Interviews

I havent blogged for the passed two weeks as iv had some job changed so not sure if or when i can continue with this course at present. But i thought instead of being stuck in limbo it is something that i want to comleate so why not carry on now and hopefully the financial and time side will be figured out in the next few days so i will know where i stand.

With regards to interviews this is something i have really struggled with, i chose four people to interview, two who owned there own companies specialising in teaching dance to this young age group and two who currently teach it.

Out of the two that teach it one said she has been happy to do it but has been off very sick for the past two weeks so i have not been able compleate the interview. The other i do not work with and is a friend of a friend so i don't see them often thus i am still waiting for them to reply back to me.

So those side of the interviews are still on hold at the moment, i was wondering if other people have struggled trying to set up interviews having to work around other people?

Out of the companys one did get back to me and has been a great help, as she is based in london and me in north wales we have been corrasponding via email at the moment and i shall post some answers to our first email interview below, from this i intend to carry out a phone or skype conversation with her to further delve into the questions and answers.

I still feel slightly overwhelmed at the moment but if we don't try we won't succeed i intend to look at paulas slide show this weekend so intend to blog my thoughts after that.

The interview;

The questions that I would like to put forward to you are as follows;

 

• Why did you decide to focus on this particular age range to teach?

I find them the most fun, innocent and rewarding age group.

 

• What do you base the structure of your class on?

Fun, we explore 14 different dance styles but its very loose at this age and the emphasis is repetition to build confidence and fun to keep them engaged

 

• What characteristics do you notice coming out in the children during the class.

Confidence is the main one, it can be instant or take a few weeks but there is something about dancing that at this age they love and naturally cant resist doing to funky music.

 

• Do you think a dance class bestows values on children, if so what are these values?

Its good for social skills, turn taking, manners and confidence within their peers.

 

• What is the length of your class?

45 minutes

 

• What are the energy levels and physical excursion levels of the children during your class?

Very high, our music is very funky and poppy so the children are full on. Everything has to be taught with energy and enthusiasm to keep this age group engaged. Every elemant is short and we move from one thing to the next quickly to keep their attention and keep them moving.

 

• What would you say your dance class focuses on for the children?

Co-ordination, rhythm and motor skills plus increases confidence.

 

 

• What do you feel the children gain from your dance classes?

All the above plus learning that dance is fun and being active is enjoyable in the hope this view will stay with them for life.

 

• Do you feel there are any downfalls to starting dance at this age?

No not if taught in a relaxed, fun way where theres no pressure of technique, competition or exams.

Reflecting on begining

Well we are coming to the end of our second week so i feel here i would like to voice where i am up to with my inquiry so far, i stated that last week i was going over my information from module two and booking in my interviews, this i have found particularly frustrating as i would like to work within the time plan that i have made for my inquiry and i find this increasingly difficult with interviews as people are in no rush to sign up for them and much prefer to work around there time instead of yours ( which is understandable) So as of yet i have not carried out any interviews, i have one planned for next week and two the week after so hopefully i shall have some feedback from them then.
     i have spent this week begining to look at the literature that will help me further my inquiry, for one of the pieces i have decided to continue using one of the literatures i used as a trial in module two;

Movement and Dance in early childhood by mollie davies.

I decided to do this as i feel it is very relevant to my chosen inqury.

I also began by putting a poll on my SIG group;

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/BAPP-dance-education-4664320/about

I have had no response to this from my SIG group, but after further thought i feel that it may be because when i started the group it is off a much wider field of discussion just on dance in general and not honned in on this specific area, so i have decided to look further afield and found a number of dance forums that have different areas for teaching and different ages, where i intend to post similar questions there and see what the response is.

My next plan of action is to begin studying the literature and progress with the interviews when they booked in. I am still feeling anxious about this module as it just seems such a large scale thing to compleate in a short space of time, and i worry i will not gather enough information to produce my critical review and artefact (which i am still unsure of how i am going to produce)

but with it being the campus sessions this week i am hoping the people that went will share the knowledge they have gained to help give a better understanding.

