KIP - Knowledge Inquiry Practice
Day 10 (14-05-18)
We started today’s lecture with Complaints… well, the process of complaining. Andy told us that if, for any reason, we wish to make a complaint about the course or the Tutor, we can approach a list of people that can help us follow through our complaint. The first person on the list would obviously be the Lecturer themselves. I reckon this is because we need to give them feedback about their teaching style and content, especially if we are having trouble with understanding the paper, amongst other things. Then, the next person on the list would be our Student Reps, or our Paper Leader, Ben Kenobi. They take our criticism to the Faculty meeting, but if for any reason, no action was taken, then we can complaint to Yvonne Chan, the Director of Colab, which means her role and voice are quite powerful. And even then, if for any reason our complaint isn’t heard, we can finally take it to AUTSA (AUT Student Association), who also have a powerful voice.
At the moment, I am actually very happy with my degree, and although there are a few flaws, I don’t see any reason to make a complaint because nothing major has occurred. But I will keep this in mind for the future, and it’s good information to know as it may be required to pass on to another student having issues, at some point.
The actual content of today’s Lecture, however, was different. We talked about Studio Projects, and what makes some projects “better” than others? Well, “better” can be defined in many ways, especially in this context, because each Project is associated with at least one discipline, so would it be compared to other Projects in the same discipline, or Projects produced by other students in BCT?
In the end, only two points matter - Criticality, and Credibility.
Now, we have talked a lot about being critical in our thinking, our reflections and writing, but it’s still a little difficult to understand what exactly we are expected to do. Because we can be critical in many ways…
To be critical in our thinking, we are expected to be entitled to our opinion, identify the issue, examine our views and other researchers’s thinking, as well as understand the arguments for and against the judgements, not to make us persuasive, but to improve our ability to comprehend and evaluate what we believe. For critical writing, we are required to produce an “argumentative essay which supports a position on an issue. The aim of this is to persuade people, not by tricking them, but by presenting claims that support their conclusions. A good argumentative essay is organised, clear, easy to understand, persuasive and unambiguous.
Moving on to credibility - when a claim that you’ve made comes without any evidence to support it, a decision to accept or reject the claim should be made.
There are five main criteria that evaluate credibility - RAVEN: R = Reputation - what is the reputation of the author, the sources and the publication? Do past actions indicate the author may not be reliable? Is the author or source of publication in a position of authority? A = Ability to Observe - Is the author in a position that allows access to reliable evidence? V = Vested Interest - Does the author have a personal stake in the topic? Would the author gain anything by lying or by telling the truth? E = Expertise - Does the author have specialised knowledge on the topic? Does the evidence come from a source that has expertise on the topic? N = Neutrality - Is the author neutral about the issue or is bias evident? Is the source of the evidence neutral or biased?
In this KIP Lecture today, I learned that it is important to evaluate the credibility of the sources we use for our Studio Projects. In order to do this, we should document our processes, thinking and decision making, and ensure that every step in our development uses credible sources, or that we can defend our decisions based on evidence. It is also necessary to present proof, not just our opinions. During this time, Andy kept emphasising the word “EVIDENCE” because it is important to provide facts and data that the Lecturers can’t challenge. For this reason, we are expected to prototype, discover pros and cons, determine what worked and what didn’t, as well as consider how well it served its purpose. So basically, Evidence is key. We need trustworthy and reliable references, as well as being able to prove our decisions by user-testing, surveys and other types of data. We also need to be able to explain why we supported the most percentage of people instead of the feedback we received to improve. Lastly, we also need to present our ideas clearly, avoid ambiguity, and critically reflect on the observations during and after the Project.
For me, this lesson was really helpful, because I have received feedback by our Studio Lecturers to use reliable and reputable sources when conducting research. However, it is a bit difficult some times because each Project is different and may not have any successful precedents to prove our theories or decisions. Nevertheless, I will continue to find relevant references, by breaking down my overall search and focusing on different disciplines, for my (C/C) Conceptual and Contextual Statements.
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