Paula started us off with a variety of games intended to get us thinking about how we approach tasks and what our brains, as individuals, instinctively tell us to do. Each game had a time limit of say 2-3 minutes and involved both individual and partner exercises. My favourite game involved concept drawing. Paula went round the room and had us each think of a word that reflected an action. For example; sculpting, growing, beginning and ending, evolving, energising etc. From this list we each chose a word and had 3 minutes to do a concept drawing; so create an image that did not generically reflect the action but could be interpreted as doing so. I chose the term growing. The image below is my response to this game:
A main focus throughout Tuesday's session was the idea of Appreciative Inquiry. I hadn't heard of it before and was intrigued to find out what Paula meant by this alien term...
In general, it can be said that it is human nature to constantly engage in negativity and approach problems and issues, be they personal, national, worldwide; in a negative manner. When we are problem solving we focus on the problem; we dwell on it and obsess over this problem until we can eventually find a solvent. Problems start off "from a negative perspective - something is broken, something could be done better, something needs to be fixed" (Thomas, 2006, p 1). From recognising a problem, we look to possible solutions and how we can implement change to set improvement in action. Although it is right of us to seek solutions to our problems, we often go about this in ineffective and therefore unsuccessful ways.
Appreciative Inquiry therefore is a positive way of approaching problem solving. It takes into consideration that we, as humans, are part of a social system; "living, breathing entities that stay healthiest when they are focused on their positive life-giving characteristics, rather than their problematic aspects" (Thomas, 2006, p 2). Appreciative Inquiry looks at what is right in a situation; what is good in a situation; and what personal attributes are brought forth by individuals involved in the situation. What a far more wonderful approach to life we would have if we always looked at the best in people, in our workplace, in our society.
We approached Appreciative Inquiry during the session with the intention to look at how the BAPP course can be improved for present and future students. In groups, we used the 4-D Cycle to recognise ways in which we can go about this:
Resulting from this exercise were some really great and realistic ideas as to how the BAPP course can be improved; such as increased campus sessions in different areas and more solid guidance on when tasks are to be completed by.
To finish the session, we split off into our separate modules giving us the chance to discuss directly with other students who are at a similar point on the course. I sat with Module 2 students Katrina and Charnelle, and we had an interesting, supportive discussion about how we are finding Module 2. I think that all 3 of us agreed that it is quite overwhelming to begin with but we had all managed to find topics of interest for our inquiry. We discussed research methods, how to find literature and also decided to organise a time to meet in the future to once again bring together all of our Module 2 ideas. The advice given was really useful and I look forward to continuing Module 2 discussions in the future.
Until next time
Lil' Blogger
Bibliography
Thomas, C. Edwin (2006) Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to Change, Introduction, pages 1-6, sourced from http://www.ipspr.sc.edu/ejournal/ejournal0611/appreciative%20inquiry.pdf accessed (24.03.16)
Esbin, Howard (2015) Appreciative Inquiry and Prelude, sourced from https://app.refme.com/home#/project/2579761/reference/confirm accessed (24.03.16)
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