Vital to my research topic is the link between the physical, the mental and the emotional; the link between physical sensations, feelings and emotions. Hearing Timothy Morton talking about the importance of feelings and the need to be guided by them, was therefore valid and interesting to me. Around 14 mins in, he even took this a bit further, and I resonate with the metaphor he used:
“I am very into feelings, especially right now. Feelings are from the future – ideas are from the past. Feelings are thoughts that you don’t quite have words for – not yet. That’s why you do therapy, isn’t it? The idea in a way is just like a receipt out of a cash register at the end of the feeling process.”
I am catching up with putting my hand-written notes on my blog, on the reading I have done so far.
Prior to our first SiP Workshop I read Jean McNiff’s “What is Action Research”. This was interesting. I am working on the MA Applied Imagination in the Creative Industries, and the research methodology of this MA is Action Research. However reading McNiff I realised that the definition we employ on our course is not the only one, and McNiff’s actually has some other aspects to it, I have not heard about in this way previously.
So, her overall definition is how I have understood and used action research before. She says: “This is the basic action principle underpinning action research. It involves identifying a problematic issue, imagining a possible solution, trying it out, evaluating it (did it work?), and changing practice in the light of the evaluation.” However a few paragraphs before that, she states: “In traditional forms of research – empirical research – researchers do research on other people. In action research, researchers do research on themselves. Empirical researchers enquire into other people’s lives. Action researchers enquire into their own. Action research is an enquiry conducted by the self into the self.” I was surprised to read this, and find it a bit limiting that the research should be “by the self into the self.” I aim to work with students on my course as my action research participants and therefore they are my target audience. I will look at other action research scholars as well and see if this is helpful. Otherwise I will stick with the definition we are using on our MA.
I had my first SiP tutorial today, with John O’Reilly and another participant, Richard Parry. It was a very fruitful session and I am left with a lot to think about. The lively discussions gave me plenty of ideas, and themes came up that I want to consider more: e.g. the concept of ‘rewilding’ – brought up by Richard in a different context, but strongly resonates with me. It seems a good concept to translate and integrate into the approach I am working on. And John brought up that, rather than looking at the online experience as fragmentation, one could also look at it as a process of circulation and multitude and additionally that the whole concept of inside vs outside of bodies and spaces leads to the themes of enclosure vs spilling out. That really stimulated my thinking and I became aware that, possibly due to the time pressure, I am in danger of confirmation bias, just ‘proving what (I think) I know works’. It is important that I go wider, be more open to exploration and failure. Actually something I am telling students constantly – but then again: they have a year, full-time, whilst we have only about 2.5 months left and I have other jobs and projects on as well. So, it is important to be realistic about how far I can take this at this moment in time. John made a good suggestion: he said as both our projects have the potential to become quite expansive and long-term, maybe best to look at it like the development of a prototype: prototype and prototype testing during the SiP and then continue the project beyond that afterwards. That’s a helpful strategy of approaching things.
On 13th January 2021 we had our first SiP Workshop with Catherine Smith and John O’Reilly. During the day we worked through various tasks and touched on a variety of topics. Two of these I will certainly cover in further blog posts and will research more: research methods and ethical considerations.
We also created a mind map of our chosen research topic. This was helpful to get back into it after the winter break. There was not much time, but I quickly made this one:
I have currently two roles, two professions. One is being an Associate Lecturer at CSM, the other being a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist. In both roles I had to shift my work online since April 2020. When thinking about an idea for the SiP I reflected on what has happened recently in both my professional roles, and I realised that the shift to an online space had been the key change that took place, and that will probably continue to dominate both domains for a while.
Experiencing this change made me draw a connection to something else I had noticed over the years as a therapist: Especially for my younger clients, the virtual world of social media and online communication has a huge impact on their lives in the “real world” and on their self-image. It often brings with it some psychological difficulties. In the world of selfies and likes, people tend to hold on tightly to a rigid self-image and also they are more in their heads than in their bodies. I therefore often employ therapy methods that help clients get grounded back into their bodies, like the body scan (by Kabat-Zinn), breathing techniques or progressive muscle relaxation and others.
