Reflect. It’s about time I posted a picture of a reflection somewhere during this ‘reflection’ bit.

So in my MA, I’ve been trying to read through and evaluate a range of reflective tools/theoretical frameworks and how they apply to me. Or even, if they do apply to me, because not all of them are methods that I rate, let alone use. At least, not consciously.

Most of the following subheadings are derived from a post on the MA forum which offered bits of information regarding each of these things. In case you were wondering.

typology

I’ve already touched on a couple of online based ‘Are you this? / You like this‘ type of tests but to explore the subject a bit further, I wanted to sum up my views in general. Before I do, just to recap regarding the typological tests (a la Myers-Briggs or Which Star Wars Character Are You?); I think they’re of little real use. I don’t think there’s any value in having a ‘type’ assigned to you because people just generally aren’t like that. Like, I might have elements of Luke Skywalker AND Darth Maul in my character, but a test will only ascribe one set of attributes to me. No good. (Though I can see the potential benefit in terms of employers being able to categorise or easily sum up employees – but again, that’s not good in my eyes). The only possible benefit of these type of tests (no pun) is to use them as starting points for deeper reflection. As in, it could be beneficial to consider why you ticked ‘yes’ next to ‘Would you kill your boss to get the last Krispy Kreme in the box?’.. (hatred of your workplace? insecurity in your job? desires to replace your boss? love of doughnuts?).

Just to note, for all of these tests / models / any type of reflection, I’m assuming that honesty is the only policy. To me, it’s a given that in order to get anything positive out of them, you can’t lie to yourself. What’s the point(?)

But anyway. I’d quite like to give a Johari Window a go at some point, because although it still seems to assign set values to you, at least there are multiple ones, and it’s an interesting approach because it requires input from other people. Finding out what other people think about you (even merely through the selection of words like ‘calm’, ‘logical’ or ’silly’) could be a bit of an eye opener. Especially when compared to your own view of yourself. Or of course, it could be upsetting; but the Johari House has no room for insulting adjectives so that’s not really it’s remit – it seems you turn to the Nohari to be mean. Feel free to leave a comment if you want to judge me .

experiential learning

David Kolb’s model on experiential learning is the one that initially struck a chord with me, in part due to the fact that it’s pretty straightforward and easy to understand. But the more I consider it, the less convinced I am by it. Until eventually, I’m convinced that it’s great again. I dunno. Colour me undecided.

The basic cycle he puts forward runs like:

1. Concrete experience
2. Observation and reflection
3. Forming abstract concepts
4. Testing in new situations
5. Rinse & repeat from the start.

Fairly straightforward. It’s easy to see how a pattern like that would help self reflection and personal development. I used to think that it was a tad too linear for my liking but really, does it need to be more complicated(?) Probably not, actually. I think that what I had an issue with regarding Kolb is the offer of 4 ‘learning styles’ which are used to determine whether you’re good at abstract concept’ing and observing and reflecting (an Assimilator) or good at experiencing and observing (a Diverger) for example. It just smacks of typology again. Though, apparently there is a recognition that “being ‘locked into’ one style can put a learner at a serious disadvantage” which is good because.. well, it’s just good. Switching learning styles as appropriate maketh a good learner. Blah. In retrospect (from 10 minutes ago), I think I do like this model (there’s the reflection on theories of reflection in action!).

(There’s a nice summary of the whole thing here. I agree with much of it.)

There is a update of the Kolb work by Jarvis that contains the same key points but it much less linear. So, it’s a bit more realistic I think. It looks like this:

So generally, experiential learning works as a concept for me because I know that I do find it difficult to form abstract concepts about things that I haven’t experienced.. I often have to generate practical examples in my mind to relate to wider theories and ideas. Observation and reflection after a piece of work does help me to improve a similar piece of work in the future (I hope), so so far, Kolb is winning.

reflective practice

This is apparently the second stage of the above learning cycle, though I slightly struggle to work out why they’re different at all. The way I interpret it, is that reflective practice is something that is done in a workplace. It’s when you do some work, look at it, learn something from it, and move on to the next bit of work (with that new knowledge in tow). Now, to me, that sounds like experiential learning.. except, it is targeted directly at the employed. So in a sense, it’s actually more applicable to me personally as a learning framework, but I don’t think it has much scope for learning outside of the workplace. Do people really produce better work just by looking at their previous work? Or does it take more than that?.. A look at your approach to work too perhaps(?) Or maybe that type of thing is all work related(?) I dunno. Too many questions there.

