Hello
So I have started to build up my SIG. I only have about 5 people within there so far, but I don't believe that we need to have too many.
I have already begun discussing questions within my SIG, and one which has been the most beneficial so far is my question: 5. Is verbal use just as important as the visual in teaching steps, styles and technique?
Megan Lewis asked pretty much the same question, with a bit more depth. I asked her opinion on this question, and her response was; "It is particularly beneficial for young children who do not have the
technical, rhythmical or emotional knowledge to produce what you are
verbally asking for. I think it also gains you the respect of your
older students....I definitely do not dance with my seniors ANYWHERE near as much as I
dance with my juniors - and there are some things that I can just no
longer demonstrate. In this instance I use another student - which I
find often works well at any level."
This response gave answers to two other questions, or are related to them somehow. Respect. I asked the question, 4. How do you gain a high respect from the students other than just good discipline? This was a question based on teaching in general. So from Megan' experience in Dance teaching, it's by showing your expertise which can get you respect. Which then asks a new question; How can you show your expertise in a classroom to gain the student' respect?
She also gave an answer to the question that Chiara Vainella came up with, of which and I have just started to discuss with her on being able to teach dance without physically being able to dance. Megan answered this, obliviously by saying that she uses another student to demonstrate if they have the right idea. Which then made me alter the question to be more thorough; Can you teach dance with having an absolute disability? Not being able to dance AT ALL.
A good start to Module 2.
'Keeeeeeep blogging'
Monday, 17 February 2014
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
Task 4A Questions
I have definitely referred to my competences and capabilities,
mentioned in the Reader, when thinking about my questions. The things
that I do know, with added knowledge needed and what new knowledge I am
capable of doing.
I must admit that I have struggled to get myself going on this task, but this was the same with the last module, so I'll get there.
I have only done a very minor course in teaching, but plan to do my PGCE next year, so a lot of my questions are related to teaching. Perhaps stuff that I would learn about during my PGCE course anyway, but this would be a great head start!
Any adaptations of the questions to make them more thorough would be greatly appreciate, and of course any answers.
Teaching related questions:
'Keeeeeeep blogging'
I must admit that I have struggled to get myself going on this task, but this was the same with the last module, so I'll get there.
I have only done a very minor course in teaching, but plan to do my PGCE next year, so a lot of my questions are related to teaching. Perhaps stuff that I would learn about during my PGCE course anyway, but this would be a great head start!
Any adaptations of the questions to make them more thorough would be greatly appreciate, and of course any answers.
Teaching related questions:
- What similarities are there in teaching within a school and in a dance school?
- What other methods of disciplinary are there? For example; for autistic children.
- How long should you give yourself for Lesson Planning?
- How do you gain a high respect from the students other than from good discipline?
- Is there a way in teaching that can help students to be as honest a person as they can possibly be?
- How do you encourage students without making them overly confident?
- How do you handle a situation where the children think that it's okay to hug the teacher?
- What are the best methods to praise children, for them to learn to do things well without always expecting praise or a reward?
- How many warnings should you give children/students before disciplinary action?
- Should the phrase; 'Spare the rod, spoil the child' become more literally speaking in teaching?
- When did the rod stop being used?
- Do children have more rights than teachers?
- Can lowering your voice be just as effective as raising your voice?
- How can I get enthusiastic about choreography without music being my inspiration?
- How could I make a deeply emotional piece of choreography to absolutely no music?
- What exercises can I do in dance for children aged 4 to 6 without any basic training?
- Where can I found out about illusions? I want to use illusion like effects in choreography for solo and troupe work.
- Is verbal use just as important as the visual in teaching steps, styles and technique?
- What strategies or methods are there to boost a students confidence in performing?
- Is repetition in teaching a dance routine the best method to get the students to learn it quickly?
- Can you run a dance school successfully without employing a dance syllabus or examinations?
'Keeeeeeep blogging'
Task 4A review on Reader 4
Reader 4 has reminded me of a lot of things that I learned about in the first module, for example; "Working with the aspect of inquiry is vital to self-reflective practice" [Judi Marshall, 2001] Reflection!! At particular points in the last module, we simply had to use inquiry. I believe that it's an important part of moving forward from reflecting upon our own actions.
