4a After Reading Professional Inquiry Reader

My Thoughts: 

I would like to look and develope:

- How Professional Dance teaching is different to School Pe dance lessons?

- How can discussions/questioning enhance a dance lesson?

- How creative are my lessons (Professional) compared to your (School) dance lessons? and have the children learnt 'dance'?

 I am working on these questions and to get my questions I would like to collect evidence/questionaires and graphs.
I have come up with the idea that in my Reception Class of which I am a Teaching Assistant, I would like to do:

- 3 Dance classes which I set a routine as a Professional Teacher as I would at my Dance School,
Ask all the children who took part to answer a basic questionnaire and how they felt

- 3 Dance Classes with own creativity as a School dance PE lesson,
Again ask the children the same questionnaire and how they felt

And also do a final questionnaire of which they preferred and which they enjoyed more.

I feel this is a good part of dance which I would benefit as a Professional dance teacher with a Dance School and I am a reception teaching assistant training to be a teacher and this will enable to help with my dance teaching in school.

How these are different also as the children grow a little older so I am going to then ask my collegues at school who teach classes 1 and 2, 3 and 4 for there feedback and whether this applies to them as they are older and have learnt 'dance' in gestures and how to move to music whether they then teach routines and evaluate in professional ways? and I am going to ask my professional peers also

Also with regards to parents, school is a place where they learn all subjects to go on and learn creative, imagination and put it into all there lessons. Whereas at a Dance school parents want to see different routines and improvement in the area.







These Are my Inital thoughts, so collecting evidence and doing my classes is next!

Any comments or thoughts?

Module Handbook 3630 ..

My Thoughts .. 

Reading through this Handbook made me think this is going to be a hurdle from the last module to this module is a HUGE step up and really links us to the outcome of our qualification. 

Reading this Reader there are Three main Parts :

 - Professional Inquiry

- Professional Ethics

- Tools of Professional Inquiry

So I need to :

- Actively keep updating my blog

- Keep up to date with ingaging with peers and practitioners

- Start and keep up with my tasks and dedicate specific time to the course

This is the start of My 2nd Module!

Welcome Back

Hello Everyone!

I am glad to be back on this course after the last Module it seems soooooo long ago!

Hope Everyone's ok and If anyone has any feedback for me or advise from the Campus sessions then please let me know what I have missed

Welcome Back!

3b 'The Networked Professional Reader'

The Networked Professional Reader, in reading this part I did find it interesting due to that it related to the Professional Industry of which I am a Professional in.

Definition: 
'a work related community held together either close working affiliation or more distant but common work interests or needs'

Some networks maybe groups of dancer or even working relationships, some more distanced for example teacher and graduates. Some maybe more formal identity like university program. 
These 3 types all relate to me in my networking, I have facebook for friends and this has groups on it one of which is dancers 2010 graduates The Hammond and another is graduates of The Hammond which is official to the head of Dance at The Hammond to keep in touch with and how our careers are going. And of course university program is my Blog and interacting with you guys!!

In the reader it says about Axelrod's 'The Prisoner's Dilemma' theory and 'in the context of a professional network, we might consider how patterns of stimulus and response with in our networks operate, and how we can take advantage of them for our own benefit, and that of the wider network?'

Well I think everyone has done or does do this for our professional network I will have friends who have jobs now who I can ask questions and maybe even ask or get a contact for me to email or contact for me to get a job. On Linkedin (as I mentioned in my current networks) I have been through and joined some of the cruise ship/hotel groups to be accepted as a professional into these groups and get mysef seen and networked so I could contact or be contacted by recruiters or people in the industry/company to get contacts to send my information too. 
I feel there is no harm in helping one another I know sometimes its competative with knowing contacts and gettings contacts, like auditions some people do not like telling other people that there are auditions because they think they have a better chance? 