Oh, but I do like the idea of reflection in action as well as on action that Schön puts forward because it makes sense to me that learning from what you’re currently doing, and possibly altering your work as you do it, can have clear benefits over a purely retrospective approach.

critical pedagogy

Developed (or at least based on ideas) by Paulo Freire, this is by far the most exciting of this collection of theories because, for a start, he’s Brazilian (which just sounds exciting), but mainly because it stems from a book which was dedicated “to the oppressed, and to those who suffer with them and fight at their side“. It sounds more like foco theory than anything educational but there you go.

I agree with the notion that it’s a poor approach to treat students as ‘empty bank accounts’ that are just filled by the words of their teachers and I like the idea of a mutual approach to education. It’s always occurred to me that those students who merely sit in lectures, take notes, and regurgitate theories back word for word in essays aren’t actually making the most of their education. Yes, they might be learning about something, but they’re not learning something. However, I’d never considered how something like that would have a knock on effect on a wider society, as it does when the mutual approach to learning develops into conscientization (critical consciousness). I like this quote:

Conscientization is an ongoing process by which a learner moves toward critical consciousness. This process is the heart of liberatory education … Conscientization means breaking through prevailing mythologies to reach new levels of awareness—in particular, awareness of oppression, being an “object” of others’ will rather than a self-determining “subject.” The process of conscientization involves identifying contradictions in experience through dialogue and becoming part of the process of changing the world.”

In fact, the more I read about critical pedagogy, the more I like the whole concept. Note to self: get away from the Wikipedia articles and actually read more about this. The slight issue I have with it is that I see it more as an approach to teaching as opposed to learning so I’m not fully sold on how it’d be useful in the sense of self-reflection that we’re embarking on for this unit. Is that me being critically conscious(?) Either way, it’s very interesting and definitely something I’d like to explore a bit further at some point.

stages of knowing

This is an area that on the face of it, is perfectly simple. It suggests that en route to understanding a subject, a student goes through various stages of knowing/learning;

• Absolute knowing – learners think there are absolute answers, don’t question things, remember and repeat ‘facts’
• Transitional – trying to actually understand what they’re learning
• Independent knowing – hear multiple opinions and begin to explore and form their own
• Contextual knowing – developing their own ideas and backing them up with evidence

Basically.

I dunno, I just find it hard to get enthused about this theory because although it’s nice to see those stages articulated, the whole process just appears to be painfully obvious. So someone introduced to a subject accepts what they first hear about it, then they start to think about it, then they question it, then they formulate a new opinion. Really(?!) Wow. I always thought that being a student meant you already knew everything!

learning journals et al

The idea of maintaining a learning journal as a “repository for reflective thinking” and various thoughts and whatnot has never particularly appealed to me. Concept maps/brainstorming/flow charts even less so. Not necessarily because I don’t think they have any value, but because often, if I write something down, I’ll never go back and look at it again – then I’ll forget it and will have wasted a bit of paper. (Save the world and all that). I generally find it hard to write things down and keep track of them so it’s never been a useful option for me. It’s unfortunate because I actually have a terrible memory and it’d be great if I could get into some sort of system where I can write things down for future reference. (If only I had an area where I could write down my unfiltered thoughts.. Somewhere digital perhaps.. Maybe a log on the internet.. I could call it a lognet.. )

Really though, writing this post for instance is about the closest I’ve got to a usable (for reflection purposes) journal and I’d like to continue with things like this because writing all of this has helped me to think about these theories. It’s just been time consuming. It’s taken over a week of on/off writing to get this far. It better be helpful when I read it back!

There are a few other related things that I’ve stumbled onto while writing this out but rather than actually tip over the 2000 word mark, I’ll save them for a later post

It’s vulgar to discuss details but I’m happy to say, I didn’t fail my first ever MA assignment. In fact, I did much better than I thought I would. Joy to the world.

