Task 3a: Current Networks

This task takes a look at the current networks I have around me, I feel it is very important to always continuing growing your network you never know who you may meet along the way.
However there is a certain etiquette that comes with each network I have, there are certain do's and don'ts of the industry which must be adhered to otherwise you could find yourself out of the network.

To start off with I have made a mind map of my immediate networks through my current jobs, some of these will be looking into further as they overlap with social networking.

When working for Performing Sports for example I am very conscious that I am using face to face networking in the industry I would like to enter full time. It is so important to give off the right impression from the moment you enter, I always find the school receptionist can make or break your time at that school so I am always very welcoming. I always make a point of finding out the schools key policies, rewards and disciplines in action and follow the best I can, I can also draw upon these to expand my knowledge of teaching in other schools. I try to integrate myself as much as possible within the schools I am teaching

In the dance schools & corporate event companies I am involved with, I am surrounded by people trying to make a career out of the same things I am. To succeed I believe you need a certain amount of courtesy, happy to go with the flow and never seem too difficult! The industry is far too competitive to cause a fuss as Abby Lee Miller says 'everyone is replaceable' 

I have seen it happen a few times, people choose the wrong time to speak their mind and it ends up back firing completely and they loose a contract, or are not asked to be part of the team anymore and simply drop off the radar as word spreads very quickly!

I also have a lot of 'mums' networks around me, teaching a lot of children especially is extra-curricular they are the key too keeping most dance schools and extra curricular activities running! A firm but fair approach over the years I have found to work best. However mums provide a vast network of people! They know mums who know mums, so its always best to keep them onside!

Since graduating from Stella Man College in 2012, I have made sure that anything I post on social media I wouldn't mind any of my networks reading it. Before this I was very much in student mode and I don't think the professional world had hit me until I graduated. 

From Facebook I have found all of the current networks in my mind map. 

Starting off using the basics of just be-friending people can then lead to suggestions of groups they're part of and posts that may be of interest to me. My current networks have all ended up being linked together.

I have thought of a few examples and links of my networks.

I was friends with someone on Facebook who I have known since I was 10 - I saw her dancing for a company called Manic Stage Productions - I joined Manic Stage Productions -  Some of the girls there already taught for Baby Ballet - I kept my ear close to the ground for when they were looking for new teachers - I am now teaching for Baby Ballet. 

At Manic I was very keep to learn extra skills not just dancing - Ive learnt how to perform with fire & stilt walk - one of the pictures I posted on Facebook was seen by CJP Entertainment looking for local performers - I was hired!

Lucy Kate Star Academy is a dance school that is set up by a fellow performer and a very good friend of mine, when she needed cover work I moved my diary to step in this has no resulted in permanent work.

I started working for a company called Dance Busters - which I found via a Dance teachers Facebook page - I received good reports from all my schools - I was recommended to her friend for some other teaching work - I now work at Performing Sports this is one of my main incomes.

I find that alot of established companies do use social media to do their networking of potential employes as it really does give an insight into the persons real life. However I do feel sometimes there should be a line drawn between personal and professional, but when you're trying to make it into an industry this is a very fine line.

Realistically I can do more networking, there are a lot of people on my social media accounts that I could make contact with more regularly, as I rely on this so much I feel I lack in some elements of face to face networking. However when I met people in a similar industry to me, I am always interested in their story, how they have got to where they are and what else they're doing. I take this onboard and try to adapt it to my life.

I think the key is to ask as many questions as possibly before you become irritating! To always hold a professional manner, no matter who you are talking too. Be kind and courteous and treat people how you would like to be treated. You could have thousands of people around you in a network but may not be able to connect with any of them if you haven't got the correct persona and attitude.

 

Image: http://thedailyquotes.com/we-are-all-connected/

Task 2d: Inquiry

Task 2d: For this task I need to look at how the ideas of reflection relates to me, I have been set a series of questions which I will answer with my lines of enquiry I wish to pursue further in mind.

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?

As I am currently juggling alot of different aspects to do with my profession, I have alot of things that make me really enthusiastic, but to follow my line of enquiry as I want to use more of my teaching route, I really am enjoying finding out the difference in teaching different age ranges of small children through to adults and how I need to change my persona to suit.

I admire the other teachers i work with, when I have a difficult class I only tend to have them for a couple of hours however some of the class teachers then have to have them for the rest of the week, I admire the way they adapt their teaching techniques to best suit the class they are teaching.

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

Sheer frustration gets me angry and sad, I will completely over analyse a situation and if things go wrong i will completely blame it all on myself when i reality i cants stop others actions, when trying to teach a class of 35 i will blame myself if i don't reach a point where i wanted to be, when in actual fact my teaching was probably fine and it is many factors that contribute, no class is ever the same 

I find most teachers share my frustration feelings but how you move on it is how you learn. I have a teacher on a Monday who has experienced both my classes and is very supportive and each week gives me a different idea to focus on. She understands that we are all trying to get the end product from children but how we get there is up to the individual.

