Quotes

'We cannot solve our  problems with the same thinking we used when we created them'

Albert Einstein

Task 3A - Ethical - Relating to moral principle or the branch of knowledge

I decided to Mind map what current networks I used I then looked into how these have developed or how much I value them for my professional development.

This is what my Mind Map looked like please excuse my writing and how messy it is, it was just how to get my thoughts down on paper please see the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/104629886@N07/11087384584/

So the Networks I am currently using:

• CDTA - This is a professional network that I use for the school this is a Dance committee that has been set up by the Hertfordshire Dance teachers. This network I value greatly it helped me incredibly when I first started as an unqualified teacher at school. The network allows me to develop as a professional and also allows me to use recourses. To use this and capitalise it more I think we should meet on a regular basis and be able to have more time to use our time to develop choreography.

• FACULTY MEETING - This is a professional Network that is set up at school by my Head of Faculty I use this time to develop my learning and teaching. This Network is very institutionalised as its run by school we have to meet on a certain day, certain time its very regimented and we have to keep to an agenda. I feel this would work better and as teacher we would value this network more if we could involve some of our own ideas into our department meetings instead of being told by SLT what we needed to talk about and discuss. To use and capitalise on this time more I would like for us to network as performing arts teachers more,look at each others recourses discuss them try and link them at the same time for example having my music dance and drama looking at the same Scheme of work at the same time. This I am going to suggest next meeting and see if we can include this keep you eyes posted for an update.

• FACEBOOK/TWITTER- This is a network but its not really professional more social for me. To capitalise and value this more I would like to make it more of a professional network I looked at how to do this and I decided that I could create a Teacher network for the school so we could communicate outside school in our private group. I was also thinking not just for my network at school but for different practitioners around the UK to be able to communicate together share ideas and even maybe meet once every 2-3 months to share recourses Schemes of work. I am also going to publish my Blog link on here start to promote it the blog more I feel I would get more feedback doing it this way. As a teacher you do have to be incredibly careful with Facebook and Twitter and any other social networking site. The students are so clever now and get some how on to your pages you juts need to make sure everything is private.

• CAMPUS SESSIONS- This Professional Network place is where I value everyone's opinions, judgements different walks of the Performing arts world and everyone is now in the same boat we have come from so many different places but actually all ended up on this course which is actually a wonderful thing. I feel that I can get so much inspiration and motivation from so many different people on this course just a great asset to have. To capitalise on this more I would like to have more contact with students on the course I feel we should create a Facebook group just for Module 1 students so we can ask questions to each other. This would be much easier than doing it through the blog and actually a much better way of keep connected and we would still be doing this professionally as we could have the Facebook group a closed private group.  I would like to have more Campus sessions for me I learn from being there and doing I would like us to have some more time.

• BLOGGER - This Professional Network for me has been hardest to get my head around I feel that I have learnt to deal with it and use it to the best of my advantage. It took me 2 weeks to set up an account and I really didn't understand what I was doing. Actually now I feel quite confident with it. I value this system and network so much it actually makes me every night look on other students blogs and read what they are doing what tasks are they on. Do they like the same things as me, are they interested in the same stuff. Who is working in a school unqualified to. Its great to meet people who are on the course but you never seem them as they are working. The blogger lets you be apart of a Professional Network without coming to the sessions. To make this Network more efficient and effective I would like to advertise this on my Facebook and Twitter pages just as I have current professionals and practitioners that would comment on my blog and other blogs if they new about this. Also was trying to introduce the Blogger to the school system at school. We could have our own professional network and also allow the students to have blogs so they could upload homework and even we as teachers could see this comment on it and give them ideas to make it better. In a class or Home environment.

To conclude on task 3A without Professional Networks we would be lost as professionals practitioners. There would be no where to communicate, no time to share ideas and develop ourselves as a outstanding practitioner.

Thanks for reading Geri

Task 3C - 5 Sources

I decided to work out which sources I find most useful by putting a spider diagram together to arrange them into importance.


I decided to go with the below sources as I feel they were more suited and were more important to me in my line of Practise.

