Reflecting on Module 2 whilst thinking about my Critical reflection

Slightly hoping I am not the only one who has found Module 2 a whirl wind?!

So after days, weeks and even months of stressing and thinking of how completely lost I am, I am starting to hope things are piecing together. It's come to the time where I am about to write my critical reflection on the inquiry proposal. And I have that many views and feelings I have no idea where to begin. I went from having 5 different possible lines of inquirys to having to take a chance, choose one and go with it. Thankfully it's turned out I am so interested in my inquiry so far.

Reflecting now as I blog I can only say, I am relieved things have come together. But I can also say I still think I have a long way to go. I feel like as a person and in my career I am sometimes learning more and moving forward a lot more than what my work is, but without doing well in my work I won't be able to achieve that 'dream job'.

Does anybody else feel this module has been a massive whirl wind?
How different do you think it has been to module 1?

Hope everyone has a lovely christmas and looks back on how much they have achieved this year!!

Award specialism title

Title: BA (hons) in professional practice in performing arts.

I have decided to choose performing arts, becuase I feel the main figures and evidence in my inquiry is from performing arts not just dance.

Rationale:

In 2015 I graduated from KS Dance LTD with a Level 6 Diploma in Professional Dance with a commendation from the examiner. I then went into the dance industry auditioning and working whilst also teaching in a private run dance school. At the end of 2016 I began to realise my main passion was teaching and I wanted to pursue this further. After having a think about where my main sector of teaching would be I decided on the secondary sector because that is where I first found my passion for dancing, I had lots of support from my teachers and I want to now give back what I received during my secondary school time. I am currently volunteering in my own high school Droylsden Academy, whilst having my own Youth Dance Company and working a part-time job and completing my BA (hons) in Professional Practice. Because of my passion in the secondary sector I have decided to look at ‘How GCSE doesn’t get the equal treatment to academic subjects and why this happened.’ The reason behind this is because I believe a GCSE is a GCSE no matter what subject it is achieved in. I wanted to discover people’s opinions and the Arts Councils views on GCSE dance and the importance of it. Although my main area of research is dance some of the figures from my research have been summarised over the whole of the performing arts subjects which has led me to the chosen title of performing arts in my awards specialism title. 

Does anybody think I should change to dance? Or do you think I have a clear reason behind why I went for performing arts? 

Literature- Arts education is a postcode lottery.

Another article that I have come across is "Arts education is a postcode lottery."
It says what Labour Manifesto are going to do to help the arts industry;
"refers to the creative industries as “a source of national pride”, and promises to “put creativity back at the heart of the curriculum”

But then also:
"This stops short of a pledge to add an arts element to the Ebacc – as the subset of GCSEs given special status by the government is now known"  

So the goverment want to fund into arts in the education but they are not prepared to put it into the Ebacc subjects? Another confusing moment for me. As the atricle goes on it explains that private schools are encouraging dance and the arts sujects and rpovide the best facilities. So parents that are paying for their childs learning are paying for them to be involved in the arts but not all goverment led high schools are providing this.

Matt Hannock is supporting dance is education and says: 
“We want to build an economy that works for everyone not just the privileged few,” said arts minister Matt Hancock in a speech to the creative industries last September. “No one should be excluded from any of your industries because of their accent, their gender or their postcode.” 

“Talent knows no boundaries,” he said, and I agree. But talent needs the building block of a decent education in the arts.

Here is the article- 
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/05/post-brexit-britain-need-theatre-public-investment-creative-economy   

Literature - Students taking arts at the GCSE level drops.

I have just come across an article that states percentages of students taking art subjects dropping the lowest it has been in a decade.

“In 2016, the North East experienced a particularly sharp drop in arts entries. The proportion of pupils entering at least one arts subject now ranges from 57.3 per cent in the South West to 47.8 per cent in the North East, a gap of 9.5 percentage points.”

Although the above quote does not prove that GCSE dance doesn't get the equal treatment as academic subjects, I also came across another quote that shows schools push the students towards academic subjects in order to make their school look better. Surely that is wrong? What does it matter to a school if the GCSE is in geography, or language or dance or music? A GCSE is a GCSE and if your student is taking part in the class and achieving well surely this shouldn't matter what subject this is in.

