Critical Reflection and Summary: Online Portfolio

Throughout this module I have engaged with the BAPP network as well as professional associates in order to identify and develop my line of inquiry. My initial task was to establish my own professional practice (Appendix A) in order to identify areas for emerging lines of inquiry. Having made the recent transition between performer and teacher I felt it most beneficial to myself and my future practice to focus on issues surrounding the teaching of dance.

I began by looking into the benefits of dance, especially at a young age (Appendix B), but became increasingly aware that a great deal of knowledge already existed in this field (Appendix C, D, E) I recognised that i myself was already competent in identifying the many benefits participation in dance brings and therefore felt this line of inquiry would not allow me much opportunity to gather new findings.  

Discussions within the SIGs led to further questions around dance education (Appendix F), community dance, dance for boys (Appendix G) and dance teachers (Appendix H), but I wanted to make sure my inquiry would be of direct benefit to my practice both now and in the future.

Attending the campus session reinforced the idea that our inquiry should be something relevant to what we are doing now and also easily assessable with regards to research. It was an incident that happened when teaching that lead me to ascertain my line of inquiry which is based around differentiation (Appendix I). I believe it is an important issue in any area of teaching and particularly warrants further investigation within the field of dance. Discussions with other professional associates re affirmed my ideas, especially discussions with my employer whom felt it was an extremely worthy research area and gave me their full support with undertaking the inquiry.

Studying ethics was very interesting and made me realise that it is not always as simple as black and white. Professional ethics does not just involve adhering to the rules of an organisation, but also using one’s own set of morals and values to guide you through your daily conduct. I came across the code of conduct for The Council for Dance Education Training (Appendix J); this made me appreciate how in depth such codes can be. I devised my own code of conduct for teaching and recognised many similarities to the ethical framework held at my place of work when I compared the two. However this also highlighted a number of issues I had not addressed and revealed how sometimes personal ethics can conflict with that of your work place (Appendix K). I now feel I have a much fuller understanding of all aspects of ethical issues when it comes to teaching dance and feel equipped to address such issues within my inquiry.

By trying out the different research tools (Appendix L) I have been able to assess their merits and limitations, knowing how to get the best out of the tools and when will be most suitable to use them within my research project. It is clear to me that for my specific line of inquiry observation will be a key research tool. Pilot observations have enlightened me as to how much preparation and organisation is needed in order to utilise this tool effectively (Appendix M). Survey Monkey (Appendix N) allowed me to collect data online from within my BAPP network, demonstrating the ability to collect both qualitative and quantitative data with regards to differentiation within a dance class. The data re-established the value of my research project as it appears to be an issue that all teachers faced with. (Appendix O)

Through both piloting an interview and partaking as an interviewee I have been able to establish a good understanding of the tool from both perspectives giving me a much more informed opinion (Appendix P). I have come to the conclusion that focus groups will not be of significant benefit to my data collection (Appendix Q), with a limited time scale I would prefer to put all my time and efforts into the other three research tools in order to gather the data most relevant to my research.

There has not been a great deal of literature available specifically on dance and differentiation, but I was able to gather some sources through using Delicious (Appendix R) and Google scholar in order to gain the perspectives of others. This literature has led me to see how differentiation interlinks with other theories already studied such as Kolb learning cycle and Gardner’s multiple intelligences. (Appendix S)

Supporting Evidence

Appendix A: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-term.html

Appendix B: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/02/professional-inquiry-emerging-questions.html

Appendix C: http://www.cccf-fcsge.ca/docs/cccf/00013_en.htm

Appendix D: http://www.ndeo.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=893257&module_id=55419

Appendix E: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2iJ1C3o7WbkC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=dance+and+different+abilities&source=bl&ots=bWkushkdS_&sig=mpv3wL9eZirC4pfPGmL_SQQTwxM&hl=en&ei=BSWGTbfCI4KLhQfq1tHNBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=dance%20and%20different%20abilities&f=false

Appendix F: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/03/dance-in-education.html

Appendix G: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/topic.php?uid=145821545478191&topic=86

Appendix H: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/02/interesting-question.html

Appendix I: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/03/by-golly-i-think-ive-got-it.html

Appendix J: http://www.cdet.org.uk/teaching-and-qualifications/code-of-conduct/

Appendix K: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/03/professional-ethics-task-5a-and-5b.html

Appendix L: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/03/tools-for-research.html

Appendix M: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/04/review-of-my-observations.html

Appendix N: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/03/dance-teaching-surveytask-6a.html

Appendix O: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/04/dance-teaching-survey-review.html

Appendix P: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/04/review-of-interviews-as-research-tool.html

Appendix Q: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/05/review-of-focus-groups-as-research-tool.html

Appendix R: http://www.delicious.com/cerysdixie

Appendix S: http://cerysdixie.blogspot.com/2011/04/literature-review.html

Review of Focus Groups as a research tool

I was able to organise a focus group with a number of associates who are fellow dance teachers. There were six of us in total, all female, but ranging in ages and years of teaching experience. It was a little tricky to try and find a day and time that everyone was available and so I ended up just going with what suited the majority but this meant that some people could not make it.

I used a semi structured approach, I had four areas I wanted to address and just see what answers came out. These were to find out about personal experiences of differentiation, teaching methods, whether there is need for change and to gather general views and opinions on the subject.

Everybody contributed something to the conversation, but two members in particular were quite dominant and out spoken with their views. Others tended to sit back and listen, not giving opinions unless directly asked.

The conversation did not bounce off each other as I had hoped it would, so I was continually trying to spark new thoughts. Teaching ideas were shared which was great but not always around the subject of differentiation. I sometimes found it hard to manage the group as they would go off task and I felt I didn’t have the authority to tell them that the subject matter was not actually relevant to the intended topic.

Although I was able to gather some qualitative data, it was not as in depth as that attained during my pilot interview. As an overall experience I preferred the one on one interview approach as a research tool and feel it would be more beneficial in providing me with the information I want to gather as part of my project.

 I would prefer to spend more time with one person getting a really informed view, then getting more diluted information from a focus group. I feel a survey will provide me with enough of a range of opinions and data that I can compare and contrast and interviews will be the way to dig deeper.