Noticing

Here are some thoughts from talking to people and looking at drafts

1)    Read the handbook more than once.

2)    Module One is about seeing, noticing and articulating your practice. At the end of Module One you are asked to write reflectively about your practice. In order to do that you need to have been able to ‘see’ step outside yourself to critically look at it: to consider and wonder at and notice how you practice manifest at this time. The AOLs as a task help you to also see the history and legacy of your practice as it is today.

3)    Module Two once you have some idea of data collection methods you must plan what you will do with the data. How you will analyse it. You have to do more than just compile the answers people gave you when you asked them a question. When you start to think about what you will do in terms of analysis this frees you up to think of more practice-based data collection methods – it becomes more exciting more relevant to your practice. More than just asking people the answer to a question you are asking. The people or books will not have the answer. YOU ARE NOT LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER. (You are looking to find out more about something). You are looking for themes significant ideas, patterns in the data/ activity of the data collection. Then in Module Three you can think about what this Themes, significant ideas and patterns mean to you and your practice (which you started to identify in Module One)

4)    The professional artefact is something that fits as a way of sharing in the culture of your practice. Just as the written essay is a University artefact. Something you would expect to come across in the University setting. The way you explain your inquiry through the professional artefact is something not out of place in your professional setting. If you don’t yet know what you want to say then you will also not know how to say it. The artefact is how you say it. You cannot decide how to say something before you know what it is you want to say. If you don’t know what you want to say it will be because you need to do more analysis to help yourself understand what happened doing your inquiry and what it means to you.

5)    Put page numbers on things. Name the document you send with regard to where it is going. Your computer might have only on ‘first AOL’ but the Advisor receiving it is getting 7 or 8 “first AOLs’. Name it your name and what it is!! Have a title, use the header or footer to make sure your name is on the document. Don’t forget normal detail in the stress of writing something ‘academic’!