3a - Part 2 – How I connect with my Professional Networks.

I feel that I am perhaps a little behind in the ways in which I connect with my professional networks. I am more likely to connect face to face, my tapping on an office door and having a conversation than to use a social networking site such as facebook, I regularly use email if I have queries and need to contact someone directly.

I think that there may be two reasons why my methods of connections differ to the ones that others use.

The first reason is that I am employed in permanent contracts, I don’t need to regularly connect with an agent, to put myself out there or search out new work in the same way that I would if I was still performing on temporary contracts. My working life is fairly settled and so I don’t network for the same reasons. If I need information from a member of my network or they need anything from me it is usually specific, and doesn’t need to be shared with multiple people and so a phone call, face to face chat or an email are more appropriate methods for me to use.

The second important factor I think is that I live in Devon, I don’t usually need to communicate with people who are very far away from me, my networks are on my door step and as much as I hate to admit it the pace of life here is slower, I don’t need to keep up with constantly changing events using twitter as I am more likely to get my information first hand. I think this makes the way I communicate more personal, and I feel this can only be a good thing. Having said this though, exploring new ways to network are important to me, I have come to a point where I would like to search out new areas, ideas and opportunities and think that I can use networking to help me with this.

So the ways I currently network are;

Face to Face  

I am always knocking on doors, asking people if they have five minutes for a quick chat about something and I regularly attend team meetings with the whole of a staff team where we can all sit and discuss issues that affect us as a whole. I am a big believer in face to face contact, you can read so much more about a situation or how someone feels than you can from a post on a social networking site and to me this is important.

I also think that when you are standing waiting for a class to begin and a parent or student wants to have a chat, this openness is good for business. People get to know you this way and it develops a kind of trust between you, even perhaps a sense of loyalty which in business these days is hard to find and even harder to keep.

We are all so wrapped up in technology these days that I think we forget about the personal touch and this to me is a real shame.

Facebook

I have a facebook account, this is where I keep in contact with friends, people I went to college with and old teachers and co-workers. It is always interesting to see what is going on for other people, when they share their career progressions then it can spark ideas for yourself, and of course bring about the possibility of new work. I have a number of friends who have gone on to choreograph, produce or start their own dance schools, having regular contact with these people mean they share opportunities with me, if they need a class covered, need a dancer for a show or vice versa then it is the easiest way to contact people en mass. For this purpose it is extremely valuable. 

Because like I said previous I am currently employed under contracts and therefore work for other peoples businesses, I don’t have a facebook page that is solely professional. This is something that I have been considering changing. I have never considered advertising myself, but as I develop new ideas about how I want to move forward with my career it is something I am thinking about, a way to meet new people and keep this on a professional level has a number of merits, it would also allow me to add students (something I don’t feel is appropriate on my social account) which would allow me to advertise any new ventures that I come up with for my career progression.   

BAPP Blog

The BAPP blog is my newest network. I don’t feel however that it is my strongest. I don’t comment a lot on other peoples work, I have blogged before on this, and I think I feel that I am not worthy to comment on other peoples work, I don’t know any more than they do. I keep saying that this is something I will address, as I am aware that the network is only as good as the connections, and frequency of connections made. If I don’t talk to people, it is highly unlikely that they will communicate with me, and I think this is an important point, in any kind of relationship there has to be something in it for all people involved, for this reason I don’t feel my blog is overly successful. But I am hoping in completing this section of the module I will gain a better understanding and confidence in building and using new networks and be able to improve the strength of them.

Twitter

From the previous work done on Web 2.0 technologies I was encouraged to open a twitter account, to see what I was missing and to find the value that other people seem to find. I have to say that I haven’t really found it all too valuable in the sense of developing meaningful new networks. A lot of the people I have on my twitter account I also have on facebook and so I get much the same as I do from that. However it has allowed me to find some classes and opportunities for further study and education that may aid my professional practice, I have been looking for things of this nature on-line for sometime but it seems that companies and dance professionals are making use of sites like twitter to advertise rather than conventional methods. This has made me aware that I have another option for sourcing information, for finding people and when I begin to develop the next steps in my career another option for advertising, I was late to catch on but it seem that this is the way a lot of people are using twitter.

Linkedin

I have just discovered linkedin, it was through Paula’s post on the libguides that I found a SIG I was interested in and it just happened to be on linked in. I am really excited about this site, and about making new links with people in an area that I am interested in. I am very new to this, and again I haven’t had time to really have a good look through or to comment, however it is something I want to make use of in the future.

