Phone Call with Alan

Hey All,

Just got off the phone with Alan.

I feel so much better now about this Module cleared up some very un clear areas for me!

Anyone get s a chance speak to him!!

see you all next Thursday for Campus session 2!

Geri

First campus session of Module 2

Looking back this evening of the first campus session of module 2.

I decided to make a mind map on the words Role Models as I am thinking of using this as one of my enquiry questions and maybe go forward with this I thought I would see what ideas and subjects I could come up with.

I actually at first found it quite difficult on my own as I found it quite easy on campus but I had different minds to bounce off of but once you start to write down your mind can run away with you.

Below is a picture of some of the Ideas I come up with:

 

Something that really surprised me is that do we have role models as an adult or do we have role models but they turn in to more realistic role models as we grow and age? I think when we are young we look up to more celebrities, siblings and friends they influence us but when we grow we start to look at people that can influence us in a more practical, professional, career development way it could be anyone.

 

I think this where I see myself focusing my enquiry question on?? I am going to go away tonight and try to look at some of the role models for today's youth see if I can find any literature on this for development.

 

I will keep you updated!!

 

Geri

TASK 4A

When reviewing the Reader 4 I really didn't know where to go with my set of questions.

Currently I am teaching full time in a secondary school I am teaching Dance Drama and also teaching some PE. I really wanted to focus on developing my career and developing the department within the school and really researching where the Faculty can go and move forward. We have only been a faculty for a term and a half so far I feel that we are stronger subjects this way so I really wanted to focus my questions on this and us all being female teachers.

Also I could go down the route of me being a professional fitness instructor in my spare time where I teach individuals and groups to become fit and well. I also love developing this side of my career and feels this really helps with my school life as I can relieve tension and stress this way.

After giving this much thought I really want to focus on school life and the department. I am going to create a SIG within the department record them with certain questions and develop them through my blog here. Also I would really like to get another SIG group developed within the school with other subject specialists maybe governors and even SLT members I really think this is where I will be able to progress my career, development and understanding where the Performing arts really lye and where my professional practise will be more appreciated within a normal secondary  school.

the questions I would like to purpose would be along the lines of:

 How do we as women practitioners influence attainment in KS4 and 5  within the performing arts?

 Is Performing Arts considered an ethical and important subject with the educational system?

How can we as performing arts practitioners influence and motivate the culture of youth society today?

Can we use cross curricular to encourage Performing Arts within the education system?

Is performing arts taken seriously within our school life?

Do we have a Role Models as adults?

Do children of today have aspirations/role models?

 Is admiration a quality we aspire to have? why?

Should we aspire to be like our Role Models?

I am not sure where to go with these questions yet and really need to develop into more detail and really collaborate some of them. I might ask my SIG group a set of questions one week and then we meet again ask them another set of questions. I might get a better understanding of where I am going with this.

Any advise from anyone I would really like your help??

Thanks Geri

SIG - Performing Arts Faculty - TASK 4C

My SIG:

As I am currently working in a school already I thought I would use this to my advantage and use the faculty I work with to create a SIG.

We are all dedicated to our subjects, work really well together but have different thoughts on the questions that I wanted to purpose to them.

Currently their are 4 teachers in the faculty - Myself who teaches Dance and Drama, N. Haynes who is Head of Dance, B. Mason who is acting Head of Faculty and Head of Drama and M. Lewis who is Head of Music. We are all specialists in the areas we teach.

I was stuck on what really to ask the SIG I didn't really want to go the obvious route but was struggling with my questions I come up with 5 decent enquiry questions which I thought I could develop after. I really wanted to cause a debate between the departments.

The questions I proposed to the SIG:

 1. How do we as women practitioners influence boys attainment in KS4 and 5  within the performing arts?

2. Is Performing Arts considered an inspirational and important subject with the educational system?

3. How can we as performing arts practitioners influence and motivate the culture of youth society today?

4. Can we use cross curricular to encourage Performing Arts within the education system?

5. Is performing arts taken seriously within our school life?

I purposed these questions to the group by email and asked that they came with some answers already and that I wanted a debate to arise as I know that each of them have completely different views on all areas.

We have a fortnightly Faculty meeting so I asked if I could film them answering these questions.

So I filmed them with these questions and I will update the video and review the outcome from this tomorrow keep watching to find out the verdict!!

It would be great to also start a SIG group on these BLOGS would anyone like to answer the questions  I have purposed I would really like to hear your thoughts on these questions.

Hope to hear from you soon

Thanks for reading Geri

NEW YEAR NEW READER NEW TASKS!

Hi and Happy New Year!!

Hope everyone had a great Xmas and a really good start to the New Year!!

Has anyone started to look at Reader 4 and the tasks for Reader 4???

This is getting harder..

What's SIG I know its a Special Interest Group.  But is there a place you can go and set up one of these??

I hope anyone out there is confused as I am cant wait for campus session one to see everyone!

See you Soon

Geri

MODULE 1 FINAL SUBMISSION

RELIEF IS THE WORD!!!