"It measures the percentage of students in a school who achieve five or more A*-C grades in English, mathematics, two sciences, a foreign language and history or geography at GCSE.
But critics say this has led to a decline in arts subjects, as teachers encourage bright students to enter for the Ebacc to boost the school's performance rating."

I honeslty do not believe you should encourage students towards the Ebacc just to improve your schools rating. It is a very frustrating but interesting read for me. Here is the atricle. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/09/21/number-pupils-taking-arts-subjects-gcse-falls-lowest-level-decade/
 

Inquiry tool - Surveys.

I just complete a short survey on survey monkey to see if it was easy and straight forward. I am posting the link, please let me know what you think or any other questions you believe might be helpful for my inquiry.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RBRWZFD

Thanks.

6A- Informal questions with SIG

Today I carried out a few questions with my SIG group on facebook to get some feedback on a few questions and see what data I can collect from the few questions given. The SIG is a few girls from this BAPP course that are heading down the route of teaching. The reason I am trialing out with them is because once they have answered this I can then get feedback and also see if the data received is helpful towards my inquiry. This is the first trial and I am hoping to do a few more before deciding on my final questions.

1. Have you ever come across or noticed anything that has made you see as a teacher that dance does not get the equal treatment to academic subjects?

2. Do you personally believe dance should be as important and equal to academic subjects at GCSE level?

3. Have you ever come across any parents that do not support dance as an important subject? If so what has been said?

Above is the answers I received. I will also be doing a trial questionnaire to see what answers I can receive from that. The SIG group have all really helped eachother and as we are all going down the teaching route I found their answers really useful.

 

 

6B- Reflecting tools

Whilst deciding how I will collect my data here are my current views on the four tools explained in module 2:

Observation:
Personally it is not something that I believe will massively benefit me, although I will be observing answers from my interviewees I don't plan on observing such things as students in a class, or a teachers teaching method.

Interviews:
This is going to be my main way of collecting data, whether I interview and use video or just voice notes that is not yet decided and also depends on the candidate being interviewed. I am to keep some informal (to the students) and others formal (teachers in the workplace). The reason I am keen to use interviewing as one of my main tools is because I think I will get a better responce rather than if I sent them away with questionares to fill out.

Survey and Questionares:
I am intending to use this for if I decide to ask for parents opinions and they are happy taking part in my inquiry. I will be making them and sending some students home with them for the parents to answer. I am not yet 100% sure on this but the reason why I think this would benefit my inquiry is because I want to know if the parents agree that dance is an important subject at GCSE level. I think if I ask the students to answer for them I may not receive the correct information.

Focus groups:
Focus groups seems to be a way to save time, although I do not believe this would work for the students as some having a bigger character than others and therefore I may not receive the most from all students. This could be a way for collecting data from the teachers as if I it was videoed I could re watch and collect what I needed from the group descussion.

I have set out my two main tools which I am to use in my inquiry because it is what I feel I will achieve the most from (interviews and questionares). However, I am not ruling out any others as I would like to trial them and see how they go before making any decisions.

Group Skype

My aim from the group skype was to discuss whether my question was the right question and if I was on the correct path. I had the chanced to speak to the group and explain my idea behind the question:
Does dance get equal treatment to the academic subjects?
It was clear after I started to explain about my research so far that dance does not get the equal treatment so I was already answering the question. So although it was an interesting topic and I was finding out what I needed, I was already answering the question. From here I made a few notes of what I want to find out,

• The history behind this answer.
• What some students and parents think to this.
• How can people in the arts change this?
• Should the arts subjects be less important than academic
• Are there jobs in the arts as sucessful as academic jobs
• Why people who don't dance think it isn't important in GCSE

From here I have lots of work and research to do in order to start pulling my inquiry together.
What I ideally want to do now is:

1. Make a questionare for a range of students to fill in, dance and non dance students.
2. Overview some books and history on GCSE
3. Speak to teachers who have been teaching for 10-15 years and see how GCSE dance has changed.
4. Speak to parents and see if they are influencing on their children if dance is important as other subjects.