Affiliation part of Reader:
'With a network of support that will help us when we are in need' 
I see this in two ways when I need something, someone, a friend, somebody to talk too, I will go onto my personal facebook, chat or phone a friend.
When I need something, information, or at the moment I am currently looking for a job so I will talk to all my friends and Professional contacts to get information/emails/contact for me to get a job.
This just means my need are that I need a job and I will ask for all information people have to help me with this process. 


'Is Professional networking an extension of our innate cpacity and need to affiliate for survival as Professionals?' 
I feel this is totally hitting the nail on the head in the Entertainment, Musicals and Dance Industry, in most cases it is WHO you know and network with more than WHAT you know. 
Do you agree??

3a My Networking

My Networking: 

Well i'll start where a few people have started which is Facebook, as I said earlier in web 2.0 about having a Personal and a Professional Profile. I have now done this and I have my family and friends on my personal profile and my professional contacts and audition/job groups I have joined. 

This has helped with my last job which was in Kreta Greece for season 2010 by joining a group called Lions Entertainment where I looked and got informed of up and coming auditions and I went to this audition and got the job. I am now doing the same and joining different groups and networking with people to find a Professional Dance job this year. 

I also use a site called Linkin (www.linkedin.com/) this is a very good networking site similar to facebook but a lot more professional its a Professional page, you can join professional people in your industry, groups and also the companies, the Profile page you make and display yourself on their is your CV, experience, website and recomendations, previous employment and many things of which you need to like me look for jobs or get Professional Contacts in your desired field. 

I feel that networking site like these are very useful to me as a person and me as a Professional. I am using these sites all the time and are valuable to me in my career. I need these Professional Contacts and have myself known as a Professional and keep interacting with future employers, also facebook very important to me where ever I am in the world as my Dance career can take me anywhere I can stay intouch with friends and family this is vey important to me 

March 2011 - Im back

Hello, 
I havent been able to get online for while and have been doing alot of offline work ready but without the interaction which is vital for this course an I have found not speaking about ideas and information quite hard. 
But I'm back now, currently working on posting my Utube Dance Reel to my Blog for you all to see and comment on so it will be coming very soon!
I also have some current job information as you can probably see my profile on my blog has changed slightly, I am no longer teaching at the moment due to that I am auditioning alot more again for Professional Dance jobs! 
So any information anyone can give me on their networking, contacts then I would appreciate it!


How is everyone getting on? hope everybody's ok? 

Journal Writing Experience

Journal Writing Experience

This is going to be a good day to write about:

I am going down to Cambridgeshire to do a Dance audition for a Dance Captain Job in the South of France for Siblu Entertainment.

I am very excited about this audition as it is going to be different from the others I have attended due to that they have asked to see a 2minute solo and each candidate has to show teaching skills.

I am a little nervous about this audition as it’s so different to what I am used to.

I turned up to Peterborough Train station where the hotel of the audition was opposite, by this point my stomach was turning.

We were welcomed very well by a few members of Siblu and went into a huge room to warm up and get ready. There were a lot more people there than I expected.

We had a Jazz class and a lyrical class, these classes were very technical and the routines were challenging but good. I found that I got myself right to the front of the room and picked up the choreography very quickly, as I learn from watching practical and find I can pick up quickly.

We then had a Performance/showgirl routine in heels and unfortunately we needed to change the lines round so everyone had a fair opportunity of being at the front. I did manage to pick the routine up but it was a lot harder for me to do the movement without seeing how the choreographer wanted the movements performed and from description.

After this we had to keep warm and stand and wait to be called into do our solos, mine went really went and they enjoyed it.

After everybody was seen for their solo, we had to teach everybody a little dance routine in our chosen genre one at a time and they watched and wrote down what they saw. I felt a little uncomfortable doing this to start with and as I went through it got easier.

I feel this day was successful I just have to wait for the outcome. I feel that when I do another audition I really need to practise auditory learning, because when we were asked to change lines I have to listen to what I have to do and this for me without watching and doing was quite hard to pick up and was a challenge for me.