When pretty much the whole university started to work online, I wondered what impact this could have on us lecturers, and also on the students. And how could I take physical grounding techniques from the therapy space into the current virtual space of teaching and learning at the university. Could this help to keep the communication authentic, honest and “real”? Could this support connection, collaboration and engagement?
Another key factor is that the grounding in the physical realm is proven to help reduce anxiety and stress. Judging from what I see particularly in my Gen Z clients, a predominant focus on the virtual world is creating a lot of stress, expectation and tension. So in my SiP I would like to find out through action research if the above techniques could aid with this as well in a university setting.
However I had to think of a way how to adapt an object-based learning activity for the online environment, which is a bit of a challenge. I started thinking about what I would like to target and came up with this list:
From these key terms I started to put together the learning objectives:
Apply your Imagination
Move beyond the predictable
Invent or reinvent the purpose of an object by forming associations and connecting thoughts within the group
I presented the group with an object and the overarching question: “Can an object’s function be assessed by its shape and by forming associations and thought chains as a group?”
At first I showed the object from all sides, without giving away its function:
Then I demonstrated two potential functions which I had invented:
1. WHIPPING CREAM2. A TAPPING DEVICE
Then I got the group to enter the interactive part of the learning activity and without too much hesitation in an energetic and dynamic fashion shout out key-terms and ideas about potential functions. This worked quite well. After a little bit of a slow start people seemed to warm up and come up with a lot of fun ideas. “Door stopper” and “Decorative nipple fashion item” were some of my favourites.
At the end of the session I then revealed the actual function the object had been purchased for:
CRACKING NUTS
Overall I really enjoyed the session. There was a drawback though: My internet connection wasn’t performing very well that day, which meant my video stream was frequently interrupted. Learning point: I should have prepared photos and slides as a backup for this case. However one person said the fact that my video stream was breaking off added to the suspense and made him more curious. Other positive feedback was that the session was playful and fun and that it is really refreshing to see someone handling a real object instead of just looking at slides, text and static image.
On Tuesday, 25th February, I observed Simon Kinneir teaching students at the Interior and Spatial Design department at Chelsea.
The section I observed was divided in two parts:
Part 1: The first
half hour of the observation was a group tutorial with three students and two
lecturers, Astrid and Simon. The students each presented their approach and
first steps they have done towards the project “Life Stand”. At first Astrid
took the lead in terms of who and what comes next. She moved from one to the
next and could have each time asked Simon what his thoughts are as well.
However afterwards the whole group got involved and now Simon also had the
chance to input his thoughts and he got everyone involved in each other’s
project. This worked well, I thought it was really good how he got the
“cross-pollination” going. He also took care to summaries the students’ inputs
and repeat them: first in their own words, then in more specific terminology
and at times he also wrapped the content into adequate metaphors. This way the
students had the opportunity to enlarge their vocabulary and learn more of the
needed terminology.
Two of the students made notes and seemed
engaged. The third did not take any notes and displayed overall a more
challenging attitude. Without wanting to judge too harshly a student I have
only observed for part of an hour, I nonetheless got the impression that this
student did not have great interest in the course work. As far as I could see
she hadn’t done much work and seemed resistant to suggestions. Simon and Astrid
did their best to be encouraging and to give guidance, however the student
seemed reluctant and tried to abdicate responsibility. I don’t think there is
anything else Simon could have done. I myself often wonder how we should
proceed with such students.
Simon did also another helpful thing: He
referred back to the brief on several occasions, which is useful and important
to keep the students and their work on track.
The resistant student admitted not having read or not remembering the brief. However that didn’t stop her from asking at the end if she could receive help on how to do “deep research” and she would need help as she doesn’t know what to do next week. Simon stayed calm and answered in a very professional way. I am aware we should try to stay encouraging and coax the best out of each student, however at this point I wondered if this particular student wouldn’t be actually helped more with a telling off and putting the responsibility for study progress right back into her caught. There is a balance to be struck that I myself find often difficult in my work at CSM as well. Often I feel I am too lenient, soft and encouraging and in the case of a student who is clearly resistant and hasn’t done anything I wonder about the negative impact my mild reaction has on the other students observing this: My behaviour might in their eyes devalue the seriousness and the level of the course and they might get enticed to drop their own game as well. Difficult question and I haven’t got an answer.
