Feedback can be very helpful. Equally, it can be frustrating and time-consuming to try and understand and absorb. It can be short or long. Seemingly simple or complex. The best thing about feedback is when it draws me out of myself and makes me stop and think about why I hold a certain point of view or why I am pursuing my project in a specific way or direction., The best feedback challenges me which doesn’t necessarily mean that I will change direction. For example, I had some feedback on self-criticism and self-evaluation. The feedback encouraged me and told me not to always be so hard on myself, to focus less on my output and more on awareness, how I interpret my work and the reasons and meanings behind it. Another student told me to think of nurture which I have long thought is a feature of the safe space of peer feedback in the learning environment. Finally, in this area, a comment was made that stopped me in my tracks. While worry and self-doubt might seem similar to self-reflection these things are not necessarily synonymous. Self-reflection comes from a place of knowing not a place of worrying. I should not question my choices but instead, reflect on how to use my experiences and my successes to help refine and to improve my work. This shows that feedback isn’t always on the technical side of some test pieces I present but can be on anything. Of course, if I choose, I can ask my peer group to focus on a specific area which would narrow down what they comment on. Also, I feel, it would lessen potential for more startling and unexpected observations.

The course notes for this unit ask for a mixture of tutor and peer feedback. Tutor feedback is stable and known. It comes from a single source I have dealt with many times. Peer feedback is chaotic. To these two types of feedback, I will add in my collaborative project work as much of that is an experience in feedback and challenging ideas, providing new avenues for research or creative endeavours.  Both help me reconsider my work. In the academic sense of studying with the OCA, I think that distance learning without student interaction and peer or tutor feedback would be a very different and more challenging thing.

The skills involved in feedback are two-way skills which will go beyond the end of my studies with the OCA.  In seeking feedback outside of the OCA this is likely to be a very different thing, removed from the academic walls which represent a safe space to me. I mention two-way as feedback can be given and received. Also, even within the space of seeking feedback, I am not an inert force but am presenting and encouraging others, taking notes, selecting information and material I want feedback on, and then, presentation skills in delivering to an audience. When asking for feedback, I select what work I want feedback on, I collate this into whatever form I choose and present this to my audience. I then use listening or reading skills as my peers make their points. Finally, there is a reflective phase where I decide if points are valid or relevant to my practice and if I can identify opportunities to change my practice in some way to take the feedback on board then I need to consider how I might do this and how long such changes might take and of course what the outcome might be and my consideration of points made and then thinking if I can adapt my practice in any way to encompass the points made. Feedback is about problem-solving, and communication and uses analytical skills but at the same time, this is not always logic-based as feedback can be about the emotional response., Many of these points apply when offering feedback; reflecting on what is being asked, considering what I want to say and how, and responding to questions or rejection of my feedback. I can imagine that as my practice develops beyond my OCA studies there might be opportunities in the future where I am asked for feedback. Some people seem to have made a business out of this from what I have observed from some portfolio reviews. I wonder if that changes the feedback paradigm and changes the person seeking feedback into a customer but only after a financial transaction is made. Is feedback in such a session better or worse than with people I have built a relationship with and have a level of trust? This brings me to the time element of feedback. Whether as a purchase or as peer feedback in the university setting, the feedback given or received is shaped around the time I have available to offer feedback and the time I have available to receive and absorb what has been offered.

The external feedback option might well change how I present my work, with an eye on the clock, I might restrict what I ask for feedback on based on research I conduct on the person offering feedback and looking at their background, their likes and dislikes. Thinking of this as a customer retail relationship allows me to ask harder questions of that person. What will they offer to me and to my practice? Would I consider them to be trustworthy when I share ideas? What do they get from the experience beyond money? These are life skills in evaluating people, going into this new relationship with my eyes open, being organised and asking reasonable questions. I realise that this might sound slightly cynical of me.

Two other things I want to say here about reflection. I mentioned taking on board the comments and suggestions of others or maybe rejecting them. I need to be aware that sometimes depending on who says something and how they say it will impact how I take this feedback. It is a very human response but something to be aware of. I also didn’t mention how long reflection can take. Reflection is not an instant thing for me. As I re-read something, even months later, a new idea might pop into my head and I’ll think about the feedback received differently. Is that the same as visiting an art gallery or watching a film or reading a book more than once?

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My coursework this month asks me to seek out support by posting a summary of progress for peer and tutor review and then to write a reflective account of how feedback can help me reconsider my work.

I posted a summary of progress for review and comment. I did not  attach any part of my dissertation to the review but instead left it up to my peer group saying that if any interested to read part of my essay and perhaps have some time for feedback this would be welcome but that I was aware of the time pressures of our study so if no takers that is perfectly understandable.

