Current ideas and talks with a fellow BAPP student

So as I mentioned in an earlier blog, last week Lizzie and I managed to arrange a Skype session to discuss our learning on Module 2 and our possible lines of inquiry. In preparation for the session I looked back on all my notes so far so that I would be able to put across all of my ideas to Lizzie clearly. I found this a useful task as it brought myself some clarity on my ideas and enabled me to create more focus and direction within my work. I have found I have three main areas to look into and develop.

1. Motivation and a career in performance

This is something I have touched on briefly in an earlier blog. I am interested in identifying the factors that motivate someone to pursue a career in performance. Also if it is possible to identify the factors, can these then be used to improve your career in anyway. An area that I could focus on is investigating if there is a link between motivation and success. So if I were to look at this area I would look at what are the motivating factors but also what is meant by the term 'success'. Below is a link to my earlier blog with other ideas on this topic.

http://westchloe.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/if-you-have-taken-time-to-read-some-of.html 

2. The similarites and differences between a dance rehearsal and a dance class

This is a topic that is very relevant to my current line of work. I am about to start rehearsals for a winter contract, take class regularly as a professional and also teach dance classes in various schools. I would like to look at the similarities and differences between a rehearsal and class so that I can improve how I act and develop in both environments and also to pass on this learning to my students. I have started work on developing my ideas through mind mapping 'what makes a successful a rehearsal', which I posted an image of in an earlier blog.

http://westchloe.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/a-possible-line-of-inquiry.html

I then completed a similar process for 'what makes a successful class'. By looking at both mind maps together it is easy to see that there are many similarities. This motivates me to want to take this topic further as I think my initial thoughts on wanting to improve in both environments with one study will be possible. Below are images of both mind maps.

3. Preparation in Musical Theatre colleges for a professional career

My third and final possible inquiry topic would focus on the training received at musical theatre colleges and how it prepares students for a career in the performing arts. I have found a fellow student following a similar line of thought whilst reading her blog. Rebecca talks about the struggles she has faced in her career and questions whether she could have been better prepared for these obstacles in her training. Please find below a link to her blog.

http://rebeccajones387.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/4a-mass-of-questions.html

Once I had all of my thoughts organised I was ready for the Skype session with Lizzie. It was really useful and reassuring to share ideas with someone on the course. Our current ideas for topics to follow are not similar, however we found we would need similar methods of inquiry in order to gain information that we would need. For example we talked about my idea of looking at behavior in rehearsals compared to behavior in a class environment. Lizzie and I discussed how discipline is a main factor in both of these areas and how I would need to look at what exactly 'discipline' is and that one way to do that would be to question different practitioners on what they believed discipline is. We then looked at Lizzie's idea of what makes an 'intelligent' dancer. We discussed how she could question different practitioners to see what they look out for in auditions and rehearsals and stands out to them as an intelligent dancer. 

The session was also extremely helpful to me as I had to unfortunately miss a group Skype session with Adesola on 07/10/16 on 'Developing Lines of Inquiry'. Lizzie had written a really useful blog summarising the session but it was helpful to speak to her in person. She informed me that Adesola had said it was important to not make assumptions in the questions you make in your inquiry. They can not have a personal opinion in them as they will influence the responses you receive. The questions need to be open and without bias. It was also mentioned that it is ok for your ideas to be broad topics to begin with and to be reassured that as the module continues the work you do will narrow down those ideas. 

I found the session with Lizzie very helpful and I look forward to future session both with individual members of the course and group sessions. I now plan to refine my ideas through further research and thoughts into what will be most effective in helping me in my career.

A Possible Line of Inquiry

I have taken time to look back through my Module One work, in particular the questions asked in Task 2D. It helped me focus some of my thoughts and decide upon a possible line of inquiry.

A continuing theme throughout my work on this course has been the importance of psychology when working with others. I have mentioned in previous blogs how I struggle to find the balance between teaching work and performance work. That is something that has continued to effect my decision on possible inquiry topics. It is important to choose a line of inquiry that is relevant to your work. However if your work is constantly changing it can be hard to focus your ideas and options!

