Anna is doing a PG Cert

Action Research, as Jean McNiff (2002) describes, is research about ones own practice. It’s “an enquiry conducted by the self into the self.” She goes on describing that “it is a strategy to help you live in a way that you feel is a good way.” My action research project was informed by my previous…

To investigate how the level of sleepiness in students affects their learning experience I made use of two methods: a questionnaire on Microsoft forms and a collective writing activity making an Exquisit Corpse. Unfortunately only four students participated – but nevertheless the responses to the form give an idea of the general levels of sleepiness…

The following eight fragments of fiction have collectively been written by four students during a seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna following the format of an Exquisit Corpse. The first few lines, the initial prompts of each anecdote, are taken from the levels of sleepiness on the Stanford Sleepiness Scale. 1 “It was…

It is 10am on Tuesday, 19 December 2023. The day of the study. The seminar group is small, when everyone is present there are 9 students in total and generally attendance is good. Unfortunately, the day and morning before, 5 out of the 9 students email me to cancel their attendance due to illness or…

It’s October 2023, the term has started and I am asked to fill in an ethics form, but I haven’t really got my head around what an action research project really is, and how to go about coming up with an idea, let alone plan for it. In her booklet “Action research for professional development”…

Shades of Noir is a resource that I have already come across in the past as some of my colleagues are involved with it and creating content for it. The PGCert has also regularly prompted me to take a look. I am particularly interested in it a resource that can help me find links to…

This year is the first time I had tutorials with multiple students from religious backgrounds other than my own – mostly Muslim – who are developing projects around their religious identity or for their Muslim community. At first I felt pushed into the deep end, not really sure or confident on how to navigate those…

Disability and intersectionality are both areas of inclusivity I know shockingly little about, despite having a long-standing chronic illness myself. It seemed too complicated for me to ever truly engage with it. By reading those resources, it dawns on me that I am not alone and that it is indeed very much worth advocating for…

Reflections on my peers’ micro-teaching activities During the micro-teaching session, two of my peers invited us to play a drawing game and those are the two sessions that stood out for me most. I have a long-standing interest in a learning-by-doing approach but this fascinated me how playing can also be such a valuable way…