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 performing. I love all aspects of performing, unfortunately now I'm getting older I'm still doing cooperate events and one of shows as my teaching career takes over but my heart will always be on the stage. However I am now experiencing a new side of this becoming a spectator of my pupils performing, this makes me beam with pride for what they have achieved and each individuals journey in getting there.

At one of the production companies i work with performing is the love that has bought us altogether, whether they are still auditioning or like myself just cant let go and like to keep their hand in with the industry.

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? 

I don't understand quite a few things in life! why some days you can do somethings and some days you cant. Why some days you wake up in a positive mindset and sometimes things just don't go the way you want to.

One of my friends who is an ex performer has found that the by having a positive mindset has helped her through many situations. If you can draw a positive on each situation you can continue to grow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixva4GzaGSM - This shows a motivational speaker, sometimes we all need positive thinking!

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? For example, what level of physical contact would you deem appropriate (and not) from another professional that you would find unacceptable more generally? Why? 

I think there are many aspects to take into consideration, firstly is the audience you are giving the answer to, a fellow teacher? a student? what age is the student? is it a delicate subject? can it be responded to? do you need the audiences input? You can show alot more emotion in dance that you can in an office for example. 

This also the same for physical contact, pas de deux to ballerinas is a normal day at the office however a day at the office would not include lifts! However in teaching you have to assess the environment you're in. In mainstream school not physical contact with a child in allowed even to correct what they're doing. In the dance school i teach it is appropriate and helps with the learning if i can correct the placement of a students dancing. This is due to the protection laws of children and how much they have progressed I remember when my ballet teacher used to have a cain to hit us if we didn't have a straight leg in arabesque!

This has opened up a few lines of enquiry for me, I'm still not sure which one to choose!

• The relation of performing world compared to the other industries, as a performer and a spectator.
• The transition of being a performer to being a teacher
• The different aspects of being a self employed performer.

Task 2c: Reflective Theory

Task 2c is to look at what other practitioners have written and said about reflection.
Until now, i haven't always been aware that i had been using reflective practises in my profession, however after a particularly challenging day I do always think how i could have done it better or what i could have changed. I rarely reflect on why things went well and how i can repeat that situation. Which i now realise this is what i need to do more of.

Reflective practise is the ability to reflect on an action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning. According to one definition it involves "paying critical attention to the practical values and theories which inform everyday actions, by examining practise reflectively and reflexively. - Wikipedia

I am now going to research more into the findings of four reflective theory practitioners Dewy , Schon, Kolb & Moon I can then see what information and ideas i can take from their theories and implement in my own work.

Views of Dewy

Dewey defined reflective thought as ‘active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends’ (Dewey 1933: 118). He set out five phases or aspects. 

Dewy believe that it is best to learn from a situation rather that to try and pre-empt what may or may not happen.

These states of thinking are as follows:

1. Suggestions, in which the mind leaps forward to a possible solution.Drawing different ideas from the day and how you could use them to improve your work.

2. An intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity that has been felt (directly experienced) into a problem to be solved. By recognising what difficulties were faced can be the first step to finding a solution.

3. The use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis, to initiate and guide observation and other operations in collection of factual material. Exploring all options before deciding which method would be the most effective, I find this to be quite a good idea as it triggers connective ideas which you may not have thought of.

4. The mental elaboration of the idea, or supposition as an idea or supposition (reasoning, in the sense in which reasoning is a part, not the whole, of inference). Building upon then new found ideas I would then use these ideas to see what other problems i could overcome.

5. Testing the hypothesis by overt, or imaginative action. (See Dewey 1933: 199-209). Trying to see how the ideas would work in reality, I feel i would need to have a fair few back up plans dependent on the mood of the children, rowing upstream is much harder than going with the flow of children.

Text in red taken from - http://infed.org/mobi/reflection-learning-and-education/

I use this after most classes to ask the children what they have learnt in the session, what they need to remember for next time and what they need to improve for next time. He explains in the 5 stages that you need a starting point in which to reflect from, you can then elaborate on the idea to reflect on byt making it much bigger which can then lead to any problems being solved.

Views of Schon

'The practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomenon before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behaviour. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation'. (Schön 1983: 68)

I feel this relates very much to the what if? method of reflective technique which i used in my journal. This wasn't my most favoured technique, I felt it focused on too much of what could happen rather than what actually happened. However I do believe that you can reflect whilst you're in a situation which is also a view of Schon, I think you need the ability to recognise when something isn't quite going to plan and change it, you can then reflect later on why that change needed to happen.

Views of Kolb 

Kolb's experiential learning style theory is typically represented by a four stage learning cycle in which the learner 'touches all the bases': 
-http://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html

I really like Kolbs theory of reflection, when i reflect i use a similar process, i find it hard to summarise a situation as a whole by breaking it down into stages makes you think about the finer details which you may have missed when evaluating the whole situation. It makes you also think why things happened the way they did from 'concrete experience' meaning the actual situation rather than what you think happened or what would have been the best situation to have happened.

I also like that the 4th stage is actually trying out what you have learnt, from this you can start the process over again, it would be interesting to do this over a half term at school on the same lesson to see if the problems i was having at the beginning were solved and had then progressed into something else. This could also be liked the Dewys theory of elaborating an idea.