This brings me onto another point, I find it so difficult to make time for everything, keeping up with networking in so many ways and on so many sites is very time consuming, and I find I can literally spend hours trying to catch up on what has been said. I can see the value and I want to connect to my networks more, but how does everyone fit it in?

Email/ Phone/ Text

The pressure of time is possibly why I still like to pick up the phone and ring or text, when I ring someone I get an immediate response, or vice versa. I know this limits my communication to just one person, but sometimes this is all that is needed.

I also send a lot of emails, it means I don’t have to read a lot of information on someone’s social networking site to find out what I need to know, I can send the email, and get on with something else while I’m waiting for a reply.

I like things to be direct, I am a straight forward person and I think that is why I still rely on face to face networking, and phone calls etc. And if I’m honest most of my meaningful connections with my networks are always based in these kinds method. From reading other peoples blogs I am aware I may be on my own in this conclusion, and I wonder what I am missing? Is it because I don’t have my own business and so don’t need to advertise, or because I don’t look for changing work as often as other people who are perhaps performing? If anyone has any thoughts I would be really interested as I do still feel like I am missing something important?

Moving forward I am determined to make more connections, not necessarily to add more people but to communicate more with the people I do have in my networks in more and different ways. I am determined to keep trying and working on networking using such sites as twitter, facebook and linked in. For me it’s still that idea of working with the unknown until it all starts to make sense for you. Perhaps by making more time and actively making the effort to think about what others are saying and being confident to add my opinion I will gain new value from it, It comes back to that idea again about engaging with something in order to learn something new, there is little point in being part of these networks unless I actively engage and see what I get back. I know it must be important, as everyone is doing it, but for me at this time it about trying to make sense of it and how it fits into my life and my professional development.

Ideally when I reach the end of that process I will have a stronger network, where I am more of an obvious and valuable presence, and where I have a skill set that allows me to communicate in a more varied way. I want to have drawn in valuable members of my extended network closer to the centre so that I communicate with them more regularly allowing me to create relationships that not only allow me to create opportunities for myself, but to be part of a community of people that are valuable to each other. I want to push myself forward in this area and to develop my self as a professional with an online identity.

3a – Part 1 - Current Professional Networks.

As someone who is currently working within a few areas as part of my professional practice I discovered that in all I have 5 separate networks. Where others have found that their networks may overlap, at the moment I think my areas are a little diverse and so there aren’t really as yet many connections between them. The diagram below is a visual representation of my networks. 

At the moment I have 3 current areas of work, I work within schools as a support to the teaching of creative and active subjects, I teach ballet classes for a local dance school for children and I am a support worker, working with adults with learning disabilities enabling them to engage with the community and access creative and active pastimes.

My other two networks are around the BAPP programme and also my personal support network, of family, friends, and previous teachers and employers that have an impact on my life.

I have taken the idea for my second diagram from the information in Alan's blog  "Mapping our professional networks"  in which he shared an article by Christopher Butler about logging the frequency with which we connect to those in our networking circles "mapping your network" . How often I connect with my networks I think is an important aspect, a network is only useful if you are engaging with it regularly, regular contact means regular sharing of ideas and opportunities for new work, improvement of our current practices, and a way of measuring our progress through reflection from others. 

Those that appear closest to me in this diagram are the people that are currently directly linked with in my working life, people that are having an impact on my professional practice daily, give me feedback and support on how to move forward and improve, or by being the people that allow me to do my job, my students and their families, this to me must be my most important network, as they are the people I work with or for.

The people further away from me that I connect with less regularly are either people who have impacted on my working life but perhaps are no longer such a regular influence, such as previous teachers or employers. These people are still very important to me, and although I do not now rely on them regularly the network is still important as it is access to more sources of information, or potential work as they are aware of my practice.

Also of great importance are those in my more extended network who I would like to work with more, I would see these as people who I am trying to introduce into my closer network, as I am aware that it may hold opportunities for me. An example of this is external agencies that I have some contact with; I am very interested in creative therapies as yet I have not had the opportunity to explore this further, I have professionals in this area as part of my network which mean I can work in making more regular contact and search out possibilities for further education or work.