"..an issue, event, theme, dilemma or whatever is an inquiry for me. This is a deliberate means to keep my questioning open and to help it develop.....It gives me a frame for noting my ever-provisional sense-making as I proceed, articulating it - to self and others - as part of the process of inquiry" [Marshall, 2001] This has made me reflect back to my last couple of dance classes. I have a few unruly four year old's, and they seem to think that they can walk all over me. This made me question my approach to difficult behaviour. I want to develop and I want to know how to be a great teacher and gain respect. This brings me to 'sense-making'. I try to look at myself from anothers' perspective. Surely I am seen as a very soft teacher. That would make a lot of sense. I asked my mother if this could be the reason and she said that it could very well be the reason. Therefore, I tried out raising my voice more often. This has really worked a treat. In just a few weeks I have gained a lot more respect from them.This also relates to the professional expertise's three different types of knowledge in the Reader, propositional, personal and process [Eraut]. This involved all the types of knowledge; personal knowledge as I used my initiative and reflected on my self and the class as a whole, propositional knowledge from simply trying out a method of which I've learned about, and process knowledge for the way I chose to discipline.
'For Peter Senge, real learning gets to the heart of what it is to be human. We become able to re-create ourselves. This applies to both individuals and organizations. Thus, for a ‘learning organization it is not enough to survive. ‘”Survival learning” or what is more often termed “adaptive learning” is important – indeed it is necessary. But for a learning organization, “adaptive learning” must be joined by “generative learning”, learning that enhances our capacity to create" [Senge 1990:14 http://infed.org/mobi/peter-senge-and-the-learning-organization/] This is an inspiration for me, as I for one, struggle to accept change in myself and not always accept the changes around me, even if I know deep down that it's for the best in a lot of cases. Being flexible and adaptable is important when learning and making oneself a better professional practitioner. It makes me relate back to trying out the different ideas in 'Journal writing'. I was stubborn at first and was quite sure of myself to not try something new. I learned how most of the time it's a must to try out new things, and now to adapt one's working to hopefully gain a better outcome. This next statement relates to this somehow; "If our actions are driven by moving away from something then our actions are controlled and defined by whatever it is we are moving away from, not by us and what we would like to be moving towards. Therefore our potential for growth and learning is seriously impaired."[Anderson 1997 http://infed.org/mobi/chris-argyris-theories-of-action-double-loop-learning-and-organizational-learning/ ] This is related to double-loop learning and it makes me doubt my actions now and in the past. I believe that a lot of us work by going away from something rather than working towards something. It makes me question my use of Kolb's learning cycle. When I use this as a template, I use it for when ideas don't work as well as when they do work. So when ideas don't work, what do I aim for afterwards? Do I focus on what I actually want to achieve? Or do I focus on staying clear of something that wasn't achieved? Even though this phrase has made me doubt my actions, I do believe that I carry on focusing on what I want to achieve. Naturally I want to continue to grow and learn, so it's something I will be more aware of in the future.
Sector-based knowledge really stood out to me in the Reader. Seeing as one day I would like to have my own dance school, the 'inter-disciplinary' knowledge is incredibly important for me. I do know the discipline of dance, extremely well, but what about management skills? and dance teaching skills? There are other disciplines that I will need to learn about and gain enough knowledge and skills in to have a successful school.
Saying this though, I do believe that transdisciplinary is within any type of job, including teaching, as typical disciplinary actions may not work for some children as they may, for example, have an undiagnosed type of autism. Seeing as there are many types of autism, a regular approach to discipline will be tested, particularly if you don't know that they have the condition. You would have to work around your own approaches to be able to discipline that particular child effectively.
So, what is research? "..a process of determining knowledge that is valuable to individual learners and their networks."[Alan Durrant] This term in itself is valuable to me, as puts it in a very straight forward way.
Reading 'The Good Research Guide' by Martyn Denscombe, has given me a few different types of strategies that can be used for researching:
I'm struggling to decide whether or not to inquire about my issues in dance teaching or just general teaching.
I am currently updating my questions, so will put these in another post!
Good Luck everyone!
'Keeeeep blogging'
"..an issue, event, theme, dilemma or whatever is an inquiry for me. This is a deliberate means to keep my questioning open and to help it develop.....It gives me a frame for noting my ever-provisional sense-making as I proceed, articulating it - to self and others - as part of the process of inquiry" [Marshall, 2001] This has made me reflect back to my last couple of dance classes. I have a few unruly four year old's, and they seem to think that they can walk all over me. This made me question my approach to difficult behaviour. I want to develop and I want to know how to be a great teacher and gain respect. This brings me to 'sense-making'. I try to look at myself from anothers' perspective. Surely I am seen as a very soft teacher. That would make a lot of sense. I asked my mother if this could be the reason and she said that it could very well be the reason. Therefore, I tried out raising my voice more often. This has really worked a treat. In just a few weeks I have gained a lot more respect from them.This also relates to the professional expertise's three different types of knowledge in the Reader, propositional, personal and process [Eraut]. This involved all the types of knowledge; personal knowledge as I used my initiative and reflected on my self and the class as a whole, propositional knowledge from simply trying out a method of which I've learned about, and process knowledge for the way I chose to discipline.