Any of your thoughts or how you are feeling would be much appreciated.

First Blog of 2013

Well even though we are know well into 2013 i would still like to wish everyone a happy new year as this is my first blog. i spent january as most people did, deciding on the changes and what i wanted to achieve out of 2013 and i can happily say i had a full tidy up of my personal and working life allowing space for concentrating on things i feel are important to me, the BAPPS program inparticular as i feel this module is going to challange me the most as at the moment it feels like such a huge leap. However im sure i have stated this at the begining of each module, something new is always daunghting at first. But i intend to dive right in and give it my best.

After spending the day reading the handbook and reader i can safley say my first thoughts were AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!! however once i settled down i realised i need to take it all in my stride and as i did with the other modules i feel the best way to succeed is to PLAN PLAN PLAN, as i have stated, before an organised space is an organised mind. I intend to spend the next few days organising my research and how i am going to carry it out with putting together timetables for myself aswell as documents that i know i will need to carry out the research so that i can just pull them up as and when i need and will not need to spend time in the future weeks typing them up.

I look forward to getting back into blogging and sharing ideas with everyone.

Critical Reflection on Professional Practitioner Inquiry

On reflection I feel that at the beginning of this module I did not grasp the understand of asking questions to receive beneficial answers, as the weeks went on I feel I gained a better knowledge base on this and continued to develop my questions to help me redefine them more and become more focused, I feel,Appendix B a blog post I wrote on Developing my questions shows where I begin to understand the importance of the correct wording for a question and how a simple change of word can have a significant difference. I have kept this piece of information with me as I continued to develop my questions. Another learning point with the development of my questions was making sure I did not create an under lying truth showing my own opinion in the questions, this is something I struggled with right through till the last minute I feel I gained a better understanding of this in Appendix C. though comments made between me and Alun on previous posts.

           

            When looking at the topic of ethics I found it useful to look at in many different lights or from different peoples perspectives, from the teacher, the boss, the parent ect, everyone has different things they view highly as ethically correct but everyone works around a similar ethical guideline to do the right thing, I feel I fully understood this when I summarized my views in Appendix D and from there understood that to complete my research I had to look into specific ethics involved around research with children as that is what my professional inquiry was going to be based around. 

 

            On a final reflection of my work these past weeks I feel the tests I did with research tools need to be addressed, having never done anything like this before I was unsure of what to expect but once I had carried out each of the methods I feel I had a better understanding of it, as stated in my blog entry in Appendix E  . Here I talk about what I feel worked well, right from this point I realized that interview would work well for me. I also stated that I felt observation would be off use, but as my questions have developed I realized that that may not be the case as I could make my observations biased by putting in my own opinion.

 

            In conclusion on reflection I feel I have developed a lot of useful research skills these passed few weeks and that these skills along with ethical guidelines I have now set out for myself will now help to aid me in a well planned out professional inquiry and from which I should gain some valuable information.

Literature review three

With this final review I have just began to read the book, Movement and Dance in early childhood, the second edition, by Mollie Davies.

I feel that this book will be a big insight and help into beginning my research and inquiry, so although I have not read the book fully it was a piece of literature I thought was worth me making a note of.

The book looks at all the aspects involved in dance with young children, from ‘what is movement?’ and how to move, right through to creating, performing and appreciating dance.

I intend to continue this review when I have read more.

Through dance the child can discover the body as an expressive instrument and develop the aesthetic and creative side of nature ( hinkley 1989:7)

A section of this book looks at the child as ‘the creator or the dance maker’

In this section it talks about dance is not something that can be branded as ‘you are now a chorographer’ it is something that is done and developed over time and that there is always room to learn or do more.

Hawkins states (1964:30) ‘the creative aspect of dance should start early and be developed continually’

This section also goes on to state that helping children develop creatively at this age through dance is helping them grow as an individual and unlocking aspects of there personalitys and developing them early on that may not have been tapped into if it wasn’t for dance.