The people that we have in our networks are there for a reason, there must be something in the relationship for both parties and I feel that this is something to bear in mind. The frequency with which we connect can mean that these people stay with us or do not, this will always be fluid as we change jobs, or roles and we need to stay connected and be available to those who are most important to keep those relationships alive, maintaining networks is vital.  

Task 2d - Enquiry.

What in my daily practice gets me really enthusiastic?


Quite simply the part of my daily practice that get me really enthusiastic is people, I am privileged to work in a number of environments with a range of people and seeing how they react to me and my classes and seeing them achieve and become enthusiastic is why I do what I do. As I said on my blog profile, I am truly fascinated by dance, and in particular the way we learn to dance. The fact that everyone has a different mindset and a different body, a different set of skills and reason for dancing, and the implications and uses that all of these things can have. 

I had a teacher when I was a college, she was the best teacher I had there. She taught each person as an individual. She knew the girls that would fight back and work harder if she was hard on them, but she also knew the ones who would crumble if she put on too much pressure. She was understanding and gave more than one solution to a problem, corrections often started with “this is hard, but if you try this… or if that doesn’t work try this instead” It was all about finding your own way, she understood the people she was teaching and that is why we all did well under her instruction.


What makes me angry or sad?


I get really frustrated when people aren’t treated as individuals. People make snap decisions based in the very little they know or see of someone. Everyone is different, not every blond is the same, not every child in a dance class is the same and not everyone with the same disability is the same. In a teaching environment it is so important to understand the people you are working with, you have to find a way to make something make sense to that individual, what works for one wont work for all.

It upsets me when a teacher complains that their student doesn’t understand something and say “I have told them a hundred times” the expression “A bad workman blames his tools” comes to mind, if you’ve said it 100 times then you obviously aren’t saying the right things! Just because you understand it that way doesn’t mean someone else will, think of another way for it to make sense. 

I work with lots of talented people within learning disabilities; the service manager of the company I work for is fantastic at seeing the individual and will always try and see something from another person’s point of view and then work with this to find a solution and I think this is a fantastic skill to have.


What do I love about what I do?

I love to come across challenges, a student that simply can’t pirouette, another student who is lacking confidence or one who has all the technique but not the artistry and students with learning disabilities who interact with you in a totally different way. I love to discover the reasons for these things and develop strategies to work with them, tricks to make it work for them or that one thing that suddenly makes it all make sense. I love to watch people grow and develop and to become more enthusiastic and more confident in themselves and what they are doing.

I think I get this passion from my mother, she is also a teacher and she thrives on a challenge, there is never anything to her that doesn’t have a solution. With the children she works with it is all about encouraging confidence, and showing them that there is always a solution, because if there is a solution somewhere, then there isn’t anything to be worried about is there, it’s just a matter of time until you find the answer. She is my inspiration when I teach because I think she does it so well.

What do I feel I don’t understand?

Teaching children is so enjoyable to me and I have considered that I would like to make this my full time direction by moving into mainstream education. But I don’t as yet fully understand what this would entail. I help with GCSE and A-level classes, however I turn up on practical days and help with choreography or technique classes, something that I am comfortable with but I don’t fully understand the other aspects of what is taught. All of the other responsibilities that go with working in a school, preparing for exams, teaching educational syllabus, setting essays, marking homework, creating time tables. How do I know this is an area that I would like to move forward in if I don’t fully understand what it entails?

 

Working with adults with learning disabilities makes me curious to the applications dance can have. Creative therapies have wide reaching uses and this is something I am fascinated by, I have seen this first hand with some of the people I work with but as yet is something I don’t fully understand or have had chance to investigate.

The idea that something I love purely for the sake of it can have powerful applications is really exciting to me, but how does this work? How do you take something that most of us see as entertainment and make it into something that can have therapeutic applications?

Both are areas I am interested in moving towards, but I am unable to make a decision on this until I have a clearer idea if what each entails and whether I a have the skills that each one would involve.

Task 2c - A Critical Reflection on my use of Reflective Practices

I found the subject of reflective practices really interesting, I can see how I use reflection in my work and in fact believe that we all use reflection a lot of the time, this is how we process our experiences. When I start thinking about reflection I instantly start linking it to learning, I wonder if I have made the right distinctions between the two? Or are they that linked that perhaps it is difficult to have one without the other and so the distinction is slightly blurred?