The feedback was good and will hopefully help me to improve for next time; the one irritating point made by the markers was that I could’ve made more of the website that I had intended to submit as part of the hand in (as it was, I just submitted a screenshot with a little explanation). It’s irritating because as I mentioned in my last post, I fully intended to make more of it and I’m disappointed in myself for not achieving what I wanted to achieve with the example of an actual website. Still, tis done now. At least I was semi-expecting a criticism of that sort. I also think I need to be more applied in terms of scope with the next assignment so with a bit of work, things should get even better.

I had a Wispa earlier to celebrate

Picking up from my last MA post, I thought I’d briefly embark on a little bit of reflection regarding the essay I wrote for the last assignment..

Last time, I wrote about the merits of honesty in self reflection. Then I re-read my last essay and have decided that honesty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. With that in mind, my essay was the best essay in the world. True story. OR, if we’re rolling with my original honest thought, I’m now slightly concerned about getting the marks back this week.

Writing 10,000 words isn’t, in itself, too difficult. Writing 10,000 words about a subject that you get to choose and that you’re interested in is easier still. However, keeping those 10,000 words coherent and relavent is harder than I remembered (from my B.A. dissertation). I actually started writing a decent time before the deadline which meant that I wasn’t rushed toward the end but also meant that by the end, I had far too many words and felt like I had lost sight of my original point. In fact, I’d not even intended to do 10,000 words; the submission criteria allowed for (and almost actively encouraged) alternative documents to form the final assignment (e.g. videos, presentations, websites, whatever) so I hoped to take advantage of that and submit a couple of web pages too.

[Oh, just to note, the title of my piece was "Did MySpace Kill The Music Community?", (even the title makes me wince now), and the basic point I was trying to make was that since the advent of 'community' sites like MySpace, real world communities have fallen into decline - and for musicians to maintain any sort of following these days, they have to become part of the digerati. I might post excerpts at some point.]

So yeah, as part of my assignment, I made a MySpace page and a home page for the ‘fake’ hip hop artist, English Bob. The home page had content from youtube, twitter, facebook, last.fm, iphone and a forum – the MySpace page had some music and all the messiness you’d expect from a MySpace page. Crucially however, I forgot to tell anybody about either of them (and it only dawned on me a couple of days before the hand-in) rendering their ’social network’ value low enough that it didn’t really support the point I was trying to make with them. Totally the opposite in fact. So I scrapped them from the submission. Possibly not the best decision ever because it meant that my entire assignment comprised of a single 10,000+ essay. For a start, who wants to read that much(?) And secondly, as I’ve mentioned, I’m not sure that those 10,000 words are very good.

I suppose the main issue I have with what I submitted comes from a post hand-in glance at the assessment criteria. Obviously I’d read it prior to starting but somewhere along the line, I seem to have ignored some of the things that are outlined in that document and as such, I’m concerned about how that’s going to reflect on the marks. Note to self: print out the criteria and refer to it lots!

I also have reservations about my research methods.. I mean, my bibliography was pretty extensive (if not a bit narrow in scope) but in terms of research off my own back (i.e. questionnaires/interviews), basically, there was none. Again, I’m the only one to blame for that. I did produce a series of questions that I intended to put to a selection of facebook / MySpace users as well as people at gigs but I severely overestimated how much time I had left and before I knew it, it was the Christmas break and everyone vanished. 4 respondents does not a valid piece of research make. Scrapped.

Bah. It’s frustrating because I feel like I actually put a lot of work into the assignment but I’m just unsatisfied with the final product. I’m sure there was a bit of overconfidence there, and also a selective memory regarding how difficult it actually is to write a decent, long, essay. Not to mention that I probably tried to cover far too much and thus sacrificed a quality look at a more specific area of interest. Or *shock horror* I might’ve actually done alright and all this is an example of those nerves that everyone gets after they finish an important piece of work and send it off to be judged. (Everyone does get that right?). We’ll see.

I was going to end this by saying, ‘honest self reflection is depressing’ but really, despite it conjuring up all sorts of fears and insecurities, I hope that I’ve learnt something and should do better next time . Live and learn etc..

