Tara-Jane

So this week I have been going back and forth with my cv looking in depth at my experience as a choreographer/teacher and student. As the deadline for submitting our AOLs fast approaches I start to panick as I’m overwhelmed with all my achievements and experiences over the past 6 years. Since 2012 I have had a huge interest in community dance and inclusive practise. I’ve always enjoyed community dance and seen and experienced the benefits it has for everybody in the community from young people to adults and non disabled or disabled people. After my experience and knowledge growing within community dance I started to broaden my thoughts and practition into inclusive dance. Inclusive dance has been a huge topic when I critically reflect on my teaching and studying knowledge. As I’m looking through my cv I’m reflecting on my time as a student, remembering the reason I chosen professional dance as a MA and the reason why I love and enjoy my job. I start to reflect and critically think abou...

What excites me in my daily practise ? What do I admire ? What gets me enthusiastic? What makes me angry or sad ? What do I love about teaching ? What don’t I understand ? Like John Dewey I have been thinking about ways to talk about my experience and what having an experience means to me. I have used deweys term of reflective writing to start this essay and throughout will be comparing my reflection on teaching and my reflective thoughts with resources and researchers such as Kurt Lewin, David Kolb,and J Moon to name a few.  Like Dewey I believe reflective thinking is “careful consideration”. “Active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposes form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey, 1993). Like Kolb I believe I learn when involved in having a “concrete experience” Kolb describe this as ‘doing something’ which helps me recognise knowledge and experience more. I’ve always been a very sl...

This blog will be a start to my journal writing experience. I’ve never written any of my experiences down before so this will be amazing to look back over in the next few months. It’s all valuable experience within my professional Practice course. I have choosen to write about an event I worked at over the summer. The event was for Newham council. My role was to promote my dance classes, hand out leaflets, interact with members of the public and get them involved in dance games and different activities. In this blog I would like to reflect on my day beginning with my how I felt about the event and what I was expecting from the event  Key facts to think about: Initial reflection  Mood  Unexpected happenings My thoughts  My feelings Evaluation: What went well What worked  What did I learn What if ? Another view: writing about the event from another perspective 

Knowledge to me is an networked product. Knowledge to me is something you have experienced and learnt along the way of either your professional practises or day to day lifestyle. Like George Siemens I believe knowledge comes from networking and people gain more knowledge and experience through social media.

Here’s some of my ideas from the past few weeks. I have been working on critically reflecting in my professional practise as have been really thinking on these questions to help me start writing my first module. The questions as follows... How have I presented myself to the learning  community ? What are the ethical implications of how I have represented myself ? Ideas having a impact on how I think about myself  What affects my actions have ? I’m finding different methods and ways of teaching everyday 

This Sunday I have had the time to sit and read through my first year module handbook. As I sit reading I come across a philosopher named John Dewey. Dewey is an educationist who was interested in different levels of experience. I find him very interesting and reading Dewey’s work has made me think and reflect on my own teaching and life experiences. Through this I have been able to id entify challenges within inclusive dance teaching and start to write points to start of my first essay on ‘Life learning, professional learner’  I realise that I find it easier to l earn by doing something which David Kolbs describes as a “concrete experience” Kolbs developed the idea of a “learning cycle” which is a way to identify experience and ways to reflect. 

Review of professional practise: life learning, professional learner! So as my first year module approaches I start to look into what my views are as a dance teacher in this industry. I reflect on my teaching style, my experiences, my students and my classes putting myself first as a learner then as a teacher. It’s funny to me because before today I haven’t really had time to reflect to deep into my thoughts as a learner I’ve always kind of “ just done it” and got on with it as I’ve never had lessons on “how to teach”. From 15 years old it’s been something I have experimented independently within community dance without little help . Now as a student and learner myself I realise I have so much more to learn. My students are my teachers, they teach me how to teach they help me experiment and give me ideas of what works and what doesn’t work in a class room. Am I teaching my students things I was never taught or am I teaching my students things that I can not do myself? I am explaining m...