Further Reading

After continuing my literature reviews I decided to expand my knowledge base further by looking into articles to do with educating the early years in general. I found some articles offering tips and suggestions on teaching this age group in general education. I noted a few common approaches cropping up in all of these literatures and also over lapping with the movement literatures I have read. (I feel I can now see my inquiry taking shape.)

The points that most cropped up are;

• Having a routine in place,
• Parental co-operation and involvement.
• Planning

Links to my reviews are below.

literature review f
literature review G
literature review H
literature review I
literature review j
literature review k

Back Home and Back to it.

Well iv landed back in the u.k and finally over the jet lag, and now intend to take full advantage of unlimited wifi once again woooo. To continue and get back connected with my BAPPS program.
I feel I am still on the right path I just need to finalize some things that I struggled to do without internet whilst being away. I have sorted out my google docs now (thanks to sarah) so my blog on literatures is now fully accessible so please feel free to have a read and comment on any thoughts.

I have continued with further literatures whilst I have been afew and so intend to put an updated findings blog up in the next few days.

Plans for today and the next few days;

• Sit in front of my laptop enjoying being able to research easily once again (and with lots of cups of tea)
• Finalize the analysis of the two interviews I have carried out so far.
• Contact the people I intend to interview to arrange interviews for this week.
• Find more literatures expanding to areas not just based on dance but still focused on teaching a young age group.
• Categorize my research so far
• Enhance my use of social media.
• Get back connected and comment with people on the bapps program.

So hopefully I will be up to date and fully communicational once again within the next few days.

look forward to collaborating with you all once again.

First artifact ideas

I have been putting off thinking about this for a while, as the topic of it still feels slightly hazin my mind, but hopefully putting my mind to paper so to speak should hopefully help clear it.
I have been unsure about how i want to present my artifact as i feel i want to get all the information across in a clear and precise way. After developing my literature reviews and reading various different styles of text. I came to like the bullet point style some texts offered.
So in thinking this i would like my artifact to be produced in a kind of bullet point style way. As my inquiry is about finding out peoples different approaches to teaching the age group two to five. I think i would like to sift through my findings and make notes of the most common approaches people have suggested. To make a sort of top ten teaching tips bullet point booklet. Where each tip would be a bullet point and then the tip expanded on further with explanations and pictures where possible, as i feel if i did something like this it would help show to my audience within the BAPPS program the research i have developed, and it would show to my audience in the public sense, useful approaches i have found to teaching this age group which can be of use to me and others in the future.
The downfalls i feel to creating this booklet is i may not be able to fully explain the research that went in to it and any obstacles that i faced.
This is currently the first thoughts i have had about it and is of course a working progress, but your thoughts and feedback would be much appreciated.

Google drive help!

As you can see further down I have placed links to my literature reviews in my Google drive, however on the tablet I am using I can not work out how I make these files public, any help would be much appreciated,!

feeling connected

I finally feel asif iv become up to date with the social networking scene once again, being out here on a ship i have found it difficult with the lack of internet at times and everthing seems to move so fast with networking, conversations develope new topics come into play and im still reading the first sentence! I have spent some time catching up and joined the facebook bapps sig group so now i feel much more in the loop and looking forward to exploring discussions with you all.
I have updated my linkedin account, and have now come to realise i feel i did not use it to its full potential in the previous module. I used it for a base for the SIG group i created, asking people to join and give their thoughts. I have now came to realise that linkedin itself could be a great SIG for me, being able to connect with variations of people that share the same interests as me and find groups that releate to me that have already been created. I am home from the ship in ten days, So i have planned my first BAPPs activity to be exploring linkedin to its full advantage and make it work for me, not as a sig group but as a way of connecting with people i would not have come across before.

Findings From literature Reviews so far.

I have now made notes on the points in each literature review that I have studied that have come up in more than one review. As I feel this is a solid basis of approaches to teaching dance to two to five year olds as being firm approaches and good approaches as they have been backed up in various literatures I have read. Lists of these are below;
·Encourage health benefits and also social benefits.
·Encourage children to think for themselves, set them challenges so they feel they are developing the class and skills themselves.
·Keep the class exciting and varied, imagination, voice tone ect, keep them interested in you and the tasks.
·Everyone moves and develops in different ways remember children work at there own pace.
·Have lessons planned with extra incase children get bored.
·Be flexible and ready to work with the children not against them.
·Work with the parents, they know there children best, they can advise you and also encourage and help there children.
·Be positive! Children learn from the environment negative environment negative development, keep everything positive.
·Distraction, instead of shouting at the children for attention distract them with something else to regain there focus.
From this I intend to look at more pieces of literature to see if these points of advice crop up and if any others are there that I feel will be useful to my inquiry. I also want to cross reference these points with the interviews that I have carried out to see if the people I have interviewed also feel these are good approaches.
My literature reviews are in google docs with the links below.

literature review a

literature review b

literature review c

literature review d

literature review e

Conversation with paula

After speaking to Paula on the phone afew days ago, i feel much more clear and connected to the BAPP world once again. (Even though i am still over the otherside of the world.) I still need to become more connected with my peers as i deffered for a term i now have new peers, So expect some comments in the next few days. I feel i now better understand the path i need to take with my inquiry i feel the dots have now joined up and i can forward my research in a posative way.

Looking back at the first interview i carried out, I can see that i gained some usefull information but it did not really go much below surface level. I would like to carry out a follow up interview with them to talk about their dance background.To find out what inspired them to teach, as the 'why' information (being why they teach) co insides and backs up the 'how' information. I shall blog the follow up interview and my thoughts when compleated.

I would also like to expand my knowledge base further, as my inquiry is based around the age group, two to five ear olds, i would like to have some conversations and discussions with some people that teach this age group within different subjects, to learn and see what methods and teaching styles they use, to see their points of view and if any methods reflect or co-inside with the dance teachers i have spoken to.

I would also like to look at the actual title of my inquiry after speaking to Paula;

'What are the different approaches to teaching dance to two to five year olds and what do teachers say are the best approaches?'

Looking at the word BEST im not sure if it is the right word for my inquiry question, as no one can have a correct response to what is a best approach as what someone thinks it may be someone else could disagree,
Taking the definition of the word best;The most excellent or desirable type of quality.
I was thinking of ways to reword my question so that i have a more clear inquiry.

l What are the different approaches to teaching dance to two to five year olds and what do practitioners feel are the approaches they value the most?
l What are the different approaches to teaching dance to two to five year olds and what do practitioners say are the approaches that work well.

Your thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.