In case you didn’t know, I’m currently enrolled on an MA in Creative Media Practice. In fact, you probably definitely don’t know because, despite having set up a sub category on this blog for it, I’ve not actually talked about it. That’s bad of me. I intended to consistently write about the things I was doing and whatnot, so I could keep some sort of track of the areas I was covering. Mostly for my own benefit (I have an appalling memory) but partly for the reason that I think it’s almost a requirement of the course to be doing something on a blog of some sort. Or maybe it isn’t. I forget. Regardless, I’ve been slack and now, after completing a whopping 10,000 word assignment for the first unit (more on that later), we’re into the second part of the course – ‘Professional Development’.

me me me

Currently in discussion is the nature of/value of self reflection; which got me thinking about the fact that I’ve neglected this blog and thus, you’re now reading a post. Clever that. I’ve always considered my blog as a form of self-reflection, being that it’s a blog about me and my interests. I don’t have any misconceptions about how many other people are interested in reading it (and yet I still write as if I have an audience.. must maintain blog protocol, otherwise it’d be a diary, and that’d be too emo livejournal esque), but I do like writing it and I repeatedly mean to pay more attention to this part of my site/life. I’m just lazy busy tired shy good at finding excuses.

But annyyyway.. I just wanted to write up a short recap of sorts, regarding the whole self reflection issue. The discussion has been going on for a couple of weeks now so there’s little chance of me covering everything (I should’ve been making smaller incremental posts like some other more sagacious people managed) but in a nutshell, I think that self reflection is a good activity. Or at least, it can be.

We started off by doing various online test things like “What sex and the city character are you?” and “What level of hell do you belong on?” (I’m Charlotte York, on the 6th Level Of Hell apparently), and while those type of tests can be fun, they’re really just useless time wasters.

Or are they?

I originally wrote them off as superficial hard coded if statements that don’t tell you anything other than you ticked a certain series of boxes. Drawing comparisons with a fictional tv character based on whether you like the colour pink or not is hardly grounds for serious self reflection but then, not all of the questions are as mundane as that. For instance, in the Dante test, one of the questions is “Could you picture yourself assassinating someone or ordering an assassination on someone if it meant that you would become very rich and powerful?“; on its surface, it’s just a casual question about your predilection for murder but if you treat it as a more general question of your desire to become rich and powerful, you could begin to ask yourself what you would really do to achieve those things and then start to look at what you’re doing that isn’t getting you there and how you could start to alter those things etc etc etc.. It could eventually lead to you making changes in your career that result in that cushy desk in the corner by the window with the company car and mucho cash money. Or this. Either way, it relies on you thinking more about the questions that those ‘fun quizzes’ ask you. But no-one does that. They’re just distractions that create fodder for those irritating ‘all staff’ emails or facebook boxes.

getting serious

What are perhaps more useful (as far as yes/no true/false type tests go) are things like Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (a version of can be found here) which in some realms is used as an actual method of ’serious’ assessment. The questions are more formal and the results attempt to give some semblance of formality; I took it a while ago and came out as an INTJ.

INTJs are strong individualists who seek new angles or novel ways of looking at things. They enjoy coming to new understandings. They tend to be insightful and mentally quick; however, this mental quickness may not always be outwardly apparent to others since they keep a great deal to themselves. They are very determined people who trust their vision of the possibilities, regardless of what others think. They may even be considered the most independent of all of the sixteen personality types. INTJs are at their best in quietly and firmly developing their ideas, theories, and principles.

As you can see, it’s more in depth than “you are batman!” and it goes some way to explaining why I don’t write very much on this blog. I work best quietly. Like Leon. That’s how I roll. In fact, I remember when I first read those results, I thought ‘yeah, that’s definitely me’ but in retrospect, I could just be falling for the Forer Effect. That’s when you interpret something as being specific to you, when in fact it could be about anyone – it’s all in how you read it. It’s also a possible example of the idea that these self evaluations are just narcissistic and flattering in that I could happily welcome the above description because it calls me mentally quick and determined. So even if it’s not 100% accurate, I’m willing to take it as gospel because I like how it portrays me.

so basically..

