Over the summer, I designed and set up a new programme of student partnership work, and in September recruited 12 student partners to our online team. Students will be directly involved in the co-design, support and feedback of a range of online projects throughout the coming year, with the ethos of working more openly and inclusively with the community of students we’re here to support. The basis of much of my academic work, therefore, is one of partnership and co-creation. A short briefing paper outlined the role of student partners and made the basis for a recruitment and induction plan that followed, establishing roles, responsibilities, and a code of conduct.
Building on my personal interests in play and storytelling, and how these ideas can impact students’ experiences, I set out to develop a short storytelling activity, which I am now looking to investigate more closely.
Mapping stories
The activity includes students exploring and adding to a number of storytelling elements on Padlet, after which they will be able to explore a map of stories on Miro. Students are then able to write or produce their own short story, before publishing it on their Miro map. Outside of the activity, they will be asked to digest information about the activity, provide their consent, and complete an activity evaluation at the end of the process.
To begin with, the stories map will only include one central story, and it is essential to acknowledge my own directive power in this process as researcher and writer, having created the overall design of the study, the activity and elements such as the central story, which acts as a starting point for students. The idea, however, is that as students add their stories to this map, this then culminates into a large network of stories that represents the community of participating students; and this could, in theory, grow over time.
As play, the activity embraces some ideas of spontaneity and choice. Students are able to choose from a number of existing stories to respond to, however the more students contribute the larger the number of stories to which they can respond. Students can take part in the activity whenever, however and from wherever they choose – of course within the duration of the research and within technological limitations – but they will not be limited by the inflexibility of timed lectures or workshops.
How I got here
Much of my day-to-day work embraces iterative design thinking and I decided to apply some of this to my action research project. I began by creating a mind map of ideas, thoughts, and potential ways to explore different topics of interest. I also added outstanding questions and dependencies to this map. I then connected different ideas to see if there were common or connecting elements worth exploring further. This quickly became a helpful resource to help me guide my research, and I have returned to it numerous times to compare my initial ideas to my ongoing research and plans.
In fact, I found this mapping exercise so helpful, I decided to create a secondary map that gathers relevant research, reading and references in support of my project. I found this a helpful way of gathering citations and having a better understanding of connections between authors, theories and readings; as well as potential gaps I might want to further explore. So far, this map has been an incredibly helpful tool I plan on using as my research progresses, contributing to this along the way.
To capture my ideas, I also began to develop a briefing document for students that outlines the activity in more detail. I have found it helpful to keep this documentation student-facing, aligning this with the idea that the students I work with are student partners and I am keen to keep processes as transparent as possible. Capturing my ideas in one short document has also helped me develop and revise some of the research detail.
Starting to plan
Although I developed my action research plan with the possibility for the activity to take on a cyclical process and to be run again in the future, I outlined my plans against a 6-month timeline, aligning this with my work and PgCert schedule, including relevant milestones. I’ve been continuously using this visual timeline to track milestones and actions, updating it along the way, adding relevant steps and requirements as and when needed.
Trello also became one of my biggest friends, helping me to capture ideas and prioritise detailed actions.
Research question and ethics
One of the biggest challenges so far has been developing a concise research question that captures my interest and supports my enquiry, including the data I hope to capture. Working through the ethical form helped my review all aspects of the project and my progress so far, and raised some interesting questions for me particularly around project scope, what is achievable within the time and space that I have, and how I can work most effectively with my student partners. Our follow-up tutorial also helped me look at my research question in a new light, and focus in one what I might be able to accomplish as an academic, questioning my own power within the research, rather than questioning large concepts such as storytelling and play. My current research question:
How can I enable a sense of connectedness among creative students through digital storytelling?
Presenting back
Lastly, I am also exploring different ways to present my data and have been toying with the idea of mirroring the idea of the project in my final presentation. For example, is there a way for me to apply digital storytelling within my final presentation. I am currently looking at different presentation styles, visuals and formats for inspiration.
Bibliography
Bradbury, H. (2015). The SAGE Handbook of Action Research. 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP : SAGE Publications Ltd. doi:https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473921290.
Braud, W. and Anderson, R. (1998). Transpersonal Research Methods for the Social Sciences : Honoring Human Experience. Thousand Oaks, Calif. ; London: Sage.
Cook, T. (2009). The purpose of mess in action research: building rigour though a messy turn. Educational Action Research, 17(2), pp.277–291. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/09650790902914241.
McNiff, J. and Whitehead, J. (2010). You and Your Action Research Project. 3rd ed. London ; New York: Routledge.