Final sense making session with co-research team today: These regular sessions have been much more generative than a decontextualized “coding” process. Here is the design on Mural we used to generate insights and point toward data sources. At the top of each grid went a research question the team (made up of researchers, instructors, musicians, mentors) developed at the start of the project. I imagine the sequence of rows (insights first and then data sources, or the other way around) matters in the sense making the designs asks people to do. It could be reversed, but I think insight –> sources matches the way this team thinks, and that might be related to how reflective they are as community-engaged artists – always thinking about insights to inform what they do next. The bottom row is really about data sources, but that term is too specialized for the array of folks on the research team, so it says “example, instance, story, etc.”

There could probably be another row across the bottom, perhaps about why this matters. That kind of row might build out into typical “discussion” points in a research article.

Since our sense making sessions are on zoom, it’s also interesting to see how the chat plays into co-sense making, with us dropping additional comments in there and even links to pieces of art that connect to the insights. I’m looking forward to more with this team and creating protocols that bring us into making sense together as co-researchers.