For that reason I would like to, if possible, look at a line of inquiry that would effect both sides of my work. With the key theme of psychology within team work in mind, below are some questions that I have brainstormed.

What types of learning must you consider when taking a rehearsal in order to get the best performance out of the entire cast?

How does the teaching and learning experienced in a class differ to that experienced in a rehearsal?

Does a performer have to conduct themselves differently in a rehearsal environment than they do in a class? If so, what are the reasons for that difference?


I looked at my questions and decided I needed to start with a broader approach to help gather my thoughts and help provide my ideas with a direction to go in. I thought about, 'What makes a successful rehearsal'. I started with what I thought were the four main factors - The choreographer, the rehearsal members, the rehearsal space and the material. Below is a picture of my brainstorming.

I also found a useful article on the topic. It is from the point of view of someone in charge of a rehearsal, something I will be doing often in the coming weeks so definitely something for me to consider.

http://www.danceadvantage.net/rehearsal-management-tips/

I plan to take these ideas further by directing my first questions to a fellow peer and blogging my thoughts. I am plan to brainstorm in a similar way as I did for a rehearsal with a class environment and compare the similarities and differences. Any thoughts from my fellow bloggers are also appreciated!

Module Two - Developing lines of inquiry

If you have taken the time to read some of my previous blog posts you will notice that there is a very big time gap between this post and my previous one! Since the end of Module One and receiving my results I have been continuing with the work I built upon in the module and developing my career in the meantime. I have read the Module Two handbook and readers and for sometime been thinking of possible inquiry and question options. However I struggle to consolidate these ideas into blog posts to then share with my fellow peers. I have notepad after notepad of jotted ideas, diagrams and lists but often feel uneasy about how to portray them in a post. This is something I need to improve upon in order to be a part of a successful SIG this module!

My struggles initiated a line of thought which could lead to a possible inquiry. I began to think about the relationship between motivation and independent learning. As a self employed performer and teacher most of my work is self-motivated and relies entirely on my own decision making. I want to look at what triggers there are for self-motivation and the affects this can have your work. Here are some questions I have developed.

What different methods are there to discover what inspires and motivates your work?

What effect would discovering what motivates me have on the work I do?

Are there any changes I could implement in my work once I discover these motivating factors?

Would changing the way I think about my own work process effect the people I work with amd the work they produce?

Now I have developed a line of thought for inquiry I am going to  research in order to develop some further ideas. I have been in contact with a fellow BAPP Module Two student Lizzie and have arranged a Skype session for next week. I look forward to developing my ideas over the weekend, sharing them with her and seeing what we can develop together.

Routes of inquiry

I am just over a week into rehearsals for a new dance contract. I feel like I often forget just how busy the first few weeks of a new contract are, full of learning new choreography and making new friends. I have found this transition from home life to dance life quite different from my other experiences so far. This is because I have spent the majority of the past 5 months teaching and not performing. I need to get my performance head back on! I have also been thinking a lot about the inquiry part of this module. There is a lot of questions to consider and therefore a lot of thoughts running through my head. As a result I have decided to list the questions out as headings and answer them individually as a way of trying to organise my thoughts.


What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiastic to find out more about? Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic?

When teaching and in a rehearsal situation what gets me really enthusiastic is witnessing how using different teaching techniques gets the best results out of different students and practitioners. It really interests me that in order to get the best physical performance out of a person you must first understand their psychology and the best way for them to learn. Like the work of Gardner shows, people learn in different ways from visual to auditory to kinaesthetic. To be the best teacher that you can you can not just adopt the style of teaching the best helps your learning, you have to consider also the learning styles of all of your pupils. I like the idea on Gardner's theory of looking through multiple learning 'lenses' as a tool of looking at how people learn.

