Through the
theory of connectivism, we are encouraged to seek our information from outside
of our own knowledge base. The idea that the world is moving at a much faster pace
and knowledge and understanding is growing at a far greater rate than it is
possible for one person to keep up. Advancement in technology has allowed us to
communicate ideas quickly, and so in turn they evolve more quickly and things
change at a rapid rate. It is no surprise then that when we seek out
information our first port of call is the internet.
Google –
Like almost anyone with internet access if I want to know something I search it
online, I either pick up my phone or my laptop and within a few moments I have
the answer, or at least I have the means to find out where I can source the information
I need. At the top of the list when I Google search is usually Wikipedia, and
although in previous posts I have doubted the validity of information found on Wikipedia
it always seems to be a valuable place to start, further reading around and
seeking out the source of the information may be needed to ensure information
is correct, but I see it as almost a contents page for of other articles that
will be of value.
YouTube –
When I am struggling to get something across to my students I look for
inspiration and techniques that I haven’t tried, having a visual representation
to learn from when you are teaching a visual art is incredibly useful. There are
almost always how to guides available online, for example, how to pirouette
returned 1590 results, this is a lot of information available with very little
effort.
YouTube can
also provide creative ideas, when thinking about choreography it is nice to
have access to literally thousands of pieces of work online, this is especially
important to me as living in Devon the opportunity to go and see live work is
more limited than when I was living in the city.
TES – When researching
going into teaching in mainstream education I came across the TES website. It
has a whole library of teaching resources, at first when I found the site it
made me realise how unprepared I would be if I was to make this career move. This
for me has been extremely valuable; searching resources has given me insight
into gaps in my knowledge as well as example of how lesson plans should be
created. It has also inspired me to think of way I would approach things and
given me another starting point for further research. And I’m sure if I do come
to the point where I do enter a mainstream class room there will inspiration
there for my own classes, and hopefully I will be able to start paying back
with resources of my own.
Classes – I still
love to take class, I think it is important, how can I teach something I don’t know,
or something I can no longer do, it is important to me to be able to teach by
example. Also every teacher has a different style, will have different
exercises or approach correction from a different perspective. By experiencing this
I not only continue to practice my skills, but I learn how to pass this
knowledge on to my own student. They may say something that allows a particular
step to make more sense or more easily executed and I can then share this with
my students.
Books, and Syllabus
– I teach classical ballet, and I have to know the syllabus for several senior
grades, and although I have a fairly good memory and things usually start
coming back to me once I have started an exercise, we only do exams every two
years and I need a prompt. I always have the syllabus in my teaching bag it is
always there when I get stuck, or when I am questioned by a pupil “is the arm
fifth or open fifth?” my response as I shuffle through my bag… “let me just
check!”
Not all
information on the internet is correct, with user added content sometimes it is
nice to know the information you are getting is first hand and not someone else’s
interpretation. For this reason I am still a fan of books. I am always
searching Amazon reading reviews and buying books, dance education, dance
psychology, choreographers. Anything that I think is of value, dance is still
my passion as well as my career and I enjoy furthering my own knowledge.
People - My
most valuable source of information. I love to ask questions, as I said when
talking about my networks; I am a fan of knocking on an office door and asking
for a chat. I think that ideas come much more organically, you will drift form
one subject to another and get out so much more than you first intended. On top of that I am at the beginning of my
career, I am surrounded with people with experience and knowledge, and a
passion for what they do, I find that most of these people are more than happy
to share what they know, so it would be foolish to ignore such a valuable
resource.
I am a
teacher, I need to know what to teach, I get this information form my students,
I ask them questions, “what don’t you understand” “what do you find difficult” “what
would you like to work on” and I watch them, I read them and see what needs
work and where they need to go next, this is information that I can not get
from the internet or from books. What I do is based on people, that’s why I enjoy
it, and I need them to inform me so I give them what they need.
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