The Professional Artefact - an explanation

During the planning of my artecaft, I needed to take into consideration my audience. I had established that I was going to create a newspaper article due to the nature of my workplace. As a member of staff in a secondary school, there are often  newspapers found in the staff room. I grew up in a household of teachers and from my own experinece, I believe this to be an adequate means of communication to an academic body of workers.

My Critical Review contains the findings of my inquiry and I have been conscious to refrain from adding my own views, as best as possible. According to the WBS 3760 handbook, the Professional Artefact is the opportunity for you to 'defend your point of view'. With this in mind, I decided to create a newspaper secifically aimed at those who would choose to read a newspaper about Dance and Drama in education and named the paper ' The Creative Education'. All newspapers have a target audience in mind and one can expect to be 'swayed' towards the points of view of that paper, and mine is no different.

I found this process very enjoyable. As any newspaper reader would expect, I included headlines, images, text and graphs/tables. The text was much academic than the Critical Review and I included quotes from celebrities, which would entice the audience. (Even teachers read up on celebrity gossip!)

I took this opportunity to elaborate on an area that I could only touch on in the Critical Review due to the limitations of the word count. This was about lack of teacher training placements on the Schools Direct (Salaried) programme in Dance. This topic has had a direct effect on me and with the increased tuition fees, it is impossible for me to obtain a non-salaried placement. I was troubled to discover that there aren't any places in Britain on the Schools Direct (Salaried) programme in Dance. I created an article on this topic in my artefact, about  'Andrew Parsons', a made up character, who represented me. So as to keep all of my interviewees anonymous, I gave them all fake names, which was also fun.


I'm looking forward to being able to post my Professional Artefact once I have completed the course and been given permission.

In spite of the challenges ahead of me in terms of obtaining a placement for teacher training, I hope to be able to show my artefact to future employers to demonstrate my passion in Dance and Drama as subjects in their own right and be able to advise schools on the benefits they can give children to their overall education.

Artefact has arrived!

My Professional Artefact arrived this morning, printed and ready to hand in! It was very exciting seeing my work in a professional form.
Today is all about cleaning up my second draft of work. I've just completed my introduction so only the evaluation, analysis of findings and critical reflection to go...a few late nights ahead of me I think.

Artefact fun

I have thoroughly enjoyed piecing my artefact together today. It has definitely re-established in me how much I enjoy anything creative!
I'm hoping that once the degree and my wedding are over, I will be able to dedicate more time to being creative once more. I really should as my whole inquiry is based on the importance of creativity!

Process = journey

Oh my goodness, what a whirlwind the last few weeks have been!!!
To say I felt stressed is an understatement. Two full time jobs, my wedding in two weeks and my final module of uni!
I have been piecing everything together and my first draft of the Critcial Review is, at last done! This has not been easy. I have had such alot of trouble simply understanding the term 'inquiry'. I have my workin title, my questions, interviews etc, but something was not 'clicking' in my head.
I called upon Corinda Hall, who had originally been in the same module as myself, however after my deferral at Christmas, Corinda had finished before me. Like me, Corinda had had to take a step back and really analyse some very 'normal' words. For example, we discussed the word 'process'. This is mentioned in the criteria in the module 3 handbook.

'Evaluation of the Inquiry Process'

I had skimmed past this very important word, as had Corinda, but she highlighted to me its importance. Corinda explained that the word 'process' is asking us to explain the journey of our inquiry and not give the answers. This is where I had been going wrong. And slightly insane...trying to come up with all the answers was proving impossible! I simply didn't have them. Suddenly, things seemed so much clearer. Corinda went on to explain that:

 'you're not proving a theory. Its the journey of what you have learnt...the mechanics, not the answer'.

These few words have been invaluable to me and have lead me to understand what has been asked of me Using your SIGs is essential throughout Module 3, as I have discovered.