Presentation nerves developing...

So presentation on Monday and I am already starting to feel the nerves. I keep editing and changing my presentation and rehearsing in my head what I want to say. Like many other areas of the course I feel like I need more space to fit everything in I've learned..... I suppose that a good thing?!

To put an end to my re-editing I have uploaded my power-point presentation to slide share in an attempt to make it final (although I have already taken it down and re-edited it once!)

Thought I might as well share it now its on line so here it is... 

http://www.slideshare.net/danniweb86/presentation-d-webber

Any thoughts welcome, because lets face it I will keep reading and editing right up until Monday!!

Hope everyone getting on well with our final task!!

Critical Reflection.

I have written, re written, scrapped and become confused about how I want to go about my critical reflection and what I want to include in the tiny word count!!
I just completed another re-write... I actually found this attempt a really nice process, It was nice to be honest in thinking about some difficulties, but also really nice to consider how much has changed and what I have learned.
Cant decide if this is the final one and I haven't yet added the appendix but I thought I would share anyway. And suggest that just thinking about how you felt at the beginning of this course and how you are feeling now will make all the stress, sleepless nights and considerations of giving it all up worth while!!

Critical Reflection.

In undertaking the BAPP programme, I have developed a professional competency and identity that I previously had not achieved. I have developed critical thinking, practical skills, and knowledge that allow me to have confidence in presenting myself as a professional. I now know I have the ability and understanding to back up my opinions and decisions, whether that is from my own research or the theories and work of other professionals.

This increased confidence has allowed me to forge relationships and develop practices that will allow my professional development to continue beyond the conclusion of the course.

Professionally I have increased my skills set immensely. I am now able to communicate with a vast range of people using web 2.0. I can present my work in a range of formats whether that is academically or for a wider audience. I am able to design and undertake an inquiry to further my professional development. And in creating my artefact I have even increased my practical IT skill in producing a website.

In this module specifically, undertaking a professional inquiry has allowed me to develop research and analysis techniques, giving me skills that I can translate into any area of my practice that I wish to develop. I am able to critically think about my practice, what I am achieving, where I want to move forward and how to go about this.

Initially the inquiry was a difficult task, I felt under qualified to be observing and judging the work of other professionals, making sense of data was a difficult task and at times seemed as though I may not achieve anything from the process.

Eventually I learned to organise and analyse data and undertake a literature review which not only allowed me to frame the importance and context of my inquiry, but to support the conclusions that I was beginning to draw from my own research. Rather than feeling under qualified in the end I found the response of  other professionals encouraging this boosted my confidence further as they respected my opinion and were interested in discussing my results.

The inquiry lead me to understand my practice how to work with a specific client group and how to understand my practice in terms of developing benefit from dance. This is of great importance to me, I have been able to share the results and make changes in my current employment. It is something I am keen to develop further through expanding my practice and undertaking new ventures.

Ideas of ethics touched upon in module 2 were a feature of module 3 as I came up against some concerning issues related to discrimination. I was able to resolve these by making use of the communication skills that have been developed thought out the course, with the help of advisor's, fellow BAPP students on the blog and my professional working network I was able to resolve this. With out the discussion, challenging of ideas and support of my networks this would have been a much more difficult task; again reiterating the importance of developing a professional network a running theme throughout the entire course.

I have found the blogs a great support, particularly in the later stages of the course where I have begun to develop my professional voice and felt more confident in sharing my thoughts and ideas.

In summery when I look back at what I have achieved over the last 15months I would not have thought it possible. From feeling uncomfortable with the title of “professional” opening the first module handbook and feeling out of my depth and being frightened to comment on the blogs for fear of looking foolish…To undertaking my own research, creating my own academic writing, sharing insights into practice with my workplace and truly feeling that I have created a professional identity and voice. I am confident that with the skills and experience that I have gained I will be able to continue to grow and develop as a professional throughout my career.

Artefact. (With a little help from my fellow BAPPERS...Thank you!)

Last time I blogged about my artefact I was thinking about exactly how I should go about it. My two choices being between a website and a booklet.
I got a really good response on the blogs and the general thinking was that I needed to give more thought to my audience and how I would reach them. So I did some brainstorming and came to these conclusions...

My Audience:
 Teachers, dance practitioners, social care managers/ workers providing activities for Adults with learning difficulties.

I am not yet selling a service, I am currently trying to raise awareness of an issue that I think is important and share the information I have gained.