'For Peter Senge, real learning gets to the heart of what it is to be human. We become able to re-create ourselves. This applies to both individuals and organizations. Thus, for a ‘learning organization it is not enough to survive. ‘”Survival learning” or what is more often termed “adaptive learning” is important – indeed it is necessary. But for a learning organization, “adaptive learning” must be joined by “generative learning”, learning that enhances our capacity to create" [Senge 1990:14 http://infed.org/mobi/peter-senge-and-the-learning-organization/] This is an inspiration for me, as I for one, struggle to accept change in myself and not always accept the changes around me, even if I know deep down that it's for the best in a lot of cases. Being flexible and adaptable is important when learning and making oneself a better professional practitioner. It makes me relate back to trying out the different ideas in 'Journal writing'. I was stubborn at first and was quite sure of myself to not try something new. I learned how most of the time it's a must to try out new things, and now to adapt one's working to hopefully gain a better outcome. This next statement relates to this somehow; "If our actions are driven by moving away from something then our actions are controlled and defined by whatever it is we are moving away from, not by us and what we would like to be moving towards. Therefore our potential for growth and learning is seriously impaired."[Anderson 1997 http://infed.org/mobi/chris-argyris-theories-of-action-double-loop-learning-and-organizational-learning/ ] This is related to double-loop learning and it makes me doubt my actions now and in the past. I believe that a lot of us work by going away from something rather than working towards something. It makes me question my use of Kolb's learning cycle. When I use this as a template, I use it for when ideas don't work as well as when they do work. So when ideas don't work, what do I aim for afterwards? Do I focus on what I actually want to achieve? Or do I focus on staying clear of something that wasn't achieved? Even though this phrase has made me doubt my actions, I do believe that I carry on focusing on what I want to achieve. Naturally I want to continue to grow and learn, so it's something I will be more aware of in the future.
Sector-based knowledge really stood out to me in the Reader. Seeing as one day I would like to have my own dance school, the 'inter-disciplinary' knowledge is incredibly important for me. I do know the discipline of dance, extremely well, but what about management skills? and dance teaching skills? There are other disciplines that I will need to learn about and gain enough knowledge and skills in to have a successful school.
Saying this though, I do believe that transdisciplinary is within any type of job, including teaching, as typical disciplinary actions may not work for some children as they may, for example, have an undiagnosed type of autism. Seeing as there are many types of autism, a regular approach to discipline will be tested, particularly if you don't know that they have the condition. You would have to work around your own approaches to be able to discipline that particular child effectively.
So, what is research? "..a process of determining knowledge that is valuable to individual learners and their networks."[Alan Durrant] This term in itself is valuable to me, as puts it in a very straight forward way.
Reading 'The Good Research Guide' by Martyn Denscombe, has given me a few different types of strategies that can be used for researching:
- Surveys; [Interviews, questionaires, observation]
- Case studies; [Practical considerations, no real choice]
- Experiments (a model of good practice); [Cause and effect, the use of controls, observation and measurement.]
I'm struggling to decide whether or not to inquire about my issues in dance teaching or just general teaching.
I am currently updating my questions, so will put these in another post!
Good Luck everyone!
'Keeeeep blogging'
Thursday, 6 February 2014
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
So far....
Hello everyone. Well a new year and a new module. Exciting and scary stuff!
Time for inquiry!
I've started to read the Reader, and I must admit that I am struggling to understand a lot of it. I hope I'm not the only one?? I will need to have a lot of coffee I think. (I did try this today, but what I didn't realize was that the coffee was decaffeinated...)
I am looking forward to seeing what people write about in their blogs, and I wish all the best to you all.
'Keeeeep blogging'
Time for inquiry!
I've started to read the Reader, and I must admit that I am struggling to understand a lot of it. I hope I'm not the only one?? I will need to have a lot of coffee I think. (I did try this today, but what I didn't realize was that the coffee was decaffeinated...)
I am looking forward to seeing what people write about in their blogs, and I wish all the best to you all.
'Keeeeep blogging'
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