Someone who I admire and who made me enthusiastic at the different ways of learning was my head of dance whilst I was training. She always placed great emphasis on the fact that just because you might struggle with a step or technique, it didn't mean that you couldn't do it but that you just needed to be shown how to do it in a different way. This made for a very positive learning environment. She also gave me a greater understanding of my own learning style. I found that the use of imagery really helped my Ballet technique. Rather than  just explaining what needed to be achieved she would create images for you to associate with different concepts. It wasn't unusual for her to bring in a set of images to talk through with those of us that were visual learners before the class started. An example of image showing the lines of a dancer to be extended out like the roots and branches of a tree is shown below.

What gets you angry or makes you sad? Who do you admire who shares your feelings or has found a way to work around the sadness or anger?

I have found in my recent teaching work I get both angry and sad when I see a child attending a class not because they want to but because their parents want them to. It makes me angry as I have witnessed that sometimes the child can have a negative attitude towards the class which not only effects their own learning but the learning and creativity of other children in the class. It also saddens me as it may lead to a child having a long term negative attitude towards an art form they could have loved if allowed to discover it at their own pace. As I reflected on my feelings on this I tried to consider different points of view. As a teacher I initially come from a place of anger and sadness as I have not only the one child to consider but also all the other children in the class. However from the perspective of the parent they may wish their child to continue with the class in order to develop their learning for later life, they wish their child to learn to adapt to a situation they might not initially feel comfortable with. I have listed below an article that debates the issue. I found it interesting to read the different arguments and after reflection can understand both sides.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/05/05/forcing-kids-to-commit-to-their-extracurriculars


What do you love about what you do? Who do you admire who also seems to love this or is an example of what you love?

I love that in my work as a performer and teacher even when you are teaching you are still learning. It is a constant process, an idea that has become a lot clearer to me since starting this course. A recent example came from a piece I was teaching to a fellow performer on my current contract. I found that as I was teaching the piece my own usual self doubt on what I could achieve disappeared. I wanted to be able to show the choreography in the best possible light for the other person to achieve the maximum result they could. I developed more as a performer as a result of teaching the choreography.

Someone who I admire who loves what I do is my Sister. We have always both performed and have both started to teach, but have taken very different routes to get there. As a result we are able to empathise with each others situations but also give different ideas on choices or problems due to our different experiences. I really feel that by working together we get better results. I relate it back to the group skype discussion I had with Paula and other BAPP students. By working together we tend to carry out our own appreciative inquiries by being each others sounding board, we create a positive 'collective experience' in our learning, planning and reflection.


What do you feel you don't understand? Who do you admire who does seem to understand it or who has found a way of making not understanding it interesting or beautiful, or has asked the same questions as you?

Something I feel I don't know the answer to is how to get the correct balance for myself between performance and teaching. I have a passion for both and believe one strongly links with the other. I think the more I perform, the more I learn and therefore the more I can pass on in my teaching. However I constantly struggle with the thoughts that the more time and effort I place on one side the other side suffers. For example now I have left England for a 6 month performance contract it has made it a lot more difficult to progress with my teaching qualifications.

I often find this is a topic discussed between my fellow practitioners, especially as a performance career can not always be one of longevity. Just today I was discussing future plans with people on my cast. Interestingly it was not just thoughts on career that effects people decisions on performance but factors such as time away from family, income and stability. There are so many factors to consider that I think it ultimately has to come down to personal choice and experiencing and learning from your own journey that gets you to that choice.


How do you decide the appropriate ethical response in a given situation? To what extent are disciplinary responses different to that you might expect more generally in society?

I have often struggled with how much emphasis is placed on physical appearance in the performance industry. I realise that dance is a visual art form but often in audition situations you see the strength of a dancers technique being over shadowed by peoples opinions on the colour of their hair or choice of clothing. Further to this I think in the performance industry we accept comments on our physical appearance that other industry's would find strange and somewhat outrageous. For example it can be common place for a dance job to advertise for 'beautiful looking girls' but if a building company were to do the same it would be considered unfair work practice. I find in interesting to consider where this acceptability from performers comes from. Does it start in training? It is from peoples own experiences in the work place and assuming it is common practice?




