4a) Questions, Questions....???

According to the Reader, the 'ultimate goal' of our inquiry is to 

'explore a topic that will benefit your work and the work of colleagues and fellow professionals...Identifying your own unique learning needs.'

So not only do I need to identify areas I would LIKE to investigate, I also need to ask myself, "about what can I inquire in order to enhance my work and that of others?".
In addition to this, I need to pin down my 'unique learning needs' so that I am doing something worthwhile. Adesola made a good point at the Campus Session - to not assume that you 'know' anything about a subject, even if you may think you do - start as though you know nothing, and learn again to get a fuller picture.

Thinking about all of this - and not limiting my questions to these but using them as a starting point -

• What qualifications would be the best for me to gain to become a successful dance teacher?
• How important are exams for a dance student's progress and development?
• Do gender stereotypes in dance still exist and how can their validity be challenged?
• What are the key issues to address if considering setting up a new business venture?
• How can you balance the artistic 'output' of a dance school and the need to make money?
• How can I be more successful in auditions?
• How could companies make their auditioning process more organised/standardised/accessible?
• Is 'politically-correct' legislation a hindrance when posting audition notices or does it allow people to be seen who might otherwise not have auditioned?
• What could companies and performers do to maintain their health/welfare - more structured programme?

Even writing these down generated new questions, and you can see the gradual shift in emphasis as my brain switched on to different ideas!

I think I would still like to do something more related to teaching, but as yet I'm not ruling anything out.

Look forward to hearing all your ideas. 

New Start!

Definitely getting back into 'regular blogging mode' again after last term's tail-off. I went to the Campus Day on Monday and have been really inspired to get going on the Reader and Tasks - as we discussed with Paula, you should aim for about 6 hours' work per week - today I'm using my day accompanying a friend to an audition to get going!

If you didn't make it to the Session, Sarah has done a great blog about what we did.

At present I haven't really settled on a line of inquiry to pursue, but I'm playing with a few ideas. I both dance and teach so would like to do something that links the two. Having said this - the degree is really for the future so if I were to explore something mainly in a teaching field it may be more useful, though I would still like it to have relevance for now. Rosemary stressed the importance of 'the process' when we were discussing this module - that you learn through all parts of this inquiry and not just the end piece, or the particular subject matter - developing the skills you use for the inquiry as well as growing as a person can be just as valuable in your career as the topic you choose to investigate.

I'm considering a couple of options:

• Male dancers - why is there such a gender imbalance in the industry? What can be done to further promote boys getting into dance? The company I work for, Babyballet, is making 2012 its year for getting more boys involved. Can any more be done?
  
• Young children - how much should you push children and what is the importance of exams? If you have a very young child with their heart set on performing professionally - how strict can you be?
  
• Managing a school as a business vs teaching - how can you ensure that a dance school makes money, especially in this economic climate? Do you have to compromise standards or offer a wider range of options to make money - ballet is less popular than street dance for my area, should we be offering hip-hop classes as well?

I'm going to spend a while going through these options and probably come up with something completely different!

Good luck to all with starting Module 2!

Break from blogging - Journal begins!

I have realised that I haven't written any posts for more than a week. This is probably because I have been concentrating on writing the Journal, and also that my routine has changed with it being half-term this week (You'd think that means more time, but somehow - no).

I was apprehensive about starting a journal as when I was younger, almost yearly without fail, I would get a diary and decide to keep one this year. Faithfully I would record events through January, February, and a little way through March, gradually becoming more sporadic. Then I would forget about it for a week, two weeks, until mid-June/July/August I would think, "Oh, I have a diary", take a look at what I had written, cringe, and then promptly leave it in a drawer/throw it away. By the time it got to the end of the year I would have forgotten the horror's of last year's failed experience and resolve that, starting January, I would keep a diary this year. It didn't help that quite often a diary was a Christmas present and therefore I felt obliged to write in it!

At Hammond as part of our Diploma we were encouraged to keep records of our corrections/targets by noting them in a diary on a nightly basis, and reflecting on them weekly. I found this task useful as it enabled me to spot corrections that recurred and often the physical act of writing a correction down would be enough to remind me of it in future classes, even without re-reading it. Although it was time-consuming, and often felt like a bit of a chore, I could see the benefit of doing so and I think it has prepared me for the task of Journal-writing as a means of reflection, now in professional practice.