Part 2: A one-to-one tutorial with a third year student who discussed her project progress with Simon. It seemed the student was behind with her work and worried about being able to get everything done by the deadline. Simon did several things that I thought were really good: he established a good relationship and rapport with the student, showed empathy and understanding, but at the same time didn’t let her off the hook when she tried to scale down her project. Instead he gave good advice: how she can chop the work into chunks and how to divide the remaining time into days allocated to particular parts of the project. He also highlighted which parts can be ‘outsourced’ and which need more work by her. He got the student to see the bigger picture and encouraged her to take the right priorities.
We started
off with discussing some quotes of the Vilhauer text in smaller
groups. I thought to myself “Oh, I am ready for this and I have
quite a few things I see critically here” – if you read my last
blog post you know what I mean. However the quotes that were chosen
actually didn’t touch on any of the points I didn’t agree with.
Actually, the quotes on the hand-out were making perfect sense to me.
That was interesting to see. I started to wonder if I had seen the
whole chapter I had read far more critical due to jarring with some
aspects of it. I reviewed and noticed that I became more open to
Gadamer’s Ethics of Play. Maybe sometimes we form judgements too
quickly. A good lesson.
There were
very comprehensive summary notes being handed out at the end of the
session, so I will not go into everything that went on yesterday. So
here just a few notes to remind myself of what was particularly
interesting to me:
Lindsay
mentioned the “raw hamburger” technique, whereby you repeat an
aspect of what your interviewee said in a very neutral way, in order
to get them talking more about it. This was very interesting, as I
am a psychotherapist as well as a lecturer and I use similar
techniques in my practice with clients, however I had never heard of
the term “raw hamburger” technique, which I just found funny and
interesting. Given that I learned about this term during the PgCert
session it gave me the idea to explore and try out if this and other
techniques I use with clients might be helpful to use in tutorials
with students as well. Thinking about it – there are actually more
cross-overs between therapy and tutorials than I have previously
considered 🙂
I
very much liked the metaphor of Gadamer that trying to communicate
is a bit like fusing the participants horizons. So true! And easy to
remember.
I
found the string technique during the quotation discussions really
useful. An excellent idea. I quite often encounter that one student
heavily dominates a discussion within a small tutorial group of 4 to
8 students. So far I have struggled addressing this elegantly. Often
I said after some time that I would like to hear some other voices,
or similar, but it never felt that positive or constructive. And
sometimes I felt my interference came a bit late and by that point
the others had shut down already, leaving the field to the one
dominant student. I’ll try it to see if the string technique could
be a good technique, a self-regulating tool, to address this.
We
spent a good part of the session addressing Learning Outcomes. There
were many interesting aspects during that part of the seminar, but
for myself it was particularly interesting to hear which LO’s are
required to be met for our own learning during the PgCert:
Knowledge, Communication and Realisation. Will keep that in mind….
🙂
It
was interesting to hear about https://dashboards.arts.ac.uk/
and look at the TEF stats for our college – I had no idea this
insight was available to me!
(I wrote this post ahead of yesterday’s seminar. The myblog.arts.ac.uk site had been down on Sunday though, so therefore I have only been able to upload it now.)
