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.

Getting social

So i have began to update my web based presents once again, as you can see i have my blog up and running again and i now intend to access uni pages and find out who i shall be participating in this module with, so that i can get commenting and starting up discussions with my peers.

I have also refreshed my linkden ( my SIG Group) with a new topic of discussion, so please feel free to join me and share your thoughts.

https://touch.www.linkedin.com/?sessionid=3459868761522176&or=true#home

I decided since i was progressing onto anew and final module i wanted to widen my social networking experience. I have my delicious account,linkdin, twitter ect but i want to develop my social networks as much as possible, as i feel from what i have learnt from the other two modules social networking and web 2.0 is the way to advertise and manage yourself as a business for the sector i am working in.

The new social networking site i decided to join is pintrest. I came across this website when i was searching for literature i could review. I am sure many of you know and use it already, however it is new to me. It is where you basically have a virtual pin board where you can pin websites ect that are of interest to you, i intend to use this to pin all the websites i have took research from so i can visible see where i have been and it all be in one place.

http://www.pinterest.com/stephlarty/boards/

Finally i am reaching out to students of the BAPPS course past and present to see if you could help me with my inquiry process. One of the tools i am using isinterview, asyou an see in my blog post below. The part that i am struggling with is getting people to agree to be interviewed. I wonder is anyone else having this problem? I set about with five people in mind that i wanted to interview. Three of these i have contacted by email (As that is the only contact i have) To receive no response from them, which is frustrating as i am sure you all know, as i planned out a time scale of when i would like things to take place and be completed by. However i understand you can't plan for other peoples lives or responses. So i am reaching out to you people on the BAPPS program,I am looking to interview people that teach dance to five year olds and below, or know anyone that does. So that i can carry out an interview,over the phone, skype or even just via email, anything would be much appreciated in the help to further my inquiry.

Thank you and i look forward to collaborating with you all.
Steph.

reflections and further developement

I now feel I am beginning to pick up the pace with my research once again, I have started to produce two literature reviews to do with the benefits of dance to young children. My inquiry title is:

 

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

 

However I do feel the benefits of dance should be covered in my research also, as teachers would not teach if they did not feel it was beneficial to there students.

 

The first review focused on dance as an art form and as part of the arts world, and did not want it to be viewed as a form of physical exercise for children. So this article focused more on the mental positive dance has for young children a quote from it is;

 

We are concerned with studying dance as dance, i.e., as an aesthetic domain with its own goals and characteristics. We use both terms ‘dance’ and ‘aesthetic movement’. We use the latter term to refer to movements of an aesthetic kind, i.e., movements that have a representative form (a gestalt).’

 

I particularly like the part where it sates it is looking at dance just as dance in its pure form, this is something that I have not come across as much in my research as it is normally always related to health benefits.

 

            The other review I looked at was a booklet advertising the benefits of dance for young children, and this stresses the importance of how healthy dance is for children:

 

‘Dance is a universal language and in an age where child obesity is increasing and the taking of exercise is decreasing it has never been more important to present dance to young children in an enjoyable format. In doing so it is more likely that in some form or other participation in dance as a form of exercise may continue into adult life.’(Fouracre.M)

 

This I find seems to be a more well advertised positive for children, which is again a very key factor when looking at the physical well being of this age group. It is giving them a healthy life style in a fun and enjoyable way.

 

I have carried out two interviews so far with two teachers who teach this age group and older, the recording of this is below.

 

This is the first interview I have carried out for my research so the questions and answers aren’t very detailed they give me a summery however of the areas that they teach and the different styles they use, I now intend to focus more specifically on some of the questions they have answered to create new questions and develop them into more detail about there teaching styles and methods.

 

            I am currently working as a dancer on a cruise ship so at the moment having access to the internet is slightly limited. From here I intend to go forward with some more interviews with other professional people via email or skype I am just awaiting there confirmation, and hopefully plan on getting my SIG group more up to date this week to develop some conversations with more professional people in this field. I also intend to hold a second interview with the teachers but make it more of a group discussion developing there ideas and theories.