Views of Moon

Jennifer Moon, has a more up to date approach on reflecting I can relate to her as she is using students as her examples

Stage 1: Noticing	The student has to register the topic, event or incident as being interesting or important in some way.
Stage 2: Making sense	The student thinks more about what they have noticed and tries to understand it better.
Stage 3: Making meaning	The student starts to ask questions and to connect ideas together.
Stage 4: Working with meaning	The student makes links with other ideas and events. They would probably refer to literature and other research. At this point, reflection on the learning is likely to be taking place.
Stage 5: Transformative learning	The student has reached the point where they can formulate new ideas of their own. They know what they would do if a similar situation arose in the future.

I also like how like Kolb she has used different stages and followed a process in order to reflect. I am going to research further into Moon's theories as I find her very relatable. 

Moon (2004 p82), has coined the term ‘common sense reflection’ to describe one basic level of thinking: - https://reflectivepractice-cpd.wikispaces.com/Definitions

I think that you need a certain element of common sense to be able to deal with the situation in hand, especially with children you need to think on your feet to diffuse a situation or to build upon the class if it isn't quite going to plan!

After reading the thoughts and theories of these practitioners, I have realised how much i do actual reflect on what has happened in my day, i need to distinguish the difference between this and over thinking my day, i need to then use the theories of Kolb and Moon to turn what I'm thinking into a beneficial process which i can use to improve my work.

Task 2b: Reflective writing - Journal Writing experience.

I have just come to the end of writing my journal in a variety of different frameworks, here are my thoughts on each one after writing in my journal each day.

Description technique -
I have found that descriptive technique is almost like writing a story, I have allowed myself to document my thoughts and feeling a little more, as i feel that it describes the situation better and i can relay the actual story rather than it being too black and white.

Initial Reflection -My thoughts on initial reflection are that this pin points exactly how you're feeling at the time the event takes place. I think if i were to write this reflection a few days after perhaps my feelings would be different?

List -I found this technique quite hard, and not too sure I actually stuck to just doing a list, more elaborated bullet point thoughts. Otherwise i felt it would be too brief and when i resisted later on i wouldn't perhaps know what i had been talking about?

Evaluation Technique -Evaluation technique has made me thinking more about the aftermath of things which helps me to understand the best way to move forward with them. I think this technique doesn't always have to be done straight away after the day as your thoughts on the situation can develop and then revisited which would help the evaluation of the situation which would add more understanding of what worked and what didn't.

Graphs Charts & Diagrams -This so far has been my favourite technique, by seeing it in sections helps to break up the situation and show what i can learn from what happened, it makes the information much easier to digest. Below is a copy of my diagram I used the Gibbs 1988 reflective Cycle technique. 'Learning researcher Graham Gibbs discussed the use of structured debriefing  to facilitate the reflection involved in Kolb's experiential learning cycle. Gibbs presents the stages of a full structured debriefing.' - Wikipedia  (As can be seen in the diagram).

What If? - This technique i felt was a little far fetched, almost like i was dreaming a situation, i guess i could then reflect on what i have found from this but i don't feel these are realistic thoughts to draw upon as the children i teach especially in this school are so unpredictable.

Another View -I chose to use my co teacher for this as we would have different prospective of the class which we often discuss after it has finished, I didn't want to do a view of an object as i obviously don't know its personality so would just be my own thoughts! however i do know my co teacher quite well so i can imagine in certain situations exactly what she is thinking.

By doing this task it has helped me to find the best reflective technique which worked for me. I am a picture person so Gibbs 1988 Reflective cycle really worked well for me, I felt it also collaborated some of the other techniques, there is some evaluation in there as well as description of what happened. This would help me to get a wider prosepective on my reflection of the days events.

Task 2b: Reflective Writing-pre task

For my Journal for the next week I am going to be exploring different ways of writing down and explaining my thoughts.

 I am going to be trying a different one each every to see if it enables me to see my day from a different prospective and perhaps trigger some different thoughts and questions.

• Description
• Initial Reflection
• List
• Evaluation
• Graphs & Charts
• What if?
• Another View

In a weeks time I will blog about my thoughts on each one and any reflective styles I found to be particularly useful. Plus any thoughts that may have come up which might not have done using my own journal method.

Task 2a: Reflective Practice

I have found over the years that hindsight is a wonderful thing, however very rarely do we document these thought and remember to continue to learn from them. I am very keen to put this into practice with my journal i shall be keeping to reflect on my professional life on a day to day basis.

This will enable to instantly look back on the day by having it right in front of me, to look at what worked and what can be improved on and why. Also any 'light bulb' moments i have, which can instantly make alot of things make sense!

When I trained at Stella Mann College, we had reflective logs, these were our light bulb moments, this could be a correction that had finally made sense or something we could change to bette ourselves in training, for my journal I am going to go along these lines, I will write about issues and triumphs I have had that day, I will write why I think they happened and what I can do to improve them.

Below is an example of a sheet I will use to fill in each evening, I will also keep a notebook on my for anything I need to jot down instantly.