1. CDTA - This is a committee set up by the Hertfordshire Dance/Performing arts teachers from the local schools we meet at every chance we can we find it hard to meet up as we are busy but this really is important to me. We as a group of teachers use each other’s recourses, take ideas for Schemes of Work from one other. We also discuss ideas for choreography. Every year the committee put together the Hertfordshire Dance Festival where the Secondary, Primary and other schools who have learning difficulties will get together over 2 days and celebrate dance that going on in the schools. This day makes me so happy when I look back on the last 2 I have been involved in just shows how inspiring dance and the performing arts can be to so many different children. Children with disabilities, children from a bad upbringing and children from a wealthy upbringing. It really shows how this can bring communities together.

2. GOOGLE - This for me is one of the biggest sources I use in day to day practise I use this source to research practitioners, different styles, drama techniques that I may not be confident in. For me this has helped me with so much of my professional Practise being able to go online and type in a sentence about the performing arts and it will give me a suggestion or a link to another page that would help me. This has also helped me with getting recourses together for my Dance classes that I teach. This has also helped me expand my outside Business of teaching Zumba as soon as you type my name into Google it comes up with that I am a Zumba instructor in Hertfordshire. It's great advertisement and its free!!. Google brings me on to my next Source.

3. YouTube - This site has been my saviour some days. This source has inspired me to look up new practitioners I have so many aspirations to dance and choreograph like some of the choreographers on this channels. I have my own account and like to save the best Dance channels to my account for me this really helps me choreograph for my lessons at school. Sometimes I get stuck so for a bit of motivation and Inspiration I look up choreography for example my strength in dance is street but my weakness is Contemporary choreographing it- so I look up contemporary dances and it allows me to access so many different choreography’s. YouTube- May sometimes has a copyright issue but I really never copy the whole choreography and I always just take tips from different channels.

4. CPSD - At school with CPSD sessions that run every Thursday after school. These are so interesting and helpful they really help me in development of my professional practise. You maybe were wondering what these sessions consist of. They are basically ran by different members of staff in the school where we share good practise and beneficial Teaching and Learning points. So every week we have a different session we can go to. I recently went to one based on Engaging boys now doing dance in KS3 is really hard as you can understand the boys engagement is far and in between. So the Music teacher delivered an excellent Session on engaging boys and how we can do it with our own 10 ten tips for doing this great easy to follow and had really interesting points which I have actually used within my classroom and are actually working.

5. CAMPUS SESSIONS- This has to be one of the most important recourse for me as this allows me to develop as a practitioner in the professional world. I am really enjoying going to these sessions it helps me improve my speaking and listening skills that I need as a teacher and a student. It inspires me to see the Module 2 and 3 students and how they are doing on the course and where we will be as students in a year’s time. But also just get inspired and motivated for what I really want to do. Alan has been a great motivator as he has allowed us to have ownership on our own practise without being told me where to go and how to do it. It's your knowledge that you already know and putting it into practise.

Doing this has really proved to me that we use so many sources in a day to day professional life and we don't even realise.

Thanks Geri

Performance management

So today I had my performance management I have been nervous about this all weekend. I thought I would blog about this as this is so important in the Teaching world as you have performance management all the time. It's critical in the work place to know how to reflect on yourself once you have been reviewed and observed by your line managers.

So my 2 line managers were observing me the 2nd half of the lesson which I didnt know at this point. I started the lesson off with the students completing a starter activity and moving on to a more practical activity the Lesson was based on Choreographic devices and choreographing for the year 11 end of year production.

I started to get more and more nervous as the lesson went on as I knew they would be coming in.

So half way throught the lesson they were my heart sunk have I remembered to write everything have I produced a good enough context book about the class, have I demonstarted enough to the students so they know now how to go and choreograph. It's really wierd how your mind plays tricks on you to make you feel and 2nd guess yourself as  a tecaher.

The lesson went really well and I got an OUTSTANDING which is amazing news and I am so pleased that I ahve come away with such a great result.

So critcially relfecting on myself there are things I need to do better slow down when I am giving instructions make sure I evlauate at the end of every lesson about me. Make sure that I plan the questioning for the students in every lesson it works so much better. I also need to make sure that if a group of students are struggerling with choreographing given them a bank of steps they can use.

It has been really nice for me now to write this down and express how I feel about the Performance review and how I feel that I have got on.

I also recieved some thank you notes from my Year 8's today saying how much they have enjoyed my lessons this year so far. How much confidence I ahve given them to stand and perform this means so much to me as it shows what we are doing is worthwhile. Is performing arts relevant in today's society yes it is!!! Gives the students in my school the ability to dtrive for bigger better things and encorages them to be more confident and answer more questions in a class enviorment.