As I move through this course, my perspectives change. I initially thought of the end of 3.1 as a way marker on the path and that 3.2 would be a continuation of 3.1 but at the same level. As I move along this path it has become clear that 3.2 is actually a step up from 3.1. Or to use my analogy of a path, in 3.2 the path is less straight with rocks and puddles underfoot. I expect 3.3 will add in some hills and rockfalls. My work on 3.2 does not involve an increased amount of work in terms of the volume of output but instead, the work I do needs more thought and is done to a greater depth. The path is more challenging so I must put in more effort. It is the idea of working slower but harder.

As with all of us, demands in our lives away from study come into play. Our research and creative works never sit in a vacuum. Am certain that all students and practitioners have challenges going on in their lives.

As is normal for me, I spend time worrying. I worry if my written work not good enough and if I have fallen behind, I worry about my creative works and what others might think. I worry about my work and how these sit within the demands of learning outcomes. I worry if am busy and don’t always dial into our calls and can’t commit to providing feedback each time this is asked for. When I am asked for feedback, and have the time to respond, I worry about how my comments received and how much value I offer. The feedback also offers opportunities to look at the work of others and for self-judgement and comparison against my own work. This sense of doubting myself seems so ingrained that it has almost become a part of my practice. This self-questioning is a useful thing and is normal. I used to imagine artists would create work easily and without doubts almost as if works would appear if by magic on the canvas fully formed from day one. I wrote previously that none of our work exists in isolation. To this I would add that the creation of written and artistic works is sometimes a struggle. That we currently in a safe learning environment and can reach for support and feedback and words of encouragement is a good thing. After our undergraduate study comes to an end, there are people who will still happily support us. Alongside these are some who will be less supportive. This seems a fact of life. So, the self-reflection I speak of is key to this process as we discover what we want to do in the future and how our studies give us a foundation upon which we can build.

This month I have been predominantly working on my dissertation following my last feedback meeting and referring to the detailed notes given in feedback by my tutor. I have also been doing a little work on my collaboration projects although sometimes this involves thinking about directions and choices rather than making new works.

Dissertation is a big part of 3.2 and I can’t lie, for me it been a time-consuming and, at times, frustrating exercise. I imagine for some, who are better at writing that I am, this will maybe be less of a struggle. How I envy such people.

I mentioned my collaborations. I been working with several people and the development of work and ideas is not always fast. I have to take into account that any sense of urgency on my part is not always shared by my other partners. This is equally true of their demands of me. Again, this is a fact of life. I am at assignment point 8 and some collaboration work barely started. In a project management sense, if there are elements of our own project which rely on others, this is called an external dependency. We cannot always control these external elements so have to factor in delays. A simple example might be if we send off to have some prints made or to have book published and find there been issue at their end and what we expect to arrive doesn’t arrive. This is all part of learning how we build our own practice around others on whom we rely. I love the idea of collaborations and how one idea changes as it bounces off another and how new works can emerge. In my own practice I can see endless possibilities for working in this way in the future so I don’t feel that delays are huge issue for me but instead I see them as part of the process.

My work in past month and more has had a heavy bias towards my dissertation as I try to get on top of my ideas for this work and at same time attempt to force myself to stay on topic and stop wandering. As this a major element of this unit, I feel it very important to reach a tipping point where I am happy with my overall ideas and rest of work on essay will be an editing process. The coursework at this point asks for a first draft of my dissertation. What I have been working on for the past few months feels well beyond a first draft and has been through many different iterations and revisions. Whatever number I assign to these drafts, I am much happier with my efforts than I was several months back and even though it still isn’t complete, it feels that my argument and flow of this written work is developing. Future drafts will continue my work to edit and refine my argument further as this draft is too long and needs a conclusion and abstract and some illustrations. As I edit this further, I will drill down as I have a sense that I have repeated some of my points. My essay seems to have much more of my own comments and opinions although I am not consciously aware of changing my approach. As suggested by tutor, I have incorporated my footnotes into the body of my text. The most useful advice I received was in writing to help me discover so I have been researching and exploring all at the same time, my efforts being driven by what I write. Interestingly, I been seeing connections between my essay and my creative test pieces. My writing is developing as I been searching for the flow of my essay, trying to make it logical and readable. I am not the most cultured writer so this been time consuming but at the same time, enjoyable and, I hope, depending on my choices for future study, will be a useful skill to develop.

Tutor feedback on the rough draft containing my introduction and the first chapter with ideas for the rest of essay at feedback point 4 were instructive although it took me a while to absorb what had been said and to try and shape my ideas for my dissertation and to take that feedback on board. Major changes in essay are that my original introduction now forms a part of my second chapter where I explore the liminal space surrounding death. It is here I have decided to give my daughter a voice. My revamped first two chapters and a new introduction is where the bulk of my essay has developed. My chapter on death as a taboo is now my final chapter. Having said this, I have thought of this less as chapters, but more as joined up work which lean upon one another.