Below is my critical reflection, it details how I feel I use reflective practices and the links to theories in the reader.
Task 2c - A Critical Reflection on my use of reflective practices

If anyone has any thoughts they would be gratefully received?!

Task 2c Reflective Theory. - Part 1.

The reflective theory task asks us to look outward at what others have said about reflection. This is just a short essay that is my starting point to understanding the reader and what has been written about reflection before I go on to do my critical reflection.
 
Task 2c Reflective Theory.

TASK 2b. Journal Writing Experience

I really struggle to write in my journal, mainly because it takes me so long, once I start writing and trying to make sense of things that happen and start making plans I generally go on for some time. Because I see it as time consuming I tend to put it off, saying to myself , "I will do it in the morning when I have more time and can do it properly"... I tend not to!

So when confronted with nine styles of writing I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to find a better way, and I am pleased to say that not only did I find new value in logging my actions and thoughts I also found a more appropriate way for me to do this.

Description was the first method on the list and this is the way that I have always written a journal previously. But in actual fact when comparing it to the other methods there is little value in it for me. I find I write an account almost like a story, but I was there, I know what happened, so simply recalling the events doesn't really help me, and it takes a very long time as I cant help but go into too much detail about where when and how, but too little on why and how successful. 

Initial Reflection I found incredibly useful, rather that recalling the whole of an event or day I recalled how I felt about my day and why, which in turn lead to me recalling events with meaning rather that everything, important or otherwise. This was much quicker, and gave me points to follow up on, things that I felt went badly, why and how to improve them or things that went well that I would like to repeat. Analysing the day and learning from it the most important aspect of writing the journal for me.

List is quick simple and brilliant if you are short of time. It is much more concise which makes it much easier to go over at a later date, and I was surprised by how much I found to put in my lists. It contained more valuable information in one page than my normal descriptive way of writing did in four. It also automatically created me a "to do" list, by including things I want to find out more about, I instantly know where to go next with my work/ research. To get this from my normal descriptive way of writing I would have to analyse several pages of my rambling thoughts to get to this point.

Evaluation I found fairly similar to Initial reflection, I think it's really valuable to analyse what went well and what needs improvement, this is the way I always worked as a dancer. By evaluating particular areas, specifically new tasks or decisions I can come to some good conclusions as to what actions to adopt or what needs to be amended.


Graphs, Charts and Diagrams. I put these three together, as this was the method that I was most sceptical about. But in I actually found it quite useful. I used the graphs to show fun, freedom and stress, as suggested in the handbook, to compare last year to this year when teaching my senior ballet class. I then analysed the reasons for this and found it quite a nice way to plot my progress. It isn't something that I would use regularly to record my activities as I feel there would be too many variables to make this possible on a day to day basis, but it is something I would use at intervals maybe 4 monthly to track my progress in specific areas.
I like using pictures and diagrams when I am choreographing and I took this task as a prompt to plan some projects for the future, I really enjoyed it, I think its a brilliant way to get ideas from my head onto the paper with having to be too specific, just to get a feeling of what I am trying to create, a starting point to go from and I will certainly use this in the future, however I wouldn't feel comfortable using this as a daily diary format.

What if? Again this is something that I found very useful but not something I would use on a regular basis. It was nice to let my mind wonder and to visualise the things that I would love to happen. Visualisation is a valuable tool in deciding what directions you want to move and where you want to be working towards and I was surprised that I saw things that I hadn't really considered as serious options, but when I let my mind wander did seem possible.
The most valuable aspect for me though was actually thinking about the things I would not like to happen. It has made me consider my current working position. I am not always entirely happy with the way things are done in my current employment, I always maintain in my mind that I am separate to this, I work for them, I am not them. But in considering this I realised that others may not necessarily see this and my reputation is on the line also. It has made me consider that perhaps I need to seek other employment, or even more frightening... go it alone. I never thought that writing a diary entry would make me question who I work for so seriously, but I am glad that it has opened my mind to other possibilities, both good and bad. Again as an exercise to solve a specific problem then I find this was very valuable to me, but I wouldn't use this as a diary as I like to analyse things that are actually happening.

