Critical Review, Professional Artefact Submission and Developing an Oral Presentation

And breathe. After what has been a bit of a break from blogging as I complete a module three portfolio, my critical review and professional artefact were submitted Friday evening (hooray) and I am underway with work on my oral presentation for the campus session taking place next week. After looking back over the module three handbook I am reminded that the presentation is to last twenty minutes per individual student; ten minutes of prepared work to ten minutes Q&A session with BAPP peers and academic faculty. The handbook also advises that our presentation is expressed through means of an audio-visual tool. I am going to be using Microsoft PowerPoint to highlight areas of the inquiry, this being a tool I have worked with on previous occasions outside of the BAPP programme.

The presentation is to be divided into four sections that cover the inquiry; an introduction, evaluation of the inquiry tools, my main findings and a critical reflection of the entire process. What is convenient about this final part for module three work is the ability to draw on the two former, the critical review and professional artefact when structuring the presentation. I will need to remain succinct when communicating my process, however, to ensure my prospective audience gain the most valuable insights into my inquiry. This means that slides presented through PowerPoint cannot become too complex with ideas that may have been explored in more depth in critical review. The time frame is ten minutes after all and, while this may seem like a long time to be speaking for, will not be able to encompass every aspect of the inquiry process. Therefore, I will need to carefully compile the sections of my critical review and professional artefact that I find best communicates the process. I must also trust that if anyone has any further questions about the inquiry that they will ask in the subsequent Q&A session when I will be able to expand on thoughts. This could include specific detail about data collected through inquiry tools or further ethical implications surrounding the inquiry.

My oral presentation should ultimately communicate what I have achieved from my inquiry and what I will be taking away from the process to incorporate into the next phase of my professional practice. What I must remember is that some audience participants will not be familiar with my inquiry or have followed the progression of its coming together in comparison to the time I have spent working on it. What this could potentially lead to is a short-sightedness in explaining methodology surrounding my inquiry. To prevent this, I will be able to discuss my drafted presentation with tutors in leading up to its taking place to ensure I am on track and remaining vigilant in including all relevant knowledge. I am excited to share these findings with the rest of the BAPP community as well as participating in others presentations as we move into this final stage of the BAPP journey.

Critical Reflection on my Learning Experience for Module Three

I believe my decision to self-defer during the last study period ultimately benefitted the development of my inquiry. Upon beginning module three studies once more I referred to my deferral in a blog post being decided by a lack of time for physically working on BAPP programme work due to my performance contract that had commenced. Whilst I was disappointed I would be unable to complete my studies around this time, I feel the break between was crucial to me discovering some of my most valuable findings from the inquiry process. Inspired by professional and academic literature as well as the development of methodology within my SIG, it was a joy to see these correlations taking place within a singular workplace environment and unfolding in a natural manner (Gardner, 1983) during the course of the contract.

I had originally planned to use a comparative case study for previous professional practice using my experience working on the fringe theatre production ‘Half a Sixpence’ as discussed in my module two feedback post. However, this alongside the current contract at the time of my inquiry being carried out could have led to inconsistent results due to a need to split equal time between the two. An ethical aspect of wanting to perform a case study from previous experience as aforementioned required a much more complex informed consent process from individuals within this community of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991) given that children would have been involved in data collation. Parents and guardians would need notifying and I would most likely need to carry out inquiry tools within a self-contained environment, gathering all data from this one session. This would have been a huge undertaking and I soon realised this task as impractical given my activity at the time. A lack of nuanced and rich detail in data (Mason, 2002) may have impacted on the quality of analysis. Furthermore themes that emerged (Leavy, 2011) out of the inquiry may have taken a different form. This isn’t to assume that alternative themes would have been any less beneficial, however, only that I feel findings reflect my sum of propositional knowledge (Eraut, 1992) at present as a developing practitioner performer. I feel it is the continuity within a singular community of practice that has allowed for a greater understanding of creative collaboration within musical theatre production.

As has been the case during the course of BAPP programme, one of the biggest difficulties I have experienced when communicating ideology has been the density of my writing. This was reflected in the drafts I produced for my critical review that needed numerous edits in order to remain. Six-thousand words is a large quota for exploring the inquiry process but an outside-observer will quickly become disengaged with work if there is a sizable amount of reference to tools, such as literature, that influenced my methodology. The observer needs to see this evidence but also my own interpretation and application of this knowledge. An attempt to remain consciously reflexive (Gibbons, 2008) has influenced the method in which I presented a lot of the final work for the module three portfolio, something I hope is represented in my professional artefact.

I feel that my inquiry has been a worthwhile and valuable investigation, providing me with strategies for further developing my effectiveness as a professional performer. The process has been difficult at times, particularly with handling the vast amount of qualitative (Punch, 1998) data amassed from observation and interview data tools. Whilst a lot of my findings have originated from a conflict situated phenomena (Reader Six, 2015), I feel this has only validated grounds for an inquiry within my professional workplace environment. Acting practitioner Declan Donnellan (2001) mentions that “bad news for the character is good news for actor” and I believe this to be true of my inquiry findings to my development as a professional practitioner. With my next performance contract due to begin in the coming weeks, I am looking forward to implementing strategies devised from the inquiry process when negotiating successful creative collaboration within musical theatre production but also within all future engagements for the rest of my career.

Bibliography

Donnellan, D (2001) The actor and the target, 2002 re-print, London: Nick Hern Books

Eraut, M (1992) Developing professional knowledge and competence, 1994 re-print, London: Falmer Press

Gardner, H (1983) Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences, New York: BasicBooks

Gibbons, M 2008 “Why Is Knowledge Translation Important? Grounding the Conversation”, Technical Brief No. 21 [online] Available at: http://ktdrr.org/ktlibrary/articles_pubs/ncddrwork/focus/focus21/Focus21.pdf [Accessed 10 Jan. 2017]

Lave, J, Wenger, E, 1991, “Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation”, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Leavy, P (2011) Essentials of transdisciplinary research, Oxford: Routledge

Mason, J (2002) Qualitative researching (2^nd ed), London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Middlesex University, Module Two Reader Six, 2015.

Punch, K (1998) Introduction to social science, London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Module 3 - Professional Artefact

Below my Professional Artefact for my Module Three Portfolio. I had a lot of thought for how I could best articulate my inquiry process. My decision to use an audio-visual tool in creating my professional artefact was inspired by my ability to record extensive footage within my singular working environment. What this means is that the emergence of themes and strategies discussed is true to time periods in which they were filmed. Because of its chronological construction in filming the also piece acts as a visual diary, documenting the contract experience. Furthermore, I felt an audio-visual would serve well in contextualising participants. An ethical duty for anonymising participants and a danger of writing too descriptively during the critical review may not give readers a concrete sense of how findings translate in bodily-kinaesthetic manner but the audio-visual platform provides the means to demonstrate this. In turn, performers observing the piece can identify with choreography and recognise examples of effective or ineffective cast cohesion.