Please see below the pictures of the Thank you notes:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/104629886@N07/11049766765/

Campus day 3 - BAPP course

Todays Campus session was very enlightening and there was plenty of discussion and debate.

The morning started off with Paula and Lizzy putting the question to us to start the debate and it was: What,. if any, relevance does performance arts have on society?

It started off with some of the students putting their views and opinions on this. We mentioned that everyone is easily influenced and of course it's relevant in todays society.

Leon one of the students suggested that actually he took the question and flipped it completely differently: he asked the question of what does relevance mean and what society??? He thought that maybe you could change the relevance to importance.

Which actually got us all reflecting on this question in a completely different way. The debate went on for an hour we actually picked this question and analysed it .

I put forward to the groups that in today's society at school that the higher rareky of school society don't consider Dance as a valued subject why? They want the students of today to part of this collaborative working environment and independent learners. I was suggesting that schools want to change BTEC to GCSE as it doesn't go towards the 5A* - C grades. I mentioned that it doesn't matter if the students wont be able to get the grades. My students at school are very much doers. They love to perform all different styles and that's what you get from the BTEC.

We discussed that you need to understand the question then develop it , mind map, refine the question.

We discussed how some society's consider dancers to be less intelligent to someone who is an English teacher for example Alan mentioned that this is a joke to think like this. How do we think as dancers is just as intelligent as someone that Teaches English for example to how we learn a dance we break it down, we learn it systematically then we look at technique to improve just like you would in the academic world. We as dances can develop questions like we develop dances. We break the dance down when we are cleaning it when we deconstruct a question we should do the same analyse the question and define it.


Paula mentioned when writing lines of Inquiry you should remember these points:

• Structure
• Articles
• Research
• Your Opinions
• Evidence of others people's opinions
• Open your mind
• Analyse it

We then split into groups of 4's where we took words that Paula gave us and started to think critically about them or Alan would say thinking critically. We discussed the words we wanted to use then we had to find out the meanings and define what the words mean to us and how we use them in this Performing Arts industry. We then had to film these to camera.

My group picked the words:

• Inter-subjectivity meaning- agreement of knowledge and communicating this with other people.
• we then looked at what Inter meant as it linked to the next word Inter means - Between or among Mutually agree.
• Interpretation- So we decided to look up what this word means we thought as a group we knew but considering what Inter means we re looked at the word. So interpretation means the explanation of a meaning and how you look and define it. So how does this link to INTER - we discussed that when everyone interprets something they do this all the same way its when you analyse this that you get a different outcome.  Bit like my students at school.
• Analysis- Provide evidence, dissect, the argument, breaking a subject down.
• Evaluation- When we evaluate this is a conclusion of the knowledge you have gained it's personal you own interpretation on your values or what you value as a person. I also ask my students to PEER asses evaluate which means that they have to give their opinion on someone else.

Below is my link to my flickr where I have added the pictures of Words definition task:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/104629886@N07/10980686506/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/104629886@N07/10980804803/

We then went into 2 groups where we discussed the Modules we were on. In my group Module 1 we discussed task 3 and Alan went into detail into some of the questions we had to ask.

I had to leave a little earlier so I didn't get all of the questions. My question was about the task 3C it was about the 5 sources it was a little bit of a silly question as I knew the answer.

A wise word I remember from today's and past campus sessions - You are not at school where you given information you are in a  professional practise degree where you are expected to go and find the questions create the answers. Reflect on your learning and how you are going to become a better practitioner of your subject.


I hope this helps if you wasn't at the campus session today.

Comment if you have any questions:

Geri

Extended Questions for Lines of inquiry - Task 2D

So when reading into the Line of Enquiry deeper I saw the extended questions we needed to develop and ask ourselves. I have come up with these lines of inquiry questions to put forward:


1. Do we have a Role Models as adults?
2.Do children of today have aspirations/role models?
3. Is admiration a quality we aspire to have? why?
4. Should we aspire to be like our Role Models?

Please feel free to comment on any of the questions and let me know your thoughts.

Hope to hear from you soon

Geri

Inquiry Task - 2D

One of the tasks we were given for Task 2 was to reflect on the important questions that are emerging from our training and practise.

The inquiry questions that I have developed are:

1.       How do the Arts impact on the children of today’s society?

2.       How do we as Practitioner improve the students of today?

What are your thoughts on these questions and what are your current experiences. I would really like to hear your thoughts.