The Teaching Excellence Framework: Short Guide
Monica Vilhauer 2010: Understanding Art
In preparation for the full cohort seminar tomorrow, Monday, 17th Feb, I have read the TEF short guide as well as the Vilhauer text that was provided. The TEF guide was quite straight-forward, even if not very comprehensive: I still don’t know much about the process and more detailed criteria of the award, however it was a good introduction to get an overview. I don’t see currently why these two texts were provided in contrast and fail to make a connection, so I will just separately talk about the Vilhauer text now. This text I found problematic. Yes, it outlines a coherent and cohesive theory and concept, however I do disagree with its main premise. It builds on the assumption (e.g. as outlined in page 38) that there is ONE particular truth in an artwork. I disagree with this assumption and rather think that there can be various different meanings and ‘truths’ in an artwork. I am also not comfortable to use the word ‘truth’ in this context at all. I would rather say different meanings and different levels of significance and different interpretations. Not only per spectator, but also even for each spectator these can vary over time and be dependent on what other knowledge or experiences or emotional states the spectator has. I do however agree with the text that the level of engagement of the spectator plays a role and that this is a big factor. Given that I strongly disagree with the idea of ONE truth in an artwork I also disagree with the thinking that there could be a “total mediation”. Following on from this, it also jars with me to read about the goal being for a common understanding to be reached. In my view it does not matter if various spectators as well as the artist have all different understandings of the artwork.
It continues on from here with p.42: “A picture can only reach completion in the play-process of understanding its truth.” Again: ‘its truth’ as if there was only one specific truth. And also I have a problem that the goal seems to be seen in the picture reaching some sort of completion. Again I disagree: I actually value e.g. paintings in particular that defy completion.
Overall I get the impression that the author sees art as something didactic. The author talks about the artwork elevating reality to something higher and revealing its truth. I do not like the view of art as something didactic. I would rather like to close with how Brian Eno put it in a talk recently: He made a case for art being so important precisely because it doesn’t matter. Art allows us to play with real ideas in a space of no consequence and lets us think around the edges of our reality (as quoted in Dog-Ear, issue 10).
Today Billy (Anastasios Kiosoglou) came to observe me at Central Saint Martins. I will add my OB1 form to the dashboard and I have also provided Billy with the OB1 form as well as the project brief. I am currently working with a small group of students, five students of our MA Applied Imagination in the Creative Industries cohort. They are currently on a three-week group project called “Obsolescence and Transformation”. On this project they are working in groups to collaborate and locate and research a product, service, system or process that in recent years has become increasingly obsolescent. Initially they should work together as ‘problem finders’ to research and identify the obsolescent factor that they have observed, then to analyse what factors have impacted or are impacting on the obsolescence, and then to provide a critical cultural and historical perspective of the chosen obsolescent product, service, system or process to ensure its preservation or transformation. A key part of this project is obtaining external feedback and communication. To support the project outcome the students are expected to contact and engage with two key external groups: a) The experts b) The users They should locate, communicate with and obtain perspectives from one or more experts and users within the field and get feedback from them on a strategy for preservation or transformation.
Being a collaborative project the students each need to take responsibility for key areas of the project: – Secondary Research/location of the theme – External liaison, interviews, primary research – Creative application and communication As a group they are also required to obtain visual, written or recorded evidence, feedback and commentary from the two external groups (experts and users) through a collectively written reflective journal that captures and provides evidence of their process.
Today was the end of the second week of this three week project and next Monday all groups will be presenting their outcomes and have to show the following deliverables: • a five-minute short film/video sequence that embeds the following; a) a general description of obsolescent factor b) Analysis on what factors have impacted (or are impacting) on the obsolescence c) a critical perspective and speculation on its future (if there is one) • a poster (no larger than A2) – a provocation or leading question – mission statement for the preservation/transformation strategy – a call to action • Group written 500 word report
Group work continued during break whilst I had a catch up with Billy
The session was a little slow-going. The students hadn’t really progressed as far as they should have at this point. They have done some individual research, but apart from some communication on WhatsApp they hadn’t really collaborated as much as they should do for this project. I have made them aware of their lack of progress but also tried to be as encouraging, engaging and motivating as possible in order to get them to swing into action. I also reminded them of the Learning Objectives, which drive our evaluation of their work. Then I tried to be very practical and focus on what steps need to be done during the remaining week to get them back on track and in a position to deliver the outcomes required.
During the break I spent some time with Billy and he told me about his impressions and suggestions and thoughts. It was very interesting and fruitful. I perceived the peer observation as something really valuable for the PgCert course as someone else’s perspective does help tremendously.
