The session aimed to introduce participants to an innovative approach which enables exploration of critical incidents and is designed to maximise the opportunity for learning and development.  The origins of poetic transcription sit in research and was developed by Prendergast (2006). This is a new way of working with interview data. However Fiona had developed this further so rather than privilege the researcher’s interpretation this approach uses a group and is dependent upon mutual trust and respect. Fiona had tested this using two case studies one focused on early career academics and one on students in transition. There were five individuals who participated with two facilitators and there had been three workshops. Data was gathered through field notes and a questionnaire. Participants were asked to provide a critical incident and these were then one by one given to the group to interpret which was done though all reading the incident and then reducing this to a poem by using only the words in the incident and no words could be added. The incident did have to be reduced to highlight key thoughts. This was undertaken with each incident.

In the workshop there were about 12 of us and we each had the same incident and had to undertake this task. It was really interesting and then we shared the poems and our thoughts about the incident. Whilst all the poems were different some same key terms and messages came out and we all had shared sense of the incident and how it felt. The participants in the original activity found this approach was important to gain a shared sense and this was through engaging with the text.