The first thing I did to get myself in the mood for Journal writing, sad as it sounds, was to buy a pretty notebook especially for the purpose. I like things to look nice and I knew that I was far more likely to want to continue to write in it if it was a good-looking book! Also, the 'reward' before I began put me in a positive mood to start writing. I have been reflecting in the Journal for 2 weeks now and have just started to explore the other techniques. I was loath to do this as I find it easier (I think), as Boud (2001) says, to use "writing as a means of puzzling through" things that have been going on. I usually start at one point and end up somewhere completely different to where I thought I was going, discovering quite a lot about what I was thinking in the process - a bit like this blog sometimes!
I am not sure if I am being analytical enough when I write my Journal, as at the moment it tends towards the more 'descriptive'/'initial reflection' models, so tonight's will probably be the 'evaluation' technique. The 'What if?' version scares me a little, as I'm quite a logical person that doesn't like to imagine things when they haven't happened, so that could be an interesting task! I think my 'other view' is going to be written from a student's perspective, as by putting myself in 'their shoes' I might learn more about my teaching style. And then a graph....we will see what happens here! I might put a sample up.

Good luck everyone with your journals, I'm off to tackle another entry of mine!

Campus 2 in photos...

Our group - Tiffany, Rozana, Giovanni, Charlie and me - decided that we would pick out a few of the key techniques and portray them visually as photos, to make it a bit more accessible if you missed today's session.

Some of the photos are available on my Flickr photostream here.

Notice the things that other people see...observe small details you might not have seen....identify the habitual (things we take for granted)...acknowledge your experiences past and present...take time to reflect, look back, and learn....build onto this, and continue to experience and learn....

Enjoy!

Campus session 2....Reflection

Today was useful in that it 'broke the ice' (to borrow Emily's phrase) with Reflecting.

OUR FIRST TASK was to identify ourselves as a role in one or two words - e.g. dancer, singer, teaching assistant...

We then paired off with someone who had a different job to our own, exchanged notepads and wrote a list of what we thought their role entailed....a bulleted list of ANYTHING associated with the job, e.g. for dancer, I got  'rehearsals', 'auditions' and 'can be in a bitchy environment' to list a few.

It was interesting to get another person's perspective on your job and see what preconceived ideas they may have - is it a romanticized view? - and also if they had identified any parts of your job that maybe you gave no thought to, and took for granted.

THE SECOND TASK we did was to swap partners,

See - Think - Wonder

Today this was where we started with Campus Session 2....

I had the idea of making 3 wikis based on the 3 large sheets of paper we had in the room to put post-it's on.

We entered the room and many of us (including me) failed to observe that Adesola had actually arranged the chairs at the back of the room in a particular pattern for an activity in pairs, reaching for a nearby chair and turning it round to face the group without looking or thinking.
There was also a 'flower' of armrest/tables in the centre of the room - which looked still more random - until you saw that there was one 'left-handed' one facing the opposite direction to the rest, and wondered why....getting us to think again.

Throughout the morning we were encouraged to add post-its to these posters, and I thought it would be nice to try and share it with those people who couldn't be there for whatever reason!
This was an exercise where we noted anything we saw, thought, or wondered - by acknowledging that we had done any of these things, we started a process of reflection.

Please add things you see/think/wonder..... whether they are from today's session or from the wider world if you couldn't make it!
...(I've left a sample 'post-it' to copy and paste for each)...

SEE    -    THINK    -    WONDER

more info on Campus session 2 later....

1c) Storyboard and Transcript

In response to a comment from Paula asking if I had planned my video using a storyboard, I decided to upload a digital version of not only the storyboard but also the script I intended to follow - complete with editing marks as I think this gives a better idea of how I modified it as I went along, rather than deleting (I wrote it out long-hand originally). The storyboard I quickly sketched once the idea came to me, then I changed it a little. In light of today's discussions (more later) I would say that my video was born much more of 'reflective observation' and 'abstract conceptualisation' than 'concrete experience' - unlike Phil in his, I didn't just set the video running and talk - another very effective video but a completely different approach.

Storyboard

Transcript