Brainstorming for Inquiry ideas

I have taken both sides to myself, my constantly developing performing side to the working towards my teaching side and brainstormed possible ideas within my professions to tackle as an inquiry.  I will now look further into these ideas, hopefully with the help of fellow BAPP students on SIGs and then develop one to become my actual Inquiry so I can start my plan. 

Getting Back in to the swing of things

It's been awhile since the last term and it's now time to get back in to the swing of studying and work towards completing Module 2!

So Campus Session 1 for Module 2 - Professional Inquiry

First of all it was nice to meet those who are tackling module 2 at the same time as me, and Good Luck to all!  Last Tuesday was a good day, and an informative opening to Professional Inquiry. 

It is time to think about our own roles, it is about me and what I do!  Which is a big aspect to WBL.  As we were shown yesterday we have a link that goes round in a circle between ourselves the learner, Middlesex Uni our tutors, and our workplace and colleagues.  It is now time to use this circle in our research for our plan for our Professional Inquiry and then take it forward in to Module 3 when we undertake the Inquiry.

We now need to consider 'whats ahead', lines of inquiry that interest us, that we will enjoy and what we want to know more about.  We now need to consider lines of inquiry that are within what we study and the content of workplace.  In the first campus session we also looked at an article on Professional knowledge that showed us the separate sections from your particular role at your work place to the role you play as part of a bigger section.  We also talked about our own competency and capability within these roles.  Within professional knowledge we can actually take knowledge and look at it in further depth splitting it in to 3 types:-

1. Personal - Knowledge from your own experiences and own learning's. 
2. Tacit - The knowledge that is within ourselves. 
3. 'Know How' - which is knowledge of knowing how to do something. 

Looking at a profession that I am working myself towards I looked at what I need to know that is relevant within my practice. 

Dance Teacher
Generic Skills  -  Communication
                             Observation
                             Listening

Knowing What  -  Dance genres/styles - Tap, Modern, Jazz, Ballet etc
                             Rhythms
                             Techniques
                             Health and Safety

Knowing How  -  Physically Demonstrating
                            Breaking it down
                            Teaching methods - Mirroring, groups for improvisation

Looking at Professional Inquiry I now need to consider within the area of my own Professional Practice what do I need to develop.  What are my own capabilities and what interests me so I can develop these thoughts further, delving in to them and exploring in greater depths to help me work towards my professional inquiry.  I need to know what I am a 'beginner' in and look at those areas for possible inquiries. 

At the campus session we also talked about the advantages and challenges we could be faced with during an Inquiry based around WBL within our own workplace:-

Advantages

• Your own experiences, easier to tackle problems. 
• Better access to tools and research. 
• Confidence.
• Networking, more access to contacts within the industry.

Challenges

• Your own experiences, you have already created opinions and know the downfalls/flaws. 
• You can't look from the outside in. 
• Possibly be impaired by what you already know, limits new methods. 
• Could already have a fixed idea of possible findings. 

'Beauty is the eye of the beholder' 

During the professional Inquiry I need to learn and make sure that I differentiate between Subjectivity and Objectivity.  Being an inside researcher has more risks of being too subjective and I need to make myself aware to be objective which I can make possible by setting criteria. 

So............taking on everything that was discussed in the first campus session I can now take this forward and start to develop and brainstorm my ideas for a Professional Inquiry then start my plan. 

Inquiry Task

Although this task has been and gone, back in December when I first thought about this task it got me thinking and I drafted a few thoughts.  I would like to post this as it can now lead into and help me start my thought processes and ideas for the next module. 

When first thinking about this task. 2d, I did not have a clue what lines of inquiry to follow or that would or have really interested me.  So to give me varying ideas I read others blogs and posts on what line of inquiries they were interested in.  A few in particular stood out for me, these included Sandy Moffat's and Ceri Morgan's. 

Ceri's inquiry I found very interesting and I watched the you tube clip this was based on.  As I commented with choreography there is no right or wrong, however thinking about it now it can possibly be split in to good or bad.  When taking choreography as a line of inquiry from Ceri's Blog it brought thoughts flying through my head with questions in relation to choreography, however I feel Cer'is blog does not take a specific route and is left open ended.  To help me with my thoughts and processes I like to have a specific question or statement which relates to a path that the inquiry leads down.  Looking at choreography there are so many paths leading from a variety of questions and statements. 

• Where does the inspiration come from for a Choreographer?
• Is the music the key element within choreography?
• What makes a great choreographer?
• Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements.

Another blog that stood out to me was Sandy's with his line of inquiry, Does a shows celebrity performer effect the audiences.  After reading this post it was not long after I wrote my blog on with my reflective writing task and they both lead me to my own thoughts and questions for a possible inquiry task.  It got me thinking about the audiences 'we' as performers perform to.  There are many thoughts and questions that stand out in my head that could be pursued a s a line of inquiry in relation to a performers audience. 

What do our audience want from our performance, what do they come to see and why do they come???

• Do they come to see the celebrity star featured at that time? (linking to Sandy's Blog)
• Are they from a similar background, have they trained in the profession?
• Is it for the music, the style of dancing or the story told?
• Are they working as critics?
• Is it their first time, will they return?

I know why I go to theatre, but it would be interesting to ask the audience why they are there and what they came to see and take home from the performance.  It would be interesting to see how much of a mix there is within one audience and to see if this would ever change a performances progression. 

Starting Module 3835

Well it has been a little while since I've blogged, but have finally made some time to start my next challenge - the next module!  Unfortunately I was unable to make the 1st campus session, so feel I am on a little bit of a back foot, as last module campus sessions I found really helpful.  I'm starting to work my way through the tasks, slowly, and hoping things will become more clear.  Any tips on what I missed would greatly be appreciated!! 


Also have some old drafts from 1st module I want to post that I could not post before, so let me know what you think!