How I would reach them:
The quickest and furthest reaching medium is the internet, we have all learned that from looking web 2.0 and by forging our relationship here on the BAPP blogs, therefore a website seemed the better choice.

The plan being that links to my site can be added to my facebook, twitter, linkedIn, and blog pages. And eventually if it is possible possibly linked to other sites as well, Dance Magazine, LD online and any other relevent connections I might be able to make.

In addition to this on the site there is a button which gives the option to download a booklet, it is printable PDF version of the site.
This fulfils two needs.
1. Some people prefer to read information form a paper copy they find it easier to digest the information this way... I am one of those people and I know there are others out there!
2. Further distribution. In my work place useful and relevent information and articles are pinned to our memo board or distributed at staff meetings. I assume we wont be the only company that does this and so printable version can fulfil this need. Anyone who reads the site and thinks it might be useful to someone they know or to their organisation can print it out and share.

Possible progression. 
The website also gives me options to update the information in the future, I don't yet feel that I am in a place to offer a paid service using the information I have obtained from inquiry, obviously I currently teach but I am employed and at the moment am not looking to expand on this.
 But in the future I think this could be something I grow into, perhaps providing training to other teachers, or offering my owm dance teaching services and a website gives me a changeable medium to use as my practice grows and develops.

So here it is.....

http://danniweb.wix.com/danceopportunity

Let me know what you think!?? And thank you to those people that helped my brainstorm!

Literature Review

I have noticed that on the blogs people have been putting up their literature reviews. I did some research on literature reviews and although I had done mine separately for each book/ article/ journal initially, I saw that most advice said that they should be covered as a whole, this is to enable us to make connections or highlight differences between the opinions of the pieces in order to support or frame our area of investigation. To compare and contrast the information that is already out there in our field of practice or study.

So this is what I have tried to do in this literature review. This is the long version, there is a smaller more concise one that I have used as part of the critical review. Although I am currently re-drafting that section as I am not happy that it covers enough of the valuable information from the literature.... It so difficult though with the word count. We have done so much work and research for this module you just constantly feel like you are leaving things out!

So as everyone seems to be approaching the literature review as separate pieces I though I would include my thoughts and my review to see if anyone else agrees or disagrees with my approach or has any more information!?

D.Webber - Literature Review

Artefact...

Since finishing my first draft for my critical review I have been thinking about and planning and changing my mind about my artefact.

It has been stressful and one of the many times on this course where I have felt out of my depth and like I dont really know what I am meant to be doing.

Through all of this I came up with and started drafting a few options,

1. I started planning a workshop that would bring learning disabled and mainstream dancers together. This was something that came out of conversations on the blog about how to approach inclusivity, whilst maintaining high teaching standards for all students, the thoughts being that with some pre-teaching for each group of dancers to almost set the foundations and then allow them to come together in a more productive and even environment.
Although I thought this was a good idea, I found myself feeling that this was an idea that only looked at one aspect of my finding, it didn't go into detail about the benefits I had seem for learning disabled dancers and how to go about achieving them, and this was the main goal of my inquiry. I really want to take the opportunity to share this. A workshop plan I think may have limited appeal to others and doesnt express enough of my findings.

2. My second idea was a set of 6 lesson plans. This idea came out of the fact that I have been offered the opportunity to create a new dance class specifically for adults with learning disabilities and so this would benefit me professionally and in terms of the course. However again I feel this would have limited appeal in terms of communicating with my professional audience... although lesson plans might be something that another teacher might read, I don't think it would have a huge amount of influence on other teachers thinking, and I don't believe that we would copy a lesson plan point for point and so is it going to appeal to my professional audience?

3. My final idea was some literature in the form of a leaflet/ booklet that tell the reader the things I have discovered from my inquiry into the benefits of dance for adults with learning disabilities and how to go about achieving this. The audience would be other teachers, and the aim would be to get teachers thinking about how to work with this client group in the hope of increasing other dance teacher confidence in perhaps trying to provide classes for learning disabled adults.
My inquiry showed that there are benefits for adults with learning disability, but also highlighted limited opportunities and teacher apprehension, perhaps by sharing my findings in an accessible and condensed format might help people to feel a little more encouraged??
It would cover areas such as...
- Why teachers should consider expanding their practice into this area.
- The class atmosphere they need to provide
- An example of a successful class structure
- How to approach praise and disciplin
- The benefits and how to set goals
- Some example exercises/ lesson plan (maybe even incorporate the workshop idea)

At the moment Option 3 is the one I am working on, it has evolved slightly into a small website (I was struggling to find a way to print the booklet in a professional looking way)

What do people think??
Would having more advice, information and encouragement make you consider teaching a new client group such as learning disability??
Is this a good way to present my finding to my professional audience of other teachers??
Booklet or website??

