BAPP Course Blogs

Do some very specific ideas emerge about your networking and sources? Does your engagement to date seem appropriate? Initially when I saw the tasks in part 3 on networking, I naively thought 'great I know how to do this, it's easy.' I was, and have been for a few years now networking in my career but I never knew there were so many possible routes to do so. I always thought networking was 'just talking to people in my career.' Through these tasks I have now been able to develop my skills in networking and realise that there are a variety of ways I can network. Including social media, things like this blog, youtube, facebook etc.  Are your ideas, position or concerns shared by others within and/or beyond your professional area of work? With regards to the BAPP arts course I find this to be completely true. When we have had various Skype/Breeze chats it really comes through that we all have the same questions and through these chats we can help each other through ...

The next task is focused on where we get our information from. As I have been looking through others blogs I have noticed that everyone uses a variety of sources to find the information they need. In this blog I will be telling you my sources of information and how helpful I find them to help me progress in my career.  When I first looked up sources of information I found that most can be put into 3 categories: Primary Information Secondary Information Tertiary Information These are quite self explanitory but I will break them down for you. A Primary source is firsthand information about an event, for example our journals that we have all been writing. They are sources which have not been edited by a second party yet. Therefore a Secondary source is an analysation of a primary source, these include reviews, text books and even most of our blogs would be a secondary source as we analyse various pieces of information. Tertiary sources are often used to gain fact...

This task we are asked to look outward to already established ideas for networking, seeing if we can use and take inspiration from these. In reader 3 we were given 5 concepts on professional networking. I know I have been networking already in my career but I never new how to develop my networking and branch out with the way I do things. So looking at these concepts has been really great for me, and has already helped me focus on networking more. Below are these concepts and some information on them. Cooperation: the will and way to win Closely associated with the 'Game theory' which is based on ideas developed by mathematicians and helps you tackle problems in a range of areas which include: economics, sociology, international relations and biography. The idea being that one successes to the others expense. One influential researcher Robert Axelrod, identified the importance of cooperation, and the benefits of fully cooperating with others.  Th...

For the next few tasks we will be looking into networking. So the best place to start would be to look at our own networks. I have quite a few different networks, however I haven't wrote them down before so I was looking forward to doing my first map of my network to see how they connect. To network myself I find some of the best ways are through conversations, contacts, web 2.0, events and conferences. Doing these really helps you expand your network.  Ever heard the saying 'it's not what you know, but who you know.' ?  Now this doesn't help everyone but i find the more people you know in this industry the more opportunities you get. I like to get involved with as many projects as I can, even if it's volunteering because that opens you up to meeting more and more people and from there they can introduce you to their contacts. To me networking is a never ending process it will constantly build throughout your career. Below are images of my individual c...

For this task we were asked to answer a few questions. Looking more into how we reflect on our work on a daily basis. The previous tasks in this section have really helped me to answer these.  Please see the questions and answers below: What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiastic to find more about? Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic? Since I have been in the performing arts industry from a youn age, it's all I know. I love the performing arts and I knew from a young age this is what I wanted to do. To me there is no end to what you can learn in this industry and as I love to learn it allows me to keep improving in my work. I love to learn new styles of dance and sharing them with participants to my classes. I don't tend to 'admire' famous people. I am far more inspired by the people and participants I work with. Everyone has different thought processes and I love to get ideas from the people around me, be it children or ...

I was interested to see what would come from the chat, as I know I had a lot of questions and queries and wanted to see if everyone was in the same boat?  I had also never used breeze before so was a bit nervous about being able to participate in case something went wrong. But luckily it didn't and was very simple to use.  So the chat had already started when I had logged into it, which I was worried about what I missed, but I soon caught up and got into the swing of things.  There was so much information given from both Paula, and the other students on the course that I could not stop writing notes down! If I was in a cartoon I believe my pen would have been on fire! :) It was so nice to share with everyone, and was also a relief that I wasn't the only one who was feeling a bit nervous about the portfolio. But Paula explained it so well and really eased my worries. I have already started to get my appendices together and have started my first draft. I am slig...