I now look forward to consolidating these thoughts on many topics into one line of inquiry further on in the course. Lots of thinking and reflection to be done!

Journal writing experience

When I first learnt that we would be writing a journal as part of the course I decided I would be very structured in my approach. I went out and bought a specific notepad for my writings down and envisaged a very structured reflective process. However the more I tried to incorporate the journal writing into my lifestyle of teaching and auditioning the further this came from the truth!

I have always been a big list writer, from planning what I need to achieve in a day to listing what to include in a lesson. I think this really influenced my initial journaling style. I found that my day to day jotting down notepad was more helpful to me than my specially bought journal notepad. It was quickly filled with short thoughts on lessons I had taught and diagrams for choreography. I found that I would accumulate these throughout the day and then look at them all and produce a new list of objectives for the next day.

When reading the suggestion on ways to write a journal in Reader 2, I reflected on the journaling style I had used so far. It was positive and productive in that the thoughts were fresh in my head and therefore I was able to write a productive list of aims for the next day. However the adhoc nature
of the notes meant that as I looked back on the lists from the several days earlier I struggled to remember the intentions behind some of my notes. When I considered that I will need to use my journal throughout the course to reference and show understanding of my learning and development, I knew I needed to experiment with different writing styles.

I looked at the list of suggestions and considered which ones would require me to write in a more structured and 'full' style. I decided to try the descriptive approach and to be more analytical by asking the 'What if?' questions. I struggled at first as I was so used to writing my thoughts and ideas in quick bursts when hit with inspiration. Writing in this way meant I really had to slow down my thought process, considering each point carefully before moving onto the next. I found that writing in this way made my day more like a story that I was telling. This meant I would go in to great detail and as a result would think of things that my earlier style of reflection would have missed. For example in one entry I summarised a day of teaching a routine to my cast for an upcoming show we are in. I started by describing what had happened in the day and then asking the 'What if' questions to reflect on what I wished to achieve the next day. By taking time over this entry I considered not only how the piece went as a whole but how each individual dealt with learning the piece. As a result I then factored in an extra practice for the next day for the people that had struggled at picking up the choreography. Had I taken my usual quick approach at writing a list I think I would have established that the piece was not yet ready but not the specific reasons why as I would not have asked the 'What if' questions.

As I continue with the journal process I think I will try and develop my style by incorporating both styles of writing into my reflection process as I can see both positive and negatives for each. I think it depends on what is going on in each day of your life for whether you need a really in depth reflection or not. Quiet days may only require a short list whereas some days may turn into a 4 page story!

A Learning Cycle

What type of learner am I? This is a question that I hadn't considered in some time, probably not since I graduated from college. From reading the Reader 2 and further reading of related articles I have seen how important it is to look at and reflect on your learning in order to evolve and improve the work you are doing.

'Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of evidence' (Kolb 1984 p.38)

Reading about Kolb's learning cycle I was immediately able to relate it to my own recent work of teaching dance. Kolb's learning cycle is about the process of learning from your experience and comes in four stages. Before reading further and reflecting on my own work I would have said I entered the cycle at the 'Abstract Conceptualisation' stage. I like to really think things through before I act. For instance before teaching a class I like to think up all possible outcomes of a class and come up for a plan for each of them. I will make a list of what I am going to include in a class but also make a second and third list for if the class goes in a different direction because of reasons out of my control, for example if the standard and knowledge of the children is different than I expected. Although this way of learning makes me feel prepared it has the negative aspect of time wasting. I could plan two thirds of a lesson that will not get used.