My thinking on these questions change, I think its a bit of a crisis of confidence.... would be interesting to see what you guys on the bapp blog think?

Hows everyone else getting on with drafting and artefacts??

Tying up some lose ends from previous blogs.

Although I have found that writing up the critical review has been, and still is a difficult challenge I am pleased to say that getting on actually putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys) has helped me to iron out any difficulties I had with my thinking.

I had blogged a couple of times about the issues I was having with my data, how I felt that I wasn't seeing what I expected or that perhaps I wasn't having the revelations that I hoped I would through undertaking the inquiry, I actually felt that once I started putting everything together through the process of writing up that my thinking became much clearer. When it came to writing up the inquiry and being forced to look for and write the relationships between the plan, the actual process, the data collected and the literature I found that I had a lot more to say that I had initially thought, in fact a little too much to say as I am now editing and trying to control my word count. I wonder if anyone else has found that actually the process of being forced to write things up has enabled them to order their thinking and make sense of the data to be able to draw better conclusions?
Still as in my previous blog I am worrying that controlling the word count and re-arranging things will mean that I start taking out things of value, my thinking is more together through the process of writing up but now I need to be able to communicate this effectively.

The biggest things that writing up and completing more literature reviews, along with talking to other practitioners both on the blogs and within my working environment, helped me to clear up were my concerns relating to discrimination. I was concerned that undermining the aim of my inquiry by drawing the conclusion that fully inclusive classes were not necessarily the best way to go, meant that I was coming to conclusions that would in fact lead to discrimination.
I have spend a lot of time looking at my data and reading around this subject and found that my thinking is mirrored by other practitioners out there, and in fact by disabled dancers themselves who acknowledge that often although teacher think they are providing an inclusive approach they are not, and that we need to be honest about whether we can achieve equal results for all students in the class, and if not then maybe we should look again at our approach and what is realistically achievable.
Students should be able to learn where they feel comfortable, it may be that appropriate adaptations can be made for some students with learning disabilities to be able to attend mainstream classes without effecting the overall content of the lesson, some LD students may thrive in this environment, if this is the case then this can and should be done. But it also may be the fact that the level is too high, that the student doesn't enjoy this and that by trying to adjust the teaching all students are disadvantaged by trying to accommodate too many differing needs.  
There is nothing discriminatory about offering classes that fill a specific need, and there is a need for classes that are designed for particular groups of people to enable them to enjoy and learn at their own pace. Discrimination is about excluding people, offering more is not excluding people, it is just giving them more options. And inclusion can always be achievable within this, coming together of groups for workshops and performances and in appreciating dance. Inclusion is important and possible but of equal importance is knowing and teaching the people in-front of you. Being mindful of their needs and meeting these in the most appropriate way for them to enjoy and achieve.

It is the process of undertaking the inquiry, reading literature reviews, looking at data, talking to people and finally trying to put all of this together into a written piece that has allowed me to develop my thinking, panic that I am wrong, be determined that I am write, be challenged, think again, and to draw conclusions that I am not 100% sure are correct but that give me a platform to move forward with my practice and discover a bit more....
 

The Writing Up Bubble.

I have read a couple of blog posts lately that have started with, "I haven't blogged much lately" I think that we are all in that stage where we are glued to laptops and books and are just trying to get things done and that leave us little time for checking back in with how things are going. I know that how it has been for me, I have been reading blogs but not finding time to write anything myself!

I am currently re-drafting my critical review and putting things together for my Artefact. I feel that my review is coming along, however I am constantly nervous that it inst enough, that I have missed the point somewhere along the line and that there is more I could be doing to make things better, with that comes the fear that with re-drafting I am actually taking out things that were valuable and making things worse, it is a terrifying process!! even with feedback from my advisor I still feel like there must be more I should be doing to improve my work. I wonder if it is the mentality of being a dancer/ performer that leads me to feel this way, as a dancer you are never perfect, there is always more to do, more to work on, ways to get better, I find it hard to let go of this and say actually... this is the best I've got! Anyone else feeling the pressure??