Anyone taking part in my inquiry will only be participating if they are happy with this and understand exactly what I will be doing with their inofrmation.

I feel this week I have gained a more clear view on where I want to be moving with my inquiry.

Case study 3.

My thoughts on case study 3:

• Understanding that it is a business being ran, but how is it going to carry on for years if the treatment is bad. It's 2017 now and social media has a massive impact on things like this. One person can write a bad review and it can go viral and shut the place down. It may be a business but you have peoples health in your hands, rates being cheap may be good now but creating a bad reputation can ruin that very quickly.
• I don't believe the teaching methods are ethical, although the teacher may be being truthful (Denontologist) I again believe you shouldn't hurt somebody elses feelings. Not only this, but one persons opinion on a student maybe completely different to a majority of other teachers. 
• Belittling a person does not make show any morals at all. There is so many ways you can talk to a dancer, constructive critism I agree with, it makes a dancer better. But going about this situation in the correct manor would of had a different outcome.
• I am a big believer in treat people how you want to be treated. How can you get respect from your students if you don't give respect to them and there feelings.
• One ethic I use in the classroom is ensuring safety: How is this teacher ensuring this when he is putting everbody at risk of an injury? Personally as a dancer and a teacher this is not something I would put up with.

Case study 1 & 2

Case study 1: 

Ethics-

• Nobody has taken responsibilty for what happened: 'The NHS finds it notoriously hard to admit a mistake.' How is that fair? People lost lives because of this and families deserve answers.
•  Truth. Are we receiving the truth?: 'The two health secretaries, A
  lan Johnson and Andy Burnham, must convince us that they did not deny a public inquiry out
  of fear of what it might uncover about the system as a whole.' Why must they convince us? Why can we not just receive the truth?
• How can you have ethics and morals if they believe that: 'There is no statutory obligation to be honest with patients when things go wrong.'
   
  Above are three ethics I believe are important and I also believe we did not see, being truthful, taking repsonsibility, and honesty.
  
  
  Case Study 2: 
   I have read a few peoples blogs on this before writing about it and it is clear from an outsider we all believe we should help a human over a rule in a job. I also did say that we will never understand what we will actually do unless being in the situation at that moment and time. Some people will believe as a photographer he followed rules and did what was right, but personally I believe if you have any human morals how can you possibly watch somebody else suffer? I do believe the photographer Kevin Carter had morals otherwise he would never of took his own life, I just think that in the current situation he did what he thought was best for the job and followed the rules in the workplace. I have personally been in situations at work where I may not follow rules in order to help another human. That is my personal opinion, I will always help somebody in need over a rule or a job. 
  
  
  
  
   

Turning a full stop into a question mark.

Here is a clip of an advert that I found relatable to our individual inquiry. I found it so interesting and inspiring to watch, as soon as I seen this on TV I straight away thought about my inquiry. When I read something, should I question it?
Although this advert is about a phone it is clear to me that if you question something you can improve something!
So for example, the phone storage is full but with enough technology and research the new phone has more storage.
In relation to my inquiry, instead of researching does GCSE dance get the equal recognition as other academic subjects? What about researching on top of this, how can it get the equal recognition? What can we do to make dance equal? How do other people view this inquiry?

The advert has just been an eye opener, if we just put a question to things rather than a full stop the outcome can become bigger and better. 

Professional Ethics 5B & some of Ethical considerations.

I decided to take this from a different approach and ask a teacher who has observed me what she believed my professional ethics were in a classroom.

 

On the right hand side of the photo is the notes from the professional ethics that the teacher desribed I had. The reason I did this because I am new to teaching, it is something that I am working on every week to gain confidence and the more feedback I can receive the better I can become. I find that I judge myself very harsh sometimes so to see from somebody else that my morals and ethics are coming across how i'd like them to gibves me more confidence. 

On the left hand side of the photo is some of my current thoughts on Ethical considerations when planning out my inquiry. As I am not fully decided on my inquiry but I do know I want to use some of students to be involved I wrote down some of my considerations so far on how and what happens when I use them. As it is in the professional workplace I need to make sure it is all done in a professional manor and that all the students are comfortable with any information I share. As a teacher I think this is something the students understand as they usually have full confidence in their teacher. I have students that come and talk to me, sometimes asking me not to share with anyone else and sometimes for help and guidence and I always respect the students decision. I think they build a relationship with you where they trust you and want to share things to you, and the more you show support and they know you keep things confidential the more they can come to you.

