We had a great SKYPE chat on Sunday morning. I think it was
our largest group yet.
We talked about AOLs and credits – We were saying that Helen
and I would pretty much assign the number of credits an AOL is worth. If you
are writing big AOLs it might end up that you have a number of credits for that
one AOL. Or you might write a number of small ones which each have a smaller
amount of credit. So you don’t have to worry about writing to towards a credit
target number as you write each AOL. But we also discussed that the title of
the AOL will be on your transcript. People don’t look at transcripts much in
job interview situations I know but to remember that if you have a big AOL
worth a number of credits then it will appear to be weighty on your transcript.
I used the analogy of a long AOL called ‘Administration for dance in schools’.
If I wanted my transcript to reflect that I have a large amount of credit (ie
my MA is heavily weighted with administration) then that would be ok. But I see
my self more as a choreographer and the work I do in ‘administration’ as part
of the learning I have about moving people around, making things resonate
together, work together, weaving people and things in a dance of life with each
other. So some of the learning that I use to do administration is, for me,
leant through and about choreography so I would write about it in my ‘Choreography’
AOL. This would make my choreography AOL larger and consequently have more
weight on my transcript. You might not want to bother with this kind of
strategic detail and as I say transcripts don’t get read much but I just wanted
to point it out.
We talked about the reflective essays in all the modules. I
was saying I had just done some professional development and at the end of the
training we discussed what it means to be a teacher. I had said I think it is
about holding a space for possibility – the possibility in the Other (the
student) and of course because we are all connected in ourselves also. I think
the Reflective Essay is about talking about how you have held the space for
your own learning during the activity of the module. It is a reflection on how
you held that space and what you therefore learnt from holding it for yourself.
What do you think?
We talked about the practical ‘object’ that is handed in for
module one, particularly in terms of how to present the evidence (illustration)
that goes with your AOLs. Alison described it as a kind of sophisticated
scrapbook. This is a great way to think of it. The evidence (illustration) is attempting
to capture the experience you are writing about by showing the objects involved
at the time – these can be programmes, official advertising or information from
the organisation you were working with, photos, DVD’s of work etc… It is a
pick-n-mix (!!!) and therefore it needs to be clearly sign posted in the
written AOL. We talked about using a colour coding system so the Reader can
find the object of evidence (illustration) you refer to in the written AOL. REMEMBER send photocopies not valuable originals.
We agreed to each write something about the meeting so look
at each others blogs.
My reflecting on the meeting: I think it went well; as you
know we are newly introducing the idea of the group SKYPEs since it seems
valuable to talk to peers. The idea is about team learning, collaborative
learning. I am quite passionate about this and think that collaboration is a
real alternative to many power structures that riddle society, over-spilling
from a Victorian system (see Sir Ken Robinson’s work). The idea behind the
SYKPE meetings is that you talk to each other about the problems and solutions
you have discovered. I am working on how to facilitate the meetings so they
don’t become about asking questions of Helen and I. I felt we veered that way a
bit in this last meeting. I think it was because it was our biggest group. I
want to improve my facilitation, I would be really interested in how you felt
and any ideas you think we could try in our next meeting. I was thinking that
before a group meeting I should be more proactive with my advisees to check
they don’t have burning questions. Also maybe in the introduction we could make
an agenda list sort of say “Hi I’m Adesola, I want to talk about finding time
to work, I am finding it hard to at the moment.” or “Hi am Adesola, I have a wonder poem I wanted to share
that really inspired me this week.” Then after everyone has introduced themselves
we decide on a few of the things on the agenda to talk about (and see if there
are some that cross over). What do you think?
We decided it would be fun to get together one more time
before January so we are slipping in a holiday chat on Sunday December 29th at 11am (London time) again.
Look forward to your comments.
Adesola