This is just a quick blog... So today I had a meeting with one of the companies I work for. It was really good, full of so much information and was lovely to see the team altogether as we don't get to do this often. One of my colleagues did a short presentation on 'Phonics' which was fantastic and has lead me to so many new ideas!  But that is not the best of it. Each year they select 4 members of staff to win teacher of the year, and I was one of them! I am so thrilled to be nominated! I nearly cried! It just goes to show, that the harder you work the more you get rewarded. I'm not sure if I'll win as I'm up against some great contenders, but just to be nominated makes me feel so proud!  So that's my good news of today!  Chow Chow

In this blog I will be discussing critical thinking and reflective theory. I will be looking into well known practitioners of reflective theories, comparing them and finding out the opinions of other practitioners. In reader two it states  "learning from experience' is a process of turning information into knowledge" As a teacher, and a work based learner reflecting on myself and what I do plays a big part in my work. In order for me to keep progressing, I need to constantly reflect on everything I do. However it wasn't until recently through doing this course that I found the best way to do this... through my journal.  Critical thinking is to be able to think rationally and clearly. To do so, you need to be logical and understand the connection between ideas/theories. The subject of critical thinking has been up for debate for a long time, some even dating back to Greek philosophers such as Plato and Socrates. To be able to think critically you need to engage in...

For this task we have been told to look at different ways of writing a reflective journal. We have been given a few to try out on different days/entries for our journal including: evaluation, description and graphs/diagrams etc.  So I thought I would share a couple of extracts with you from my journal.  The first is an entry I wrote before I had even looked up 'how to write a journal' it goes as follows... "I wanted to write about today as I feel it has a few interesting points. The first was I had my 2nd taster session for a care home, which I was already anxious about as having been there before, the set up wasn't really ideal. Also the fact I have recently sprained my ankle, a lot could go wrong. Anyway, I turned up and the activities co-ordinator was very cheery as per usual. But she then decided to drop a bombshell on me. She informed me I would be doing 2 sessions in 2 rooms rather than 1 session for the hour (which I had all my plans for) so that was a less...

This part of the course is where we are asked to keep a journal, to reflect on our practices, but in a more private manner. I will admit, this is the first time I have ever kept a journal, and I struggled with it to begin with. I didn't know where to start!  Then I realised, writing a journal, is like writing a diary, but you talk about a specific subject, in this case for me; dance. I have now been writing in my journal for the past couple of weeks, and will continue to do so, so that I can get as many entries to reflect on and look back at.  I have said in a previous blog, that I am on-the-go quite a lot, so to help me make sure I don't miss anything that I would like to put in my journal, I have also got an app which is an online journal, and I am finding that very useful, so that when I get home of an evening I am already with all my information for my entry when I sit down and write.  As I am still finding my feet with journal writing, I am constantly resear...

Hello again, Aren't you lucky, my 3rd blog in a few days!  Well, this is a quick simple one for those of you on the BAPP arts course (also for those who aren't!) but I have found a few helpful things that I thought I would share with you all.  The first,we have reached part 2 of our course which as you will know is all about reflective writing. We have all been asked to keep a journal. However if you are anything like me, life can seem to get very busy so finding the time to write in your journal can be a bit difficult. Especially as I have to carry a lot around with me most of the time so adding an extra book equals even more weight! Therefore I have found a easy, free online site which you can keep journals on, and there is even an app for your phone. I am using this for my 'on-the-go' journal as it is quick and easy and then writing up my proper journal of an evening to make sure I don't miss anything!  The site/app is called Penzu, the link is here: http...

Hi there, So if you saw my post from yesterday I was conducting a short experiment to see if I know myself well enough to be able to say what kind of leaner I am.  I have done Honey and Mumford's test and the results are in... Activist - 13/20 (Very strong preference) Pragmatist - 12/20 (Moderate) Theorist - 11/20 (Moderate) Reflector - 8/20 (Very low preference) I can safely say I was right in believing I am an activist. However I was surprised to see how close the other scores were. It has shown me that I am using different ways of learning in my work, but I can still develop these much further. I was sad to see that reflector was my lowest, however this whole part of the BAPP Arts course is about reflection: on ourselves, our work and others, so it will be nice to hopefully see a clear improvement of my reflective skills using the BAPP course.  I really enjoyed doing the questionnaire, and would highly recommend trying it, especially if you are...

After my Skype conversation with Paula, Joe and Shannon about the next few tasks at hand on the BAPP arts course, one thing really stuck out to me.  How we learn. It has always fascinated me how we are all taught together the same subjects in schools from a young age, yet we all learn and consume knowledge in very different ways. I realised from a young age how I learn, which also made it quite difficult for me at school as I was what you call a Kinesthetic learner (I learn from doing), which meant I excelled in practical classes, however not so much with others. Hence, why I love performing arts so much! Don't get me wrong, I still learnt a lot and as soon as I could, I developed my own way of turning not so practical subjects/tasks into more practical ways for me to learn (mainly for homework! sadly I wasn't allowed to start dancing and prancing around classrooms!).  The '4 Main Learning Styles' are: Visual Auditory Reading/Writing Kinesthetic A...