While the thought of doing a PhD sounds exciting (and from the feedback received in my tutorial there was enough content to do so), I think I’d rather concentrate on a really good PgCert SIP, and keep the action research an ongoing long-term goal.
I’ve been too ambitious. And it only emerged, to my shame, during the tutorial. My fear was there wasn’t enough content for the SIP if I didn’t include absolutely all thought. Vikki managed my expectations perfectly to get me to narrow down my overall question and research sources.
As I was presenting, I heard myself from an outside perspective (especially considering I had talked for the first 20 minutes before the tutorial with other participants and they had `demonstrated a very defined and narrow topic of research), and finally settled on a narrower focus. And therefore, the people I will involve in the research will also be smaller.
My research will now focus on: “What is the impact of introducing an informal record of achievement in practical technical theatre skills?“
One lightbulb moment was when I was asked whether the action research would be developed by me alone or developed with students. Having had the experience of developing sessions (curricular and extra-curricular) with students before and noticing the positive impact it has had, it is a no-brainer for me to continue this practice in action research. I am lucky to have the trust of students on the BA Theatre Design course to enable them to be honest in expressing their views – positive and negative – in order to (hopefully) receive honest and accurate views. Students are opinionated, angry, and are fired up (particularly post-online only teaching).
In the tutorial, I was particularly drawn to Ian Fleming’s SIP (of introducing meaningful professional practice), and also his personal student-centred teaching practice ethos. He also liked my idea of a technical skills logbook, and I am delighted to share this idea for anyone to develop if they wish. I am also delighted he is another Mental Health First Aider as student welfare is super high up on the list of importance.
As the anticipated technical record achievement relies on observing experiential teaching and learning activities, one reading mentioned by Ian was David Kolb’s 1984 ‘Experiential Learning Cycle’ which I will investigate, along with information on the ‘Institute for Experiential Learning’ website. Having searched the online UAL library catalogue, there sure is a lot of experiential learning literature available!