PDF (PhD Thesis) - UWE Research Repository - University of the ...

generation was through sharing practice stories; we shared our ideas, our
questions, our doubts and concerns. We used poetry, photographs as
metaphors and through a collage constructed a visual storyboard which
captured the themes of our storytelling and became our way of charting
our sense-making.
We set ourselves actions between meetings to observe our practice or try
out new practice ideas and actions arising from our group conversations
as cycles of action and reflective inquiry. At the start of the next meeting
we reviewed our observations and reflections of our actions.
Consequently, some key themes emerged as we began developing our
own theories of practice through this process of inquiring together. Some
themes like whinging, anger and time to reflect resurfaced again and
again.
As a group we looked for similarities and differences, contradictions,
patterns and connections in the stories told, in order to develop our own
meaning about reflecting-in-action during practice. This collective process
produced a combined understanding and shared sense making of the data
which is crystallised in our making of the storyboard. This was not
envisaged at the start of the inquiry. I did not take part in selecting the
images for the storyboard nor did I direct the actions to undertake in the
month between our meetings, these were agreed by everyone in the
group. I deliberately chose not to do this in case I was dominating the
inquiry and abusing my power which I felt would not have been ethical.
Storyboard Representation of Our Cycles of Action and Inquiry
The image overleaf represents our data; what we called a storyboard of
our sense making. It represents the collective wisdom from the group. In
the storyboard we refer to our cycles of action and inquiry as week 1 to 7
but in fact these took place over eight months. The images represent the
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