Another view was the most fun to write, I really enjoy writing and it was nice to have the freedom to do something different. It also made me more aware that I am in fact being watched all of the time by other people, and the way that we present ourselves and our work is so important. If we aren't professional and don't take ourselves seriously then others will not. And if we are having an off day and the wrong person is watching this could lead to missing out on vital work, or gaining a bad reputation. I found it interesting to imagine how others see me. I also found though that I was more likely to pick out negative aspects that I feel need improvement rather than concentrating on the good. In the process of learning and self improvement this may be a good thing, but I think maybe this would be a long winded and often negative way to write, for me anyway. I also don't think that it involves close enough personal analysis of what I felt was successful or otherwise and so wouldn't  be a method I would use regularly.

All in all, I found value in all of the nine methods, with possibly the exception of description, which is strange as it is always the way I have written journals and imagined that they should be written. The most valuable to me and the one I will be adopting is the list method. With some adaptation, I am going to create a diary form that requires me to write lists of the information I find most valuable, (what I did, saw, and felt) and including my all important "to do list" with further points to examine and research. I will also include an evaluation section where I will go over specific aspects of my day and record my thoughts as to why they were or were not successful. I hope this should provided an easily accessible and easily achievable method of recording my thoughts feelings, successes and trials.
On top of this there has been some discussion on the blogs about whether to include personal as well as professional aspects into the journals. I feel that the two are interlinked. My professional work effects how I feel personally, and I have an emotional attachment to my work. However I understand the need to keep some distinction between the two otherwise the purpose of these writings may become clouded. To allow me to keep this separate I have been highlighting each entry, one colour for specific professional aspects, and one for emotional or personal views and hope this will allow me to keep a check on the content I am including in my journal, and perhaps even provide insight into the actions I am taking and why.

If you dont try.... You'll never know!

While writing my journal after teaching yesterday, I had a revelation that I felt may be relevant to more than just me so I thought I would share.

I was talking to my class about confidence, and doing things half heartedly, the girls who are lacking in a little confidence can often be seen marking, rather than risk being wrong and doing it full out incorrectly, they do it half-heartedly thinking that no one will notice because it’s small. I keep saying to them

 “If you’re marking because you’re scared of being wrong, you’re not doing it correctly anyway, you’re automatically wrong without giving yourself a chance.”

I was trying to get across to them that they are taking away their opportunity to be right!! (or their opportunity to improve by getting it wrong and learning from it.)

And then I realised, I often take away my opportunity to be right, or to improve by avoiding situations or not doing anything at all. This fear of making mistakes can often hold us back.

This then took me back to some things I had reviewed in the reader about experience, reflection and learning, John Dewey felt

“…the quality of the education was linked to the level of engagement with, and consciousness of the experience”  

If we are not engaging with the experience, by marking instead of dancing, thinking in our heads but not blogging, knowing how to improve our workplace but not communicating it, all for fear of being wrong or reprimanded then we have no opportunity to improve ourselves or our situation.

In order to learn we have to take risks, my Mum always says to me “If you don’t try… you’ll never know!” and this is exactly what I was trying to say when I was teaching. And something I need to keep in my own mind more often.

In the environment of a dance studio I find it easy to take risks, to try and fail and use that opportunity to improve, but in every other area of my life, I see trying and failing as a negative. Maybe it’s time I changed that perspective.

In Peter Honey and Alan Mumford’s model inspired by Kolb’s learning cycle they identify four stages of learning

• Having an experience
• Reviewing the experience
• Concluding from the experience
• Planning the next step

If we are avoiding experiences (in case we fail) then we have nothing to review or reflect upon, and while we may think we know what will happen we have nothing concrete to go from and so we stay in the same place, situation or mindset that we had previously. (You could call that failure in itself?)

In order to be reflective we have to do something to reflect upon, something that matters, an action or an attempt, and then in reflecting upon this we can make decisions about the success of that experience and use this to plan, move on and grow.

I liked Adesola’s post about getting messy…

“Hopefully you are well into everything, possibly getting acquainted with the feeling of ‘not knowing’, which comes before that light-bulb moment as things click into place. I think the biggest thing to check at this point is that you are ‘in it’.”

We have to be “in it” whether we know what we are doing or not, we have to keep trying and engaging, then we can get it wrong, reflect and learn or as Adesola says have a “light bulb moment” and succeed. Either way it’s a positive thing, through not trying we are failing anyway, so what is there to be afraid of?

References.

Adesola Akinleye. Blog,  08/03/2012

Dewey J. 1916

Honey 1982, Honey and Mumford 1983

WBS 3730, Reader 2. The Reflective Practitioner 2011/2012