I have just submitted my first Module how terrifying and daughenting was that!!

I feel like I can relax for the rest of the Half term. I feel like the biggest weight has been lifted of my shoulders.

It was freally easy to submit if anyone is a computer freak like me and gets worried about uploading files it's sooo easy.
I hope everyone is having a well deserved break and Happy new year!!

See you on campus in the new year ( hopefully)

Geri

Task 3B

Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.

So when developing my knowledge of Professional Networking I looked through the Reader 3. I decided to define the meanings of each heading I didn’t understand what some of these words meant and for me to process and critically reflect them I need to understand them.

 

I first looked at what each word meant and then critically reflected on how I use them in my Professional practise:

First word was Cooperation the definition of this is the action or process of working together to the same end. In the reader it mentions ‘Game Theory’ this is when One player or colleague succeeds this I didn’t understand  as how is this working together if only one person is succeeding. In the work place especially a school you need to work together be collaborative for the school to work as whole. Axelord identified that when you work together you achieve more benefits if you cooperate fully with others. If I look back on my professional practise I wouldn’t be anywhere as a teacher if I hadn’t worked cooperatively with the other dance teacher here at the school we have to work together as a unit so we can discuss the Scheme ‘s of work in place. With the Btec students who is teaching what UNIT who is taking what part. It’s being a team. Now we have turned into Faculty’s this has become more collaborative between departments it’s allowing us to reap the maximum knowledge from each other’s departments by sharing ideas, recourses and schemes of work. Last 3 years at the school it wasn’t as a faculty Performing Arts didn’t exist as a partnership at the school only as single subjects working together inspires students, teachers and other faculty’s to become more collaborative.

 

Then I looked at Affiliation and the meaning is a state or process of affiliating or being affiliated well this didn’t really help me as I still didn’t know what Affiliated meant so I looked up Affiliated and this means officially attach or connect (a subsidiary group or person) top an organization. Also the keywords I got from this was Join up, Join Forces, Merge with. This really for me is connecting back to the subjects becoming a Faculty this engages and merges us as one subject and one unit for the students to see as a force. It mentions in the reader that Humans enjoy forming close relationships with others. This helps us psychologically allowing our brains to operate. There is a quote in the Reader that fascinated me ‘with a network of support that will help us when we are in need’ ( crisp & Turner 2007) For me this is how I use the campus sessions and the blogging when I am in need of help I think right I am going to the campus sessions I will be able to use this time to get the help I need from others as well as give my support to other individuals. It also describes about certain cultures and we all have different levels of affiliation with different communities and networks. The affiliation I have in the workplace would be a completely different affiliation I would have with my social circle and the reason for this is at work we are set to have a certain culture and professionalism when we are in our social network we can really let our levels of privacy down. I think we need to be affiliates of one other in the work place so we can develop our careers further. If I didn’t communicate and respond to the encouragement and communities at school I would not develop as a human being or a teacher. Everyone wants to learn and become more knowledgeable every day we can only do this by hearing critical feedback sometimes we might not like the feedback we are hearing but this is going to allows us to develop as a professional. We have these certain affiliates that we have a closer bond with that will help us grow as a more networked professional. When we are new employees to a work place we have affiliates maybe the person you shadow for a week you will always have a special bond with that person he/she was the person who allowed you to grow in those few weeks or months or even a well established practitioner needs someone there to help them at times of help and unsafeness. I really thought this quote was incredibly true ‘It is up to each practitioner to see how to grow their professional networks sideways (to others at an equivalent level) as well as upwards into the established hierarchy.’

 

Social Constructionsism to define this is to uncover ways in which individuals or groups participate in the construction of their perceived social reality. This means looking at key principles of experiences that make the world what it is today and how different people and communities have different experiences. This happens in school every day when we look at a student in the staff room and discussing strategies to help the student achieve its very strange what a different experience 1 teacher will have to another teacher and how it reflects even to the student’s behaviour.

Constructivism define this word is being institionlized. This theory is not really used in school life any more we don’t really let the student’s just look at the board and write from them anymore we let them be collaborative learner let them have experiences within the classroom for them to grow. The theory here is that student learns from the transferred knowledge taught from the teacher the needs from the student will either be met or rejected by the student. So this is a word that describes how we interact to learn.

Communities of Practice The term “community of practice” is of relatively recent coinage, even though the phenomenon it refers to is age-old. The concept has turned out to provide a useful perspective on knowing and learning. A growing number of people and organizations in various sectors are now focusing on communities of practice as a key to improving their performance. This brief and general introduction examines what communities of practice are and why researchers and practitioners in so many different contexts find them useful as an approach to knowing and learning. Etienne Wenger-Trayner.  This quote for me explains what Communities of practice is without this we would not be able to grow as a practitioner we would not be able to develop new ideas before putting them in a classroom. Wenger Identified that you have to have joint enterprise as members, mutual engagements and share repertoire. This is what we use at all our CPSD sessions at school and how we communicate professionally at the CDTA meetings that we hold every month.