Any students used throughout my inquiry will fully understand what they are involved in and what will be shared.

Action: Lying. Is this right or wrong?

After reading the first section of reader 5 I am now thinking about the morals of lying in much deeper depth than ever before, questioning why do people lie? How do you know what is right or wrong? Or is it all dependant on the personal beliefs and upbringing?

In terms of my personal life, I am a consequentialist. I am a firm believer that lying is wrong for the bad reasons - telling a lie to make yourself look better to others, lying because you want to hurt someone, lying because you are scared to own up to something. These are examples that I think you should not lie. However, if you told a 'white lie' in order to stop hurting somebody, or because you believe that people will benefit from this then I do believe it is acceptable. I believe these because of my upbringing, my parents have always been very open and truthful to me, which meant that I learnt that from them and portayed the same back. As lying is part of ethics and morals I also believe that you get this from your parents, this is not always correct but it can have a massive impact on you. For example my parents are honest, they always told my lying is not acceptable and you must be kind. Other parents that can be rude and do not have manors this usually rubs off onto the children. This is not always correct but I do believe that your parents are the biggest impact on your morals, afterall they do teach you what is right and wrong from being born.

Thinking about my professional life I think I interpret my personal life into my professional life. Emily Richards blog made a clear sense of how she works in a professional way and I 100% agree with her:
Emily's post

I think you the way you are in your professional life shows a side of your personal life, you teach how you believe is the right and best way for your students, I go about in my personal life to how I believe is the correct way for me and how I think I will get the most from everything.
The problem I think about in your professional life and as a teacher is you are doing what you think is the best for the students but what if the parents do not agree with this. So I could tell a 'white lie' in order to gain the best from the class but what if the background they come from dissagrees with this?
Do we go off what we believe is right or do we have to be a Deontologist?
Whats everyone elses thoughts?

Literature review - The arts are just as important as other subjects.

The arts are just as important as other subjects.

After coming across a report on an issue that is very close to my heart I have decided to review this. First of all I came across this because one of my questions from a previous blog was:
Does dance get as much credit as academic subjects? And does it deserve it?
The reason for this question is because of my own experience throughout my education. In high school I was always told not to put dance first, my teachers would explain that my other subjects were more important and needed more time than dance. But, my passion was dance so why is that not just as important? Anyway, throughout high school and up until now dancing has been my passion, and became the most important thing to me. I did do well in all my other subjects but for me, dancing was the one I wanted to achieve the most from.

The arts are just as important article.

Above is the link where you can read about how the government is trying to make GSCE dance equal to all other subjects. Some of the main points that stood out for me throughout the article that support my feelings towards dance are:

• Dance and drama are now separate GCSE subjects which are classed to be worth of study in their own right.
• Introducing arts to young people in every school rather than private schools and upper class families that can pay for the arts.
• Explaining and providing support that shows dancing career paths can be as successful as any other career path. 

From this article a few more questions that have now come to mind are:

• Since 2016 have the government and arts council had more support agreeing that dance is just as important as other subjects?
• Are schools providing enough education and support for the students that are wanting a serious career in dance? If so, what is the support?
• Since dance became a separate subject have more students took an interest in dance and become more inclined to take GCSE dance?

I have decided from here to now go an ask a few of these questions at my current work place and see what information I can gather from this. 

A piece of literature that now has given me 100 more questions.

The blog where I found this text.

So a question that I wrote in a blog a few weeks back was an inquiry along the lines of, 

'Is their benefits of being a performer before becoming a teaching over somebody who has trained specifically to teach from the beginning?'

I decided tonight to do a small bit of research to see if this topic or inquiry was something with a lot of information on. Straight away I came across this blog. The text I have inserted above is the section that stood out the most for me. Straight away I thought, how can somebody be so narrow minded? Who decides if you can only be a performer or only be a teacher? Who decides doing both is too much? Or if you are not able to achieve as much if you do both? 