In all three literature reviews I have looked at for dance with young children, every time the focus has been on the creative not the exercise. This is something I like and would like to look further into with my own research, of course it is a form of exercise so physical and health benefits do come into it but it can offer so much more for children with the emotional developments as well,

A quote I found which emphasizes this in the book is by

Harlow and Rolf (1992:16);

It is the aim of dance education in early years to foster and develop all these natural abilities by providing opportunities for children to create or compose simple dance sequences.

References;

Harlow, M and Rolfe , I (1992) Lets Dance : a handbook for teachers.London BBC education

Hawkins, A (1964) Creating through dance.Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Prentice-hall

Hinkley C (1980)Creativity in danceAustralis – Synden Creative publishing co

literature review 2

The next literature review I will be looking at is one one the national dance education organization website;

http://www.ndeo.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=893257&module_id=55419

It discusses the standards of dance with young children.

A quote that stuck out to me straight away is ;

‘Dance embodies one of our most primal relationships to the universe. It is pre-verbal, beginning before words can be formed. It is innate in children before they possess command over language and is evoked when thoughts or emotions are too powerful for words to contain’

I found this quote to be very useful as it states the full importance of dance and that it is not just something that has to be done as a form of exercise but can be done to empower you and express yourself in ways that you may not normally feel you can.

The article then moves on to state that dance is a natural thing and children do It subconsciously as a way to express themselves and that when they begin to structure or group those movements together, that becomes dance.

The article also states ‘’ The physical benefits of dance are widely accepted, but the emotional, social and cognitive attributes have only recently begun to be appreciated.’’

I find myself agreeing with this statement and something that I would look into developing further in the future, I feel a lot in education especially in primary schools dance is put into the sports section and looked at as a way to exercise, where I feel it should be classed with the arts as it is in the professional world, as a way for children to express themselves physically and emotionally.

 Some sources within the article I also found would be useful to my inquire were by john dewey;

Dance is basic to learning. Children learn most readily from experience. John Dewey understood this when he asserted, “Action is the test of comprehension” (Dewey, 1915). To learn by “doing” and to act on knowledge is the basis of kinesthetic learning. Kinesthetic learning is becoming more widely understood through the work of Jean Piaget (1896-1980), Howard Gardner (1944- ), and other cognitive theorists

At the end of the article some standards for a children’s dance class are stated I would like to use these to cross reference with the guidelines I have noted in the previous literature review to see if they co inside with each other and also the research I come up with through my inquiry.

Literature review 1

The first piece of literature I shall be reviewing was an article wrote by Tinnies a childcare company, on the benefits of dance for young children, the link to the article is below;

http://www.tinies.com/download/78_dance_young_children.pdf

When I began to read this article I found it would be particularly useful to me as it was written by someone with a similar background to me who has also found my route of enquiry of interest as well. This is Mandy Fouracre has been teaching dance for 30 years.

A quote that stuck out to me was;

‘Dance is a universal language’

I found this a particularly good quote because I feel it states that dance can be accessed by anyone and everyone, and tapping into it can be beneficial for all.

 The article also mentions some guidelines that Mandy feels are correct for when a child to start dance I have noted these guidelines below;

 · An enjoyment of music and movement

·        Confidence to attend a class without a parent or prime carer in attendance

·        Familiarisation with a more formal group structure - is the child already attending nursery or playschool for instance

·        Awareness of the need to listen and cooperate in a group learning situation

       

I would like to keep a particular note of this for when I start my inquiry to see if I or people I research into agree with these guidelines.

 

The article then moves on to state what she feels are the benfits of dance to young children from the physical, creative, personal and social development. I found this interesting as I liked the way it was broke down into grouped sections, some of the points I feel I may not agree with because I feel the children would be to young to show development of some of them skills, so again I would like to keep note of this article for when I do my research and observations to see if I see these skills or disagree with the statement.