Saturday 28 October 2017

More Voices on BAPP

We're really pleased that we'll have the contribution of other advisors on the BAPP programme this term and would like to introduce you to Hopal Romans, who'll be blogging, joining our discussion groups, online sessions and talking to some of you through one-to-one's for the rest of this term.

Check out Hopal's blog next week to get to know her a little...

http://hopalbapp.blogspot.co.uk/

Hopal has extensive experience as a performer, arts practitioner, teacher and advisor within and beyond formal educational and professional practice settings and has experienced and survived being a distance learner herself! It will be great to have her voice in the mix of our BAPP conversations.

For those of you that I have been advisor to this term, Hopal will be talking with you now, as I am undergoing hip replacement surgery this coming week and will need to take some time to recover. You can contact Hopal via email to arrange one-to-ones and to send your draft work to.

email: <hopal.romans1@gmail.com>

Do keep your thoughts flowing through your own blogs too...

Share what you're thinking, observing, doing... I look forward to checking in with them as I heal!

All the best
Helen

Wednesday 25 October 2017

Questions...

I've enjoyed talking with several of you over this past week or so, hearing you describe your professional practice, begin to delve into your field of inquiry, develop your research through engaging with the experiences of others.

Something of a theme of these one-to-one conversations has been the importance of questions.

Questioning your own learning, recognising patterns and allowing shifts to occur through your learning. Questions that you pose to others in order to open a door for them to share their experiences with you. Your research question(s).  

We've talked about not posing a question to 'get' an answer, unpacking the assumptions you may find in the questions you pose, letting the questions emerge from your reading and reflections on your experiences, the experience of your research.

What are your thoughts on the questions around you this week?

Friday 20 October 2017

Campus session 20/10/17

It's been great getting to know some of you through one-to-ones this week and hear about your practice and your research ideas, figuring out questions, looking at resources around you... Do blog to share something from these conversations with others...what 'clicked' for you, might be the trigger someone else needs too...
 

We're looking forward to meeting some of you at our Campus Session today at 12.00.

We will be in room CG09 which is on the ground floor of the main College Building - if you go the reception desk they should be able to direct you and we'll all meet there.

Come with your thoughts, what you're looking at, reading etc..

See you there!

Tuesday 10 October 2017

Questions...

The on-line session with Module Three's today focused on QUESTIONS.

How do we develop questions in order to open discussions around an area of interest (our research inquiry) rather than to 'get' specific answers?

We talked a little about unpacking what the question is really setting out to do and the danger of making assumptions within the question. What is the research question actually doing in terms of positioning your research inquiry? How do we avoid 'closing down' possibilities of our research through a lack of consideration in our questioning?


Georgie spoke about re-visitng her research inquiry question, following her feedback discussion, and will blog a little on this in relation to the talk she caught by Liz Lerman and how this might feed into the notion of re-visiting, re-forming, revising  questions for perhaps interviews. Alyshia will also talk on her blog about the importance of care in wording questions.

Gonzalo shared his experience of conducting interviews during the conversation and will blog about devising questions in light of the people he is interviewing.

In a similar way Eleanor spoke about some initial interviews she is conducting and will talk more about less direct approaches and 'letting questions breathe' rather than shutting them down to specific answers.

Hannah's blog will look at gathering data - where to begin, how to approach this, what are we asking in this process?

If you can all add your blog addresses in the comments here that would be great!


There were several phrases I noted as we spoke, as people shared their thoughts today - and some responses...maybe these will offer some more things for you to consider further in relation to developing your own inquiry:

'being specific with what I am asking' - have a focus within your area of research!

'hoping to get the answers I am looking for' - if you know the answers you want do you need to even ask the questions?

'trying to get quotes for my writing from answers to my questions' - asking questions is more than seeking to extract

'trying to find all the relevant bits' - how do you decide what is relevant?

'noticing what you find is important' - knowing your question (having unpacked it at the start)  in order to know what is important (valuable, relevant, probing) to it

Asking a question is not about getting an answer ... 

What are your thoughts?


Wednesday 4 October 2017

Liz Lerman at Middlesex

Artist, practitioner, choreographer Liz Lerman will be giving an open lecture at Middlesex University next week as part of the Dance Umbrella season in London.

Any BAPP students that are in London, able to come to campus are very welcome to attend this event. 

Please comment below if you are planning to attend, admission is FREE, but we need an idea of numbers to expect.


Details:

LIZ LERMAN GUEST LECTURE AT MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY 

TUES OCT 10th

6.00-7.15pm

GROVE DANCE THEATRE

HENDON CAMPUS

LONDON NW4