This week started with a discussion on different ways of analysing research data. We made much of the videos that you produced last week. To make these videos, you had to reflect upon your research project and any data collected and decide what it all meant: what is it saying about the student experience – and about teaching and learning?
Thus the video production process was also an analytical process: you were deciding on your ‘take away’ message from your research. Probably this analysis was happening at an unconscious level at that time – but now – on further reflection – we hope that you can see that this IS what you were doing.
You can now return to and analyse your own videos: What is your message? How did it emerge from your data? What are implications for teaching practice at the University?
AND – one more bit of inspiration – check out Gonzo Scientist’s annual Dance Your PhD Competition – a mix of video and dance as analytical and communication tool: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/11/25/winners-of-the-dance-your-phd-competition-revealed/
Coding: We also discussed how you might look for themes and motifs in your data – we call this process coding. This coding process is part of your analytical engagement with your own data.
If you used interviews or questionnaires you might look for key words or phrases that occur: words relating to concrete things like reading, writing, essays, assignments, notemaking, group work, classrooms, learning spaces … There may be affective words covering people’s feelings: nervous, frightened, fed up, bored, happy, sad, isolated, team or group… You then explore how the feelings that you are noting relate to the concrete things you are exploring – and start to offer arguments.
When analysing visual data, drawings made, pictures chosen, collages constructed, you also have to look for the themes within. Here instead of looking for the words – you analyse the images – or ask your participants to analyse their images. Again – you look for the recurring themes – and decide what they mean.
We illustrated this with a look at part of the Olympic Opening Ceremony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=257EDRKfQFk&feature=youtu.be
We discussed the meaning behind Opening Ceremonies generally: what function they performed as cultural artefacts or events… And if they normally celebrate the *best* of the country – what does *this* video say about this ceremony – and this country? We noted that this National Health Service segment celebrates that in 1948 following WW2 and in the face of terrible financial crisis the then Labour Government ‘put the welfare of the sick in front of every other consideration’. We thought this was an unusual and wonderful piece to have within an Olympic Ceremony: wonderful for its diversity, no perfect bodies here, and for its care and caring. This is not ‘Triumph of the Will’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHs2coAzLJ8)! Some of us were very surprised that such a segment was included given that at the time of that Ceremony we had a Tory Government seemingly intent on outsourcing the NHS to private tender.
Which returns us to data analysis: no image, no word, no metaphor is neutral. Each and every one has meaning derived from multiple contexts: who made it – when – for whom – with what resources – with what intent? What does it *mean*? Tip: Analyse the opening ceremony again and think what it might be saying about what we could value in the UK… And then analyse your own videos and see what you were saying about your Research projects and your research data!
And so to the dance!
Temujin Gill choreographed this part of the Opening Ceremony – he also choreographed part of the Paralympic Opening Ceremony – and we had invited Tem in to run a Dance Workshop for all us on the Becoming module. We wanted to experience a Dance Workshop devised and delivered by the sort of person who could choreograph *that* sort of ceremony. We wanted to experience embodied learning and the feelings that that might inspire in us. We the tutors wanted you to experience something hopefully wonderful – and challenging – and disconcerting – but fabulous – and embodied – and of feeling … and then to think: Wow!! I got a lot from that!
Tem himself talked about the role of the body in being human – and in communicating who and what we are. He spoke of the importance of developing our ability to communicate positively with our own bodies – and to positively inhabit our own bodies. He also wanted us to experience call and response – embodied communication in movement and dance… And to experience the building up of a communal dance – that we developed and performed together. And to move out of our comfort zones – to take a risk – to embrace something new – and to try to learn from it… The session was wonderful and awe inspiring for some – and probably terrifying and disconcerting for others. Hopefully though we are all thinking how we might use practice like that in our own learning, teaching and assessment practices in the future. For more on Tem – do Google him – and also check out: http://temujingill.yolasite.com/grounded.php
To really understand this week – check out Sameera’s blog http://sameerasconfessions.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/wednesday-march-26th-2014-900am-100pm-week-24/