Critical Reflection and Summary: Digital Portfolio

Throughout this last module I have been attempting to solidify my position within my current practice by creating a proposal for an inquiry which will address some of the key issues that I have identified in my current work place. The inquiry plans to investigate the progression of pupils studying art and design form GCSE to A-level. Looking in Particular at how active experimentation with processes and materials can improve students overall understanding of the subject and the work that they produce. From working in a secondary school art department for just over a year I have noticed that the step from GCES and AS-level is quite a big one and a number of students struggle when making this transition. This is something that I also found when studying A-level art, the realisation that art is not necessarily only about having an aesthetically pleasing outcome but thinking creatively allowed me to succeed. The aim of this inquiry is to encourage students to work in this way.

The main focus of this module has been to develop this line of inquiry and think about how I plan to execute the inquiry in a way that will be both advantageous to the students and teacher who wish to approach the syllabus in this way. Experimentation is one of the key concepts and assessment criteria for GCSE, AS-level and A-level art. The means by which I plan to execute this inquiry have been outline in the inquiry proposal. Even before reading the module readers I had quite specific ideas about what I wanted the inquiry to be based on, I knew that I wanted to investigate the transition of students from GCSE to A-Level and incorporate this with my interest in experimenting with materials and processes. In hindsight I think that this was not the best approach as I found myself creating questions which would fit into what I wanted my line of inquiry to be rather than identifying already existing issues within my work place and my practice. At this point I was also seeing myself in two different fields, a practicing artist and a trainee teacher, I wanted to be seen primarily as an artist rather then an educator evidence of this can be seen in my initial award title rational (appendix A). As a result my inquiry developed two very distinct lines of inquiry a problem which was only resolved later in the module following further research.  

In the first module (3002) the concept of reflection was introduced, something which I though I already did, which to an extent was true but the introduction of the reflective diary into my working life really helped me with some very difficult situations which in turn meant that I handled the situations much more effectively when they next arose. When blogging about this I found that many other students were having similar problems and by sharing our experiences and advising each other I learnt coping techniques which I would not have thought of on my own (appendix B). The reflective diary will be key in the gathering of information for the inquiry as I will be observing a number of classes and as I have learnt form using this technique my initial thoughts are not always right, or the most unbiased of opinions as my reactions will be based on emotions rather then considered thought, as outlined in one of my blog posts this inquiry will strive to be as unbiased as possible (appendix C).

Throughout this module the majority of my time was spent looking into ethical implications which might arise when conducting this inquiry. I found this section very interesting and learnt a huge amount. Once again I though I had a firm understanding of the ethical issues that would have to be taken into consideration when conducting this inquiry as ethics and child safeguarding is a topic often discussed in staff meetings and inset days. What I had not taken in to consideration was if I was going to ask students to experiment with different and unconventional materials, what ethical issues have arisen when other artists have done this (appendix D)? Obviously I was not expecting the students to go to some of the extremes mentioned in appendix 4 but it is important for me as an educator to make them aware of these issues.

I had assumed that because my inquiry would involve minors I would have to get parental consent for the students to be involved in the inquiry, upon reading the reader I learnt of a term ‘Gillick’ (appendix E) whereby if a minor can be considered ‘Gillick’ competent they should be allowed to decide for themselves if they wish to be involved in the inquiry. This was something which I thought about for a while and in the end for reasons outlined in appendix E I decided to not grant any of the students involved in this inquiry this option as if I was not going to allow students from one school this right this should be the same with the other two schools. One of the three schools involved in this inquiry is an independent boarding school; I was concerned that obtaining parental consent for these students could prove to be lengthy processes as pupils only see their parents at half term and holidays. Upon speaking to the head of the art department I discovered that all pupils in such schools are in Loco parentis which means parental consent is not required for these students as the staff members/ housemasters can make the decision in absence of their parents.

During this time we were asked to set up a Special Interest Group (SIG) to discuss issues specific to your line of inquiry. I feel that I did not engage with my group as much as I could have because I felt that my issues and input was not as relevant to the other members of the group as I was the only fine artist. I tried to make my views relevant to all creative arts subjects and to talk about education in general but upon reading their posts, in particular the students looking at dance education I got the impression that the route that they take to become a teacher is very different to what I am experiencing, for example I posted a message about residual and tracking grades which I am still finding very confusing (appendix F) and I got he impression that this is not something that the other members in the group have had to deal with. I feel that my interaction with my SIG is an area that I have to work on more and believe could be useful throughout the inquiry. Another possible reason for why I have not engaged with the group as much as I could have is because I have a very good relationship with two of the art directors from the schools I am investigating, one of which I work with every day and thus I have been relying heavily on their knowledge when I have a question rather then asking the group.  

The final section of the module looked at research tools and asked us to start to think about which tools we would use to gather information for our inquiry. I was open to ideas from the outset as all of my previous projects has only involved researching literature and has never involved human subjects and thus was interested to try out the different methods. I knew that I wanted to use interviews as I thought that this would be the most effective way to gain information form individuals, and where students were concerned would put them in an environment where they did not feel like they would be pressured or scrutinised by their peers. What I did not take into consideration was how long they could take, my pilot interview took up to and in some cases in excess of 15 minutes and in my opinion was very successful but that is a long time if you are asking a teacher to excuse a pupil from a lesson. Especially seeing as the main point that I have tried to stress to the heads of the departments is I will put no extra strain on their departments and will disrupt their normal lessons as little as possible. Lesson observations are a very convenient tool for me to use as I am involved in many of the lessons already but as previously mentioned I will have to be weary of being emotional and having pre conceived ideas.

I had hoped to use focus groups as a way of getting the students together to talk about their experiences and allowing them to bounce ideas off of one another but as show in my pilot focus group (appendix G) I feel that this is not an effective way of gathering information in the school that I conducted the pilot on and I would like the collection of information to be uniformed across the three school.

In conclusion this module has highlighted many areas of consideration which I had not factored in when first thinking about this inquiry. I believe that I have addressed all of the issues that have arisen and I am in a position to conduct a informed inquiry. In spite of this before I start collecting information from students in September I feel more research into the teaching of the subject and the differences and similarities in the exam boards need to be completed.
Appendix A:  http://stephiemonty.blogspot.com/2011/03/award-title-rational.html
Appendix B: http://stephiemonty.blogspot.com/2010/10/reflective-journal.html
Appendix C:http://stephiemonty.blogspot.com/2011/03/ethical-issues-in-practice-of-art.html
Appendix D:http://stephiemonty.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-i-plan-to-overcome-ethical-issues.html
Appendix E: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=145821545478191&topic=82
Appendix F: http://stephiemonty.blogspot.com/2011/05/reflections-on-research-tools_04.html