Jen Cooper - BA Professional Practice Blog

I'm currently pulling my hair out.  I have the knowledge that in little over two weeks our work needs to be submitted and we will have reached the end of this course (presentations in January aside).  I am currently procrastinating on my Research Report and tweaking and trying to make it the best I can but somehow feel like the tweaking will never stop - I'm always picking something out and then finding I have to re-write a whole new chunk of work.  My word count is slowly creeping up and frankly I think I need to learn to stop and accept that what I've done is hopefully good enough.  I still have a lot of work to do on the Artefact and the constant changing of my report is stopping me from getting done what I need to on that and I'm in a constant sense of panic that time is slowly creeping towards the 10th. Is anyone feeling the same? 

Drafts are in for the final chapter of this course and I have a sense of relief that the majority of work is done and hopefully now it will just be a case of fine tuning my report and getting the artefact done. I honestly can't believe how quickly time has gone from the start of the course to now and how much, when I reflect back I have learnt and developed in myself and my practise. From learning new theories to the broad range of information I've discovered in the literature and my inquiry I have a big mix of relief that I'm almost done and won't have deadlines hanging over my head and a little bit of saddness that its all finished although, I will continue to develop and be the best I can in my practise long after this course is over. Either way with a few more weeks to go and an artefact that needs creating for now its time to get my head down and get creating!

Todays discussion was about data - how you interpret it and what to do with it.  How we interpret our data is how we make sense of what we've done.  We need to make the connections between our data, our professional practice and of course the literature. We were told we do not need to produce a final perfect product, it doesn't have to be neat and tidy, its how we articulate our points thats important.  Helen said to look through the lens of our professional practice and see what's interesting to us.  We will draw our own conclusions from our research and it won't be linear, it can be quite messy.  The importance of not leaving data sets out was mentioned, making sure we triangulate our data with the literature and our own experience.  The shopping ingredient analogy was used     * When we shop for ingredients to make a recipe = gathering data     * When you get home and put the ingredients in front of you = its just the ingredients/ raw data     * Mixing and cooking th