 One of the main reasons I found the beginning of the blog so wrong is because I am one of the ones to prove it wrong. I have done dancing professionally alongside becoming a teacher.

The blog is very interesting and I am now excited to read more and get the research flowing. It now have 100 questions running through my mind which I am looking forward to where this will lead me. 

 

Reviewing literature for your Inquiry.

Something I am currently struggling with..
I have currently done a mind map of how to find the right literature for my inquiry but I am also feeling a bit lost.
I am wondering if anybody has any ways they find helpful to find the 'right' inquiry?
I am going to head to the library and also I am planning on doing some interviews with some teachers on their opinions on my inquiry questions so far.
As adesola said on one of her blogs. Take a quick look at it now and then come back to it in more depth when you have your inquiry. After all, its not a race to the finishing line.

SIG (Special interest groups)

As SIG is something new to me I decided to write down some of the things I gained from reading about it and my own personal opinion so far. It is something that as this module goes on I will be able to relate things more to my workplace and hopefully I will recognize it.

Beginning the process of Inquiry.

Before rushing ahead and trying to find one topic to specifically research to find my inquiry I decided to slowly read through reader 4 and write down some of my questions and thought's before doing any research.

I have taken time to read a few blogs today, so that from reading their blogs what questions do I now have? Have I found any inspiration? Or am I wanting to do something completely different?
As this is just the beginning of inquiry I am not expecting to find the answer straight away but I am hoping to find out knowledge that will interest me, make me question things and be intrigued to find out more before deciding on my inquiry.

Below is my beginning thoughts of Inquiry so far and some of the questions I have before starting my research. I decided to get a specific notepad for this module so that I can keep a diary of my journey to finding my inquiry.

Hopefully this is the start of something that can help me with my future career.

Reader 4 - Research

RESEARCH - something that I thought could be done enough with just searching the web and reading. How wrong could I have been?! In reader 4 my eyes have been opened to how many different ways we can learn and inquire. From reading the section on research I have began to write my private diary on ways to improve my knowledge from research.

Argyris, Chris (May 1991)

Above in the reference I have attached a link to where I found the best understanding of single and double loop learning for me. Although I read this in the beginning of reader 4 (inquiry) it is something that has stuck in my mind, after all how can you widen your research without wanting to inquire on something? Asking questions and wanting to learn more through inquiry leads to researching.

'We enter without knowing, in order to discover what we need to know to lead us to what there is to know. The skills that we know so well as choreographers are also the skills we use as researchers.'
(P.Hanstein, 1999, 'Balancing the systematic and the serendipitous', 23)

The above quote is one of the points in the topic that I intend to use when developing my topic. I broke the quote down to how I think will help me learn.
We enter without knowing in order to discover what we need to know:
Try the unknown is order to learn more. Always keep trying new things.
To lead us to what there is to know: 
Discovering the unknown will result in having a wider knowledge that you are then able to share with others.
The skills that we know so well as choreographers are also the skills we use as researchers:
What we already know leads us to wanting to know more, and therefore research more and develop even further.

I want to extend my theories of research and therefore today in my private diary I have noted;
- Video evidence
- Practical
-Web
- Theories
- Books
- Word of mouth
- Learning from experience

Throughout this topic I now intend to use these ways to gather my research on my inquiry. As I note down in my private diary and gain more knowledge I will hopefully share on my blogs along the way.

Reader 4 - Knowledge in the workplace

Whilst being involved in the BAPP course I am a part time dance teacher at a high school academy. After having a long think and a few discussions I have come to the conclusion that I work within a disciplinary context in the arts.  

What do I know?

Disciplines provide particular lenses or frameworks through which to explore, understand and act upon the world. (Kreber,2009)

At the school I have one focus which is dance. I do not take part in any other subject which therefore means my work is disciplinary. Although I understand that is what I am I also believe that I have some parts of inter-disciplinary involved when teaching. I used to be a self employed performer and also a teacher and from that experience I am aware of the subject I am teaching and also the importance of education.  

How do I know it?