I believe the environment you are put in can have an effect on the way you reflect and learn. Recently I have been teaching lots of new different classes as I covered a colleague's work due to sickness. This meant that I often did not have an in depth knowledge of the children and their abilities before I taught them. Due to the amount of classes I was taking it was not possible for me to come up with three or four different lesson plans for each class 'just in case'. Therefore I was taking each first class with each group as a learning experience. I would try out lots of different things with them and then go home and consider what worked well and and what didn't and use this as my basis for my next class with them. I entered the learning cycle at the 'Concrete Experience' stage. I used an actual experience to reflect upon and gain knowledge from and then altered my future work accordingly.

Looking at the learning cycle further I am able to see where I regularly complete the four stages of learning in my work as a dance teacher. One example I have comes from a new class that I have been teaching once a week for nearly a term. The class has a lot less structure than other classes I am used to teaching as it does not follow a syllabus. I found that the younger children were struggling to keep their concentration with the lesson plan I had in place. During my time teaching the class I was asked to cover a different class which came from a franchise. This franchise uses a lot of imagery in order to involve the children in the class. After teaching the class and seeing how well it went, I reflected on why the images worked and thought of ways to introduce them into the regular class I taught. As a result the next class I had with my regular group I used images in a special 'Sports Relief' themed lesson. The images I used broke down the individual steps that the children had to put together in a routine. The change in the children was remarkable. They were engaged from start to finish and their level of creativity increased. An example of an image I used is below.

I am looking forward to developing my knowledge on reflection and different types of learning. I think it is important for me to have a wider knowledge as a teacher in order to cater to the different learning styles of the children I teach.

An article I found helpful to read further to the information provided in the Reader 2 was - 

                                                 http://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html. 

A whirlwind few weeks - lots of need for reflection!

Its been a few weeks since my last blog and my what a few weeks it has been! Since I last wrote a post I have taken part in a group Skype session with Adesola and fellow BAPP students from all three modules. Initially I didn't realise that the session would involve people from all three modules and it turned out to be very helpful. It was interesting to hear the different directions the course has taken people. It varied from discussions on the positives and negatives to working abroad to talks about healthy eating and body image in the performance industry. I was able to ask people on their thoughts about what they learnt and took away from Module 1 in order to check that I am heading in the right direction. The main point they brought up was that they were able to learn new ways of doing things using technology that they then used in their own careers. It was advised that it is important to always relate your learning to your industry. This is something that I am trying hard to do and I am finding it one of the main positives of doing the course. There are things that I knew existed, such as the power of social media and Web 2.0, but had never truly considered their full impact on my career and the industry that I work in. Through reading different peoples points of view on topics such as the power of Facebook in gaining a job in the performance industry it has made me think about and take a look at my own online profile and make amendments where I think necessary.

Since the Skype session I have had a few important decisions to make. I was offered some new performance contracts with companies that I have not worked with before as well as a third contract with a company that I have performed with for the last two summer seasons. I was left with what felt like the impossible task of deciding which opportunity to take. There were so many different factors to consider. Some factors linked to previous things we have considered in Module 1. I thought about what I would like my CV to look like, whether it was important to take a new job so that I had another company on my CV or if I continued with my previous employer that it would reflect positively on my character and work that they wish to re-employ me. I also considered the type of work I would be doing whilst completing the contracts. Ultimately I made my decision by looking to my future. I know that I wish to ultimately go into teaching dance full time, if you have read my previous posts you will know I have recently been involved in the setting up of a new teaching business. I have chosen to work again with my previous company as I have been given a position with more responsibility which will involve taking rehearsals with the cast and teaching choreography. I think this will be most beneficial for me considering my future plans as I will be able to learn new teaching skills and different ways to approach different teaching scenarios. I am now really looking forward to leaning more about different ways to reflect on my work from the next part of this module in order to take away the most learning from the job that I can. For example I am interested to see what different approaches I will take to teaching choreography when it is meant for professional performance compared to teaching to improve younger children's dance education. Perhaps there will not be as much of a difference as I currently think there will be!

So I now embark on a journey to Malaga next Sunday where I will be living for the next six months! I will be completing the rest of this module from a slightly further distance but believe the course will work very well along side the work I will be doing this Summer.