Thanks Geri

Reflective Theory Task -2C

How do the Arts led to a unique and valuable experience?

John Dewey was an educationalist and a philosopher that was interested in ‘experience’. He believed that the process of interaction and engagement led to a transformation of experience. (Dewey 1916)

I wish to reflect on the Arts as a unique and valuable learning tool in education. From WBL for the past four years I have gained a significant number of reflective techniques and making my Teaching practise a more critical experience. I am expected to reflect after each lesson not only the learning of my students but my own personal learning as a practitioner of the Performing Arts. 

As a expectation at the end of every lesson the students will reflect on the lesson and the learning experience they have achieved. Each student is expected to state verbal or in written form one positive in the form of ‘What Went Well’ this allows a student to reflect on the positive aspects on the lesson and their learning first. Then One form of critical feedback on the lesson how could they improve their future learning. In the form: of ‘Even Better If’. This allows the individual to critically reflect and assess their improvements.

The arts naturally lend themselves in creating a unique valuable experience for every student, regardless of ability, allowing the student to fill safe and confident in this environment.

As a practitioner I have to be aware that students will develop in their own time not to force the growth of the students but to let the student develop in their space and time. Each individual is unique and will find this learning experience different. When reflecting back on my lessons I have to ask myself have I allowed them time to grow, give feedback and reflect on their learning?

How do I ensure each student experiences Interaction?

In my lessons I have to ensure that all students experience interaction, when reflecting back on my lessons I discovered that all students are interactive by group work learning they do this by a starter activity. A student might be unconfident to express their thoughts aloud straight away, by them speaking to a partner or peer their allowed to get this thought out to them first and then if they feel confident enough I will ask the students to share it with the class. This activity is called ‘think pair share’. When the students are creating choreography and devising scenes in my lessons the students will be working with a group of peers to create an active learning environment this is the practical part of my lessons where each student is involved. I make myself available for any student who struggles with this and needs more support. I also use high level ability students to work with lower ability students this actually gives the lower ability student more confidence this also allows the high ability student to develop leadership skills. Once students have performed in class I like to give them time to reflect on their peer’s achievement by giving peer assessment. They will do this by giving a positive feedback ‘What Went Well’ and one critical feedback ‘Even Better If’. Students are allowed to either write this or use a verbal form. Once they have experienced this I will use high level questioning for the higher ability students who I feel who could achieve more by answering more developed questions.

 

How do I ensure that each student is experiencing engagement?

Each student in lesson experiences engagement by me being a motivator and the student being motivated as soon as they enter my classroom they know there will be a ‘Starter’ waiting for them. This engages all students to learn and be incredibly focused for the lesson ahead. When the students are creative I make sure that I am interactive with the students I am their if they get stuck they can discuss with me any problems with devising or choreographing. I like to also engage my students with Music when reflecting back on my lesson the lessons that the students have achieved more in are when music and media have been involved. As technology is so part of today’s society they connect and are instantly engaged. I will engage students with high level discussions about the subject we are looking into.

 

Reflecting back on my initial question I firmly believe that the Arts have a dramatic effect on the learning and development of each individual. It is essential for me to give myself time to critically reflect on my own learning experiences I believe this will enhance my skills in becoming a stronger and more productive Teacher.

 

 

Task 2B - Journal Writing Experience

My half term was a strange one I moved into my own flat. Reflecting back on my past year I have completely turned my life around I was living with my ex-partner for a year and decided I really wasn’t in love with him anymore looking back on my life a year ago and considering where I am now I have made so much progress with my personal life gaining confidence within myself and believing in my own ability and what I can achieve as an individual and as a professional. I think this has made me such a better, happier and nicer person with work life as well as social life. So my half term was really busy usually I mope about and look after my niece and nephews but this half term was literally monitored by schedules, times and dates which looking back works for me as a person as I like to have a timetable and schedule to go to. I find it really helps me to make lists. I also have been writing in my journal every night my to do list for the next day this helps me to switch off of a night time using the journal as a checklist shows that I can decide what I need to work on and do for the next day.