I know this because of reader 4 explaining the different disciplinary's you can be. What has been interesting to learn is that without knowing before now I have been inter-disciplinary, transdisciplinary and also disciplinary, It is something that I would never of drawn attention to before but now having a wider understanding has made me think more about what I intend to be in the future.

'Disciplines provide particular lenses or framework through which to explore, understand and act upon the world.' 
(Sayers, 1948, in Burleigh, 1978)

The above quote from Sayers, 1948 explains to me about my disciplinary job. In my subject dance, I am to explore, understand and act upon to become the best teacher. I am disciplined to this subject and only this for the beginning of my career.

Competences and capabilities now and for the future.
 In brief, the intent of the competency movement is to identify and develop competences or behavioural characteristics of practitioners what are specific, observable, and verifiable.
(Raelin, 2008, pp. 43-44)

I agree with Raelin with the above statement. It is all something new for me but as a teacher this is something I am becoming aware of. I also understand that as a teacher in the future I need to be able to have the capability to deal with situations that are not expected. How I view this is, you can be a teacher and learn all the rules and know the basics, but to make a good teacher you need to expect the unexpected and explore everything that you can. Any knowledge known is a benefit. 

Starting back - Module 2

It feels strange not having to make time every week the past few months to study. I have wondered where all my free time has gone since then but I am very much looking forward to being back in the swing of things.

First of all, as I couldn't attend Saturdays skype session I have spent the time to read through everyones blogs since to catch up and read everyone opinion on the skype call. It has been really nice to see how everyone is excited to be back working and blogging and I have really enjoyed people's blogs about how they are planning to study in the next module.

Lauren Harpers blog was short and straight to the point about how she is going to work during Module 2, and as I am working full time alongside studying like many other students her blog really helped me.

Throughout this module I have set study days as I have set shifts now at work as well as volunteering at a school. I have noted down all the Skype sessions onto my study wall in my room and throughout the term I put sticky notes on my wall as a reminder of what needs doing.
I like to be organised and I hate getting behind so I will also set times, deadlines and aims for myself every Sunday so I can then plan what needs doing in the week ahead.

Everyone has different ways of working, and I am also looking forward to seeing everyones opinion and trying out new ways. You don't know if you like something until you try it. Everything so far has been new to me on this course, and so far I have really enjoyed it. So this term I am going to push myself to keep bridging out and trying new things.

Reflection on Module 1

After receiving my mark and then reading through my feedback on Module 1 I now am ready to begin Module 2 and this time round have an improvement on my work. I recently read through my feedback and also my critical reflection again to understand my feedback fully and set aims on improvements in the next module.

I got some positive feedback about my blog, saying I am very active and also join into conversations a lot which I am very pleased about. When I first began blogging I really struggled and thought I wouldn't enjoy it, but by the end of module 1 I really looked forward to blogging.
Although this is a positive it was then clear that my attention was too much towards blogging and my academic writing needs more work. From this I have spoken to a teacher who I work with and we are already working on improving this.

I have made notes on what I would like to improve on in Module 2 and now I am beginning to read Module 2 and set myself some goals, making myself more time for academic writing, improve on my referencing and hopefully have an overall better piece of work at the end of Module 2.

I am looking forward to getting stuck into Module 2 and I am also pleased with the work I have done so far on this course, after thinking it wouldn't be for me and struggling at the beginning of the module I worked hard and was surprisingly pleased with my result. After hard work paying off I am now more determined to keep improving.

Summary of module 1 - Critical Reflection

Today I sat down and made notes of what I felt I should include in my Critical Reflection. Its something that has made me indecisive over the last few weeks. I have struggled on where to start, what to include, and how to get all the things I need to say into 1000 words.

I have decided to split up my essay into three sections as I feel I then have the chance to evaluate each reader on its own. As I did this I sat down and went to the beginning of my blog to where I am now. Already I feel what a journey we have been on in module 1. I made notes from my blog and questioned myself when reading them. Some of the questions I have asked myself throughout making my notes were:

How did I feel at the beginning of the reader to the end? 
What have I learnt from this reader? 
Have I put into practice the knowledge I have gained?
How was my experience? 
Has my prospective changed? 
What do I use now that before the reader I knew nothing about? 

