Tara-Jane

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...

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...