Ultimately I still think that all of these types of test are pretty much void of real use but can potentially offer some decent insights. However, to try to gain something from them, you need to be completely honest with your answers. If it’s a true self evaluation (be it using online tests or even just a thoughtful 15 minutes or so) honesty is definitely the best policy because you’re only lying to yourself and that’ll get you nowhere. If you’re the type of person that is desperate to come out of a test as Darth Vader and not poxy Jar Jar Binks then being honest isn’t necessarily as easy as it sounds.. It’s even harder in the case of appraisals with managers (where you sit down with a boss and discuss your work, evaluating pros and cons from the past year and whatnot) because if you’re 100% honest there, you might find that your boss isn’t massively impressed with the fact that last week you managed to sort your iTunes library and make sure that all the album art work for every song was there. It takes a bit of discretion to come out of the appraisal in a good light (and keep your job for another year). But if it’s just you that you’re talking to, or if you don’t care what other people think, honest self reflection is good and should be beneficial to future endeavors.

Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.

- John Locke (not from Lost)

And that’s that. Now that I’ve managed to get the ball rolling, I’m hoping these posts will be more frequent. It should be easier to post small chunks of stuff than doing a thousand words in one big bulk like this so fingers crossed..

p.s. (re: the post title.. almost.. )

So, happy new year and all that.. I’m not really one for retrospectives (nor for any blog posts at all it would appear) but I thought I’d briefly kick off the new year by commenting on my most listened to music from the past year. Because I’m sure you’re interested. Bear in mind that this is based on my last.fm stats so doesn’t take into account any stuff played at home or in the car (thus ignoring a lot of dance music). But still, it’d be fairly similar anyway.

In a year in which I got to see Atmosphere and Rage Against The Machine, it’s hardly a surprise that they both feature heavily in my rotation. Between them, they make up my top 20 tracks of the year, and rightfully so. The new Atmosphere album is brilliant, and the Rage shit never gets old.

In fact, in the top 60-odd tracks, the only other artists that featured were Justice, Brother Ali (both of who I also saw last year), Nas, Wu-Tang & Doomtree. Quite a Rhymesayers-themed 2008 for me then.

So there you have it. Just something to get into posting in 2009. It’s a start. Incidentally, my most listened to track so far of 2009 is Columbia University Orchestra – Mozart – Symphony No. 40, IV. Could be a sign of things to come. Though it probably wont be.

It’s a little sad to be saying happy birthday to yourself but fuck it; it’s my birthday! I will be doing fun things and celebrating the past 26 glorious years! And then I’ll be feeling oooold. I swear it was only last year that I was 18 without a care in the world (except basic math’s would suggest that it was perhaps slightly longer than a year ago).. Time really does fly.

[photo via here]

Fairly lengthy title there but it does what it says on the tin. After a bit of tinkering yesterday, I’ve added a nice little alternative way to browse my blog posts; via a google map. I’ve limited it to any posts in the ‘travel‘ category because that’s really the only section that warrants the feature. Otherwise, the map would have tonnes of markers all above my house – it’d be odd.

So if you have a look in the travel category, you should see a custom map with various markers of my face (with shades on naturally, because most of the posts are holiday based) and if you click on them, you’ll get a little pop up telling you about that post. The map will only show you posts from the particular page you’re looking at – as in, there’s more than one page of ‘travel’ category results, so the map will display markers relative to the posts that are displayed below it. It’ll also center itself to wherever the top post on that page is located.

It’s fairly basic but I think it’s nice and it wasn’t actually too difficult to pull off. Feel free to praise me for my fine work haha..

(Oh, and I’ve added this post to the travel map, in a fairly random location so don’t go thinking it’s broken – I meant it to do that).

Much like the spoon predicament.

You ain’t seen this, right(?)..

Yet again, I’ve decided to re-design this site (mattnortham.com in case you’re confused) because the old design was boring me a bit. It’s barely been a few months since that last design debuted and in fact, this design isn’t too far removed from the previous version. It’s more colourful at least. Most of the legwork can be seen on the homepage but there’s a few new things with links and stuff that you might notice by just clicking around.

I’m not normally one to go on too much about the design process or anything like that so I’ll end it here.. Just a note to say that it’s live. Oh, in case you’re using IE6 still, here’s a screenshot of what it’s supposed to look like. If it doesn’t look like that, feel free to comment and let me know.. I may decide to ‘fix’ it. My testing process has been admittedly a bit slack for this