From these questions I now have my planning of my essay and my notes to help me include as much detail I can in 1000 words.

Already I feel at ease knowing I now have the information I believe is most important to include in my essay. I am now letting my mind settle before going back tomorrow and beginning to put it into essay format with a fresh mind. 

3A Current Networks

After a skype last week with Paula, Jessica and Emily I now feel ready for reader 3. One of the main topics in the discussion was what we think our current networks are. If you'd like to read more about what we discussed have a look at the blog 'Skype with Paula.' Leading on to current networks from having the discussion I feel I am now fully aware of what my networks are. Below I am going to answer the questions from task 3A and explain what knowledge I have about my current networks.

What are the current and different ways (tools) that you have, or do,

engage your professional network? 

Currently as a dance teacher I am engaging with my professional network by discussing with people who are already in the industry my aims for my future career. My tools for all my professional networking is, 'word of mouth', emailing potential employers, updating my teaching CV and social networking with other people with the same intentions as me. 

What are the established (and different) ways that others use

their networks, especially if they are more established or experienced

practitioners that you admire?

I think that a more experienced practitioner can sometimes have more of an advantage when sharing their network as they will have had more experience with a wider range of employers. Also in terms of their CV with more experience I feel that people are more likely to take time in noticing you. I know it isn't always correct but some jobs require experience, but I feel everyone has to start somewhere to gain experience. At this current time I do not have the experience to know who I admire. As I begin to teach more I am sure that people will inspire me when I found out how they got to their current situation. It is something I am looking forward too, but currently I am focused on my networks and finding where I need to be in my career. 

Are there methods, approaches and technologies that you use socially

that might apply and help you develop your professional networking? 

Social media isn't something at the moment I am using in terms of my professional network. Teaching is something I have been using Web 2.0 to find more information on, I have found that online there is so many pages that will help you and guide you with any questions you need answering. Facebook is something I may use the odd time to share something I feel I want people to know about, or I may ask about how to find groups or pages I can join to find available teaching jobs. I feel as it is early days in my teaching profession, each day I am finding out more, and learning how to network myself in the best way possible. I am looking forward to gaining all this experience and then being able to reflect to see how far I have come. 

When you reflect upon current networks, can you think about the

motives of others to be in the network and what values and purpose

they have in mind?

Reflecting on why people want to be in their current network makes me excited. It is something that being new in the network makes me eager to get into teaching. I love to find out and ask people why they do things? What is the best bits to your job? And what are the difficult situations that happen on a daily basis? Already after teaching in a high school for a short amount of time I have felt some of the rewards. Everyone I have spoken to say it can be the most rewarding job ever helping a child succeed in their education. Some of the teachers and the students have amazing relationships and the teachers guide the students to get them where they need to be. I think most teachers are in that network because of their love for the topic and the love for helping others. My purpose is to share my knowledge and guide students the best I can so that they have the best chance in their careers.

What would your ideal network look like and why? 

My ideal network and aims to get there are:

- To be a teacher in a highschool

- Teach workshops at all ages in schools

- Gain as much knowledge as possible to share

- Attend the AQA Dance syllabus meetings and workshops

- The people needed know who I am, what I do, and want to work with me. 

What realistic things could you do to work towards developing your

ideal network?

Realistically I need to broaden my knowledge in the dancing industry and GCSE dance so that I can share all my knowledge with students. I need to provide a free work shop to a few schools as a one off so that they have a chance to see what you can offer and hopefully want you back to teach again. Lastly, I need to share with as many people as possible who I am, what I do, and what my aims are, so that the more people that know about this the more advice I receive and the more my name gets spread, hopefully in the correct ways. 

What tools and methods do you need to use? What do you know about

your current, and intended networks, and importantly, what do you not

know? 

My methods that I intend to use to get my ideal network is Web 2.0. I need to get a teaching showreel, I need to get references from people who I have taught, and I need to get a email together that can be sent to schools. All this can be done using Web 2.0. I have a plan to gather as much information as possible, so that once I have put this all together and I feel it is in the best way to email to people then I am able to take a step forward. What I know is that 'getting your foot through the door' has already worked for me and gained me a wide experience already. So, I know what I need to do to widen my knowledge. What I do not know is the all the knowledge to be teaching dance in a high school. But again, I know what I need to do to get this. I know I need to research and I also need to talk to the head of dance and get myself on courses to know about the dance syllabus in highschools. But as I know, each day you learn more, it is never possible to know to much. It is such a big network and is not possible to know everything. But the more I know, the more I can share. 