So half term had gone by and I was back at school. This week at school has been a very hard week for me. I really enjoy going back to school after a half term break as I don’t like to get out of a routine. I like to be in a routine, this helps me be motivated and actually inspires me to choreograph better dances for my classes and build better Schemes of work for the students. It was a normal Monday and reflecting back on my day it was a great day. Between the hours of 9-10 I have my BTEC year 10 students who are working on a new urban routine some of the students are finding this difficult so I broke down the steps for them and cleaned the routine up. I was sure I had to do this as on the last day of term one of the students was extremely frustrated as they were struggling to get the moves and I told her she needed to work on her movement memory. She came back to class and had worked on it all half term every day for 30 minutes and you could see the difference not just me but the whole class and she was so impressed with herself. Looking back this was really a break through lesson for her and I am so proud she is finding her confidence in this style of dance. As well as teaching Dance and Drama I teach PE, the lesson after my Dance was PE and I teach swimming. The pool was out of action this really is not good timing as the students are due to do their assessments. Another teacher and I decided that we could test them on their life saving skills on land this is where we built a test for them to do on the computer. There was one student who really struggles with theory based lessons and I know that feeling. I a a practical learner and I enjoy practical subjects I asked him what was wrong he said he find it hard to write down. So we decided to get him to Dictaphone his answers. Reflecting on this boys experience makes me feel that we should do this for more of our boys who are struggling to get to grips with writing and actually like to do practical. He felt like he had accomplished something instead of being demoralised.

So Far my day was going well.. THEN THE DREADED LESSON happened, I had year 8 dance now these year 8’s are incredibly Arty and really enjoy dance. We are studying 70’s movements and Saturday night fever. This was the first lesson each student was engaged the whole lesson they all performed at the end of the lesson and reflected on what they had learnt and evaluated it back to me at the end of the lesson. I had a few boys and girls not in kit. I kept them behind as the others went to get changed in the dance studio. Whilst waiting for these particular students to get their diaries I went back into my teaching room which is the hall. We are currently working on the Christmas Pantomime for the last week of term and our year 9’s have been painting the back drop for us in there to so there were some paints on stage. I could smell paint and went on to the stage what I saw on that stage was vandalism and just completely torture for me. Another student from a different year ( I still don’t know who yet) had crept on the stage when I was teaching and  vandalised all the students work and stole my property took my USB stick which has all my SOW for school all my OFSTED theory work on it.  I was incredibly upset and thought what student would do this to someone. I then decided to go back on the stage where I looked for my USB after half an hour of searching I found it whoever had done this had broken my USB in half and chucked it in a draw. The state of the stage was disgusting I have actually put some pictures below for you to see which are actually in my Journal. The school have taken this very serious we are currently interviewing students who it could be and deciding what to do with them when we find out who it is.

What really made me feel incredibly awful all week is that when I was walking around the school I felt much intermediated that one of those students could do that to the student’s property and my property. It really made me reflect on whether I could actually teach at that school anymore. I went to teach my Zumba class that night and I felt very low and down in myself but when that Latin music plays and the clients come to your classes you feel so happy and alive and you really consider what is important in life.  I took a really long bath that night and reflected on the experience I had that day. These were the questions I put to myself and the thoughts that were running through my mind.

1.       Yes one/two students have destroyed your property

2.       But look at the students who look up to you who you motivate, who you inspire.

3.       Do you leave because of one/two students or do you man up get on with it go to school the next day with your head held high and try to work this out.

So I decided that I wasn’t going to let this person get the best of me and all the work I have done for the school. I have built my career at that school from nothing. I am unqualified teacher who is being regarded as a qualified teacher by all members of staff I deliver excellent lesson every day for students. So that’s what I did. Really this experience has made me open my eyes and consider the pupils and youths we are teaching and who are growing up in our society.

 

What are your thoughts on this world wind of a week??? Let me know your thoughts.

 

Geri

Below see the pictures from the vandalised Stage:

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/104629886@N07/

 

My Journal Task 2

For some reason I am finding this Task really hard. I am finding it really hard to get motivated and inspired.

 

I started with buying a Journal and started to take photos of classes and things that would give me stimulus to write I did this and started to annotate the pictures. But it just seems that I am not really finding things to talk and write about.

 

So I am going to now work on new and different strategies' such as:

 

1. Descriptive

2. Initial Reflecting

3. Evaluating

4. Graphs

 

 

So now I am going to look at the Reader and at least start to write Task 2C. I feel I maybe over thinking things has anyone got any ideas on how to approach these tasks?

 

any suggestions would help loads...

 

Thanks Geri