slot prior to our theatre companies visit it would have proved difficult with the teachers time constraints. I was lucky enough to obtain an interview with a teacher that gave up an hour of her own time to speak to me and help me answer my burning questions, she was keen to express her thoughts and gave me so much important material regarding the National Curriculum and it's expectations in conjunction with Drama and the Arts. I learnt a great deal on the preparation the school goes through prior to a companies visit, and the type of follow up work the children do post performance. I was particularly interested in how the drama cross references to other academic subjects such as History, English Literature, Art and Music. Another teacher I interviewed gave me some really useful insights to the Drama Level Descriptors and Drama objectives taken from literacy framework. I will be reviewing and analysing all the material I have been given and use the data to aid my inquiry. When interviewing my other cast members I asked questions about what could be developed and improved upon when taking a show to a school and whether they thought it is an important part of education incorporating theatre into learning and a number of other focused questions. Overall I'm really happy with the response I've had from the interviewees and thankful for their eagerness to participate. I'm feeling positive and excited to move forward with the inquiry. I feel I am already developing a better sense of how my inquiry links to my existing work and fits into the next steps in my chosen career path.
  

Module 3 Campus session 1st March

On attending the campus session for module 3 I had managed to gather my thoughts in order of where to move forward in the module, and what time scale I had to undertake to ensure all parts were completed in time for the May submission. Paula ran the session and we had a very useful and in depth discussion about where I currently was in the process, how my inquiry related to my inquiry plan, deadlines for drafts and the importance of blogging and receiving feedback from my peers about my inquiry process.
  
We then went on to an exercise writing down keywords of our inquiry in bold on a large piece of paper, this exercise was valuable as it forced us to notice the important words and put down our thoughts in our head down onto paper which sometimes proves a difficult thing to connect. After we had completed the keyword exercise we presented our inquiry title to the other members of the course and spoke about the focus groups and our professional networks, for example Middlesex university would be a significant one for all of us. This part of the morning really help me as I felt by explaining and answering questions on your own inquiry, made it easier for you yourself to fully understand and maybe go away and tweak things that weren't made so clear for others.
  
In the final hour we got to grips with the understanding of the Professional Artefact and went on to explore possible Artefacts such as power points, videos,  posters, books and many more. The Artefact is a product that relates to what you have found from doing your inquiry. To help us decide on the Artefact that would be most suited to our inquiry we answered a few important questions such as:

• Who will be taking part in the Inquiry?
• Who will the Artefact be aimed at and why?
• Who will it benefit most?
• How will you share or demonstrate your Artefact?
• What might you show that can benefit your career progression and make others aware and give a better understanding of what you do in your professional practise?

We finished off the campus session by discussing the draft/writing up process about structuring what we have found out in our inquiry and the use of critical thinking. I left the campus session feeling excited and clearer about moving forward in module 3, the campus session was a positive experience all round!

Critical Reflection and Summary: Digital Portfolio

This module has been a logical progression from the first module of the programme. It has provided an important link towards the final module of carrying out and reporting on the inquiry I am proposing. I have appreciated the way in which the tasks have extended my knowledge and skills to the point where I feel competent and comfortable with the significant work involved in carrying out an inquiry.
As I am now working in a touring production http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/11/feedback-from-recent-performance.html, I was unable to attend any of the campus sessions. However the advisors blogs have provided me with a very helpful substitute.
Unlike my early experiences during module 1 I have felt in control of the learning process. I think that I have got through the “eureka moment” I was promised in module 1.
My SIG http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/10/task-4b.html was a useful discussion forum as I moved towards finding a suitable inquiry topic. http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/10/task-4b-creating-sig.html I was fortunate to have an interested group of professional colleagues, as well as support from within my module group. It meant that when I had to change direction in selection of an inquiry topic, my SIG was already well informed about the process I was going through, and able to catch up momentum lost during the adjustment. http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/10/task-4a.html
Each of the groups of tasks has played an important part in allowing me to develop my inquiry plan. http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/10/development-of-task-4a.html In some ways the issue which has challenged me the most is deciding on my proposed award title. http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/10/task-4d.html The rationale for my award title is covered in appendix 4. It is sufficient to mention that I hope that I can include some reference to the “business” aspect of performing arts in the title. I have been eager for my inquiry to include a business element from the outset.
I found the ethics tasks and the associated reading took me into issues that were new to me. http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/11/task-5d.html I have strong moral convictions, due perhaps to my convent school upbringing. I regard some of the philosophical arguments on ethics too theoretical to be of much use in coming to practical ethical decisions http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/11/task-5b.html. For me there are two aspects to ethical questions, what the law allows or prevents, and what I think is right or wrong. The law often gives more room for interpretation than my personal moral beliefs http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/11/task-5c.html.
I found that the pilot work I did http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/10/task-4c-responses-from-my-research.html gave me the chance to try out the tools of professional inquiry in a “classroom” environment. I tested my own limits in terms of my ability to use the tools http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/11/task-6a.html. I also gained valuable experience to enable me to determine what the scope and size of inquiry might be, in order to complete the project in the time available http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/11/task-6b.html.
I have had very helpful feedback on my draft inquiry plan, from my academic advisor. There were three issues, how best to obtain information from children, the scope of my inquiry and the extent to which I should try to obtain quantitative data. I hope I have satisfied all those concerns in the final draft of my plan.
All the work I have carried out in this module has been necessary to allow me to draft the inquiry plan http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/11/task-6c.html. Choosing the topic deciding which tools to use and doing pilot work in using them http://verityevans.blogspot.com/2011/11/task-6d.html, and considering the ethical issues are all key parts of the plan. I am looking forward to the prospect of starting the process set out in the timetable during module 3.