Critical Reflection

Reflection is something I have been doing for a few years in my profession without realising. Although I may not have gone into deep thought on my reflection at the end of the day, I have still come home and discussed my day with my family around the table, or rang a friend to chat about our days. Without realising this is reflection. Some days more than others I would talk about my day, if it was a good day I would think why was it a good day? And if it was a bad day I would think how can tomorrow be a better day?

Since starting reader 2 my relationship with reflective practice has become more bold. I am aware each day that the events that happen have reasons behind them, I am aware to improve them if all is not going well and I am also aware that you can improve on the go, for instance reflection-in-action which leads me into what I would like to talk about next.

David Schons theory written about reflection-in-action stood out to me straight away. It is something I realised I already do in my teaching practice but something I wanted to add more into everyday life. In the classroom I am now fully aware of reflection-in-action at all times, my way of doing this is taking a step back, looking at the class and thinking at this moment in time is this technique with my class working? Are all students fully engaged? Or do I need to change anything? Although before reading reader 2 I do believe that I already used this, I also think I did not use it to the best of my ability. 

I recently read Emily Richards blog and noticed that her critique on reflection in terms of David Schons theory is very similar to mine. I believe as teachers we are having to adapt daily in order to keep the students coming back to your lessons. Emily's blog matched up so well with what I wanted to write, it was nice to see that people can have similar opinions to theories. In Emily's blog I especially enjoyed reading her section on Kolbs learning cycle, at the end Emily wrote 'Never assume you know everything, reflection is a great way to grow.' This inspires me to keep growing as a person and it also proves to myself that reflecting daily on my professional practice is helping me grow into who I aim to be. 

Reflection in anticipation when reading Bouds theory made me sit back and think. Using teaching as my profession this is also something I have been using. Although it may not have been in thought in my professional practice it now is. As a teacher you use reflection in anticipation on a daily and weekly basis, especially with class planning. Before I go to teach on a Thursday I will spend Wednesday night planning what I want to do with my class in order to achieve what I want them to, or what techniques I will use to keep them interested in the whole lesson. Although reflection in anticipation is not just used as a teacher it can be used before an interview, before an audition, before you head out for the day. My thoughts on using it as a teacher in my professional practice is that it helps you be organised and ready for whats ahead of you, and if all fails you have reflection-in-action to fall back on and keep going. 

'One must understand what is being defined in order that one judge for oneself accuracy.' 

(Mcfee 1992)

The above quote I found on Jessica Dinmore's Blog, another blog I read to see whether we had similar critiques or not. First of all I loved her explanation to how each theory worked or didn't work for her. On Jessica's blog I noticed she connected really well with Moon's theory where as this is the theory I feel I least connected with. It is always interesting to read why something has worked for one person and not worked so well with somebody else. I think it all depends on your daily events to whether each theory will work for you. Although I am saying I did not fully connected with Moon's theories I also can say that some quotes of his left me inspired. 

'To enable learners to understand their own learning paces.' (Moon)

'To enhance the professional practice or the professional self in practice.' (Moon)

When researching some other theories about reflection I came across a quote that I really liked. 

Here it is below. 

Lambright (1995)

When reading this I believed this is something as a teacher you aim to do. You aim for you students to go from unclear to clear which gains them more knowledge. I believe that as a teacher you play a big part on a students future as education is there core. Reflection has played a big part in my professional practice without even realising, and now I am more aware, and keen on using some of the theories in my practice I hope I can only keep growing and also help the students grow and build too. 

References

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http://skillsforlearning.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/preview/content/models/02.shtml

https://www.ericdigests.org/2000-3/thought.htm

http://mdx.mrooms.net/pluginfile.php/729979/mod_resource/content/2/Reader%202%20WBS3730%20BAPP%20Arts%202016-17.pdf