My third intervention with MA AI students took place on 13th April and six students took part. Following the iterative approach to interventions in my Action Research, as described in the Research Method section on my Workflow page, I integrated what I learned from the previous interventions. Here the learning points I had made from the second intervention (for those from the first intervention, see previous blog post):
1.) The addition of a breathwork exercise proofed good and valuable and I have taken it back into this third intervention.
2.) In the last intervention I emphasised on the relaxation aspect a bit too strongly: students got deeply relaxed, possibly their energy went a little too low. Therefore I ensured in this third intervention to add invigorating and energising aspects right at the end, so that the students had a lot of relaxed energy available to be vocal and active in the tutorial that followed.
During the intervention we did: three tension release breaths, body scan exercise (both described and referenced in the previous two blog posts), then stretching & reinvigorating movements, and at the end I counted up, 0 to 5, to give the students enough time and a predictable timeframe to come out of the immersive experience.
Here anonymised extracts from the semi-structured interviews:
Student A: Empties the mind and relaxes the body. All parts of the body, feel like the whole body is released. Feel more present. Having done this now for the third time, it becomes so familiar, it’s good, like a structure, a ritual – yes, a good ritual as a start of to the tutorial
Student B: Enjoyed it very much, again. Agree, it’s good to know this is coming, what to expect and yes, like a ritual. It’s like, like a complete reset. Like rebooting a laptop. I was really ready for the tutorial session afterwards – my mind was so busy before.
Student C: It really made me more confident, I mean I have no problems presenting my project, but I do have butterflies in my stomach, beforehand, usually and this really helped; feeling much more calm about it
Student D: I feel more open, more happy to share, ah, I mean the feeling of sharing without actually saying much, I feel I share by just being here, if that makes sense. It almost creates a space, though virtual, but like a space for us – a communal space.
Student E: I lost track of time. I thought it was really long – I thought we had filled the whole tutorial time,or almost – no basically wouldn’t be able at all to tell how long this was
Student I: The counting up helped to slowly get back into… I mean face the return from the interior experience.
Student B: This time round was even better than last time I think the bit about us stretching and moving and and increasing the pace, brought in energy, ready to take action in the tutorial, really up for it