Oral Presentation - 22/01/2016

Today was presentation day.  Although I was worried as I have never undertaken the challenge of an academic presentation previously, reflecting over how I feel it went, I would happily do it again as it was nearly as awful as I had imagined.  Now please don't think that I would say it was perfect, more of an experience (which I found rather enjoyable as it happens!), to learn from and build on for future presentations I may be required to do.

After my last blog and the feedback from fellow students/colleagues on which tool to use for my presentation (powerpoint or keynote), I ran with keynote.  This was a really easy to use program and did everything I wanted it to.  If you are planning to create your own presentation using this using this software however, be prepared to present it as a powerpoint also, as there were some technical difficulties with someone else's keynote presentation.  Make like the scouts and "Be Prepared"!

The Q and A section of the presentation was actually more insightful than scary, as I received some wonderful feedback from Adesola on how to further develop my artefact.  I was worried prior to presenting that I would be asked something I didn't know the answer to, but again this was just a horror scenario I had created for myself and in reality, I feel I gave some solid responses to the questions asked today.

Going forward, I will speak with Paula and find out whether I am allowed to post my presentation online, which will hopefully be helpful for others on the course both at present and in the future.

Of course, even though the 'stress' is over, I feel just as tense as I did this morning before presenting and will almost certainly remain this way until the results are posted.  Unfortunately I don't currently own a time machine, so perhaps I will look attend some yoga/meditation classes until then, in an effort to ease my stress!

Module 3 submitted. Time to plan the presentation...

I submitted my critical review on Monday night and boy did it feel good...and equally terrifying.  Monday night I slept for around four hours in total - not nearly enough for my liking (!) - as I kept running through my essay in my head, not that I can exactly edit it now, so I don't know why worrying about it would make a difference at this stage?!  I am a bit of a worrier in life though and combined with being a perfectionist and a touch of OCD for good measure, I end up wide eyed at 3am.

Source: http://image.shutterstock.com

So I decided to write a blog, with the hope that by sharing my concern with the rest of the world, I might self soothe and reduce some anxiety at least, especially as there are another 48 days until module results are published...not that I am counting or anything!

Speaking of upcoming days, the presentation day is looming and so far I have done very little work on it.  However, I do have Saturday all day to work on it, which is the plan of action.  

I have never written (or delivered) a presentation of any sort, although how different can it be from teaching?  I am sure that if I can stand in front of a group of judging, hormonal and quite often (verbally) abusive teenagers with confidence and successfully deliver information to them, surely a presentation to grown ups be fine...right?  I will keep you posted...

To begin with, I am going to re-watach the powerpoint presentation Paula (uploaded to her blog) on how to create a presentation.  I have also researched some websites on creating a university presentation and have uploaded some URLs for anyone who is looking for some advice - 

https://www.brainpickings.org

http://www.dummies.com

https://unihub.mdx.ac.uk

www.topuniversities.com

I have also found a whole host of TED talks that give hints and tips on presentations:

https://www.ted.com

Now I could do with a little advice if anybody can help...

When creating my presentation, I am unsure whether to use keynote or powerpoint, as I have access to both; keynote on my macbook, powerpoint at school.  As I have never used either, I spoke to some colleagues and have heard mixed reviews of both.  The internet again has a multitude of opinions on which is better, so if anyone has any experience of using either, I would really appreciate it! 

Source: Google search at - http://niche-macworld-production.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/PowerPoint-versus-Keynote.jpg

I have mentioned it before (in a previous blog), but during module 3, I really missed having the time to blog, as I find sitting, thinking and typing, extremely productive.  Afterwards, I feel my mind relax a little and I rekindle the motivation to work towards my latest goals! 

Here is to getting back into the swing of my blog...

Source: Google search at - http://limi-sro.sk/wp-content/uploads/mojito.jpg

CHEERS!

Reflecting over module 3 and planning beyond the course

It has been a while since my last (and only) module 3 blog.  As discussed previously, I was late on developing ideas due to personal problems, however since then, the inquiry research took off like a steam train (developed down a slightly different path) and now I am almost ready to submit! 

I cannot believe that we are almost done... :) 

During module 3,  I developed my network at school as a priority over my social media interactions, simply because (a) I was behind on time and (b) I will be working alongside these teachers as part of my teacher training course, so I felt that networking with these people would be beneficial in the long run too.  

However, I have really missed this time to sit and reflect over my work and ideas so I wanted to get back into blogging, mainly for some 'me time' but also to help others who are in other modules if I can...I'm just a lovely person, what can I say?!

Considering the process as a whole entity, I would say that the research element was interesting, the ethical considerations (working in a school) were fairly time consuming - looking for policies/getting consent forms signed etc - but the analysis was the really difficult and very time consuming element for me.  I had to continually remind myself that it was all qualitative research and so, when writing up findings, I had to be overly careful not to state things as fact.  If anybody out there is struggling with this, have a look at 'hedging', something Paula introduced me to.  There is also a 'Pocket Study Skills' book entitled 'Planning Your Dissertation' (Kate Williams), which was my life line during the whole process...

I had real difficulty in separating what I was doing as part of the research (what had been planned for), from the work I was doing as part of my everyday role as a TA.  For example, I had to be careful to fully explain to the reader the situations and limitations I was working within, rather than assuming they knew (because I know as it is part of my job!).  Similar to painting a picture, I often missed out the sketching part and went straight to colouring in (I am also sure that if Paula were reading this then she would have an artistic name for that technique!), so the reader would have questioned how I had got from one bit to the other.

The artifact was an enjoyable section of the inquiry for me as I was able to see the positives of the inquiry and how the school were planning to use my research to hopefully benefit the teachers and therefore, the students.  As a soon to be teacher in training (get the 'L' plates ready!), this opportunity to aid the teachers would not have happened without the inquiry and for that, I am SO happy!

Moving forward, I am going to start working on the presentation so I will let you all know how that is progressing.  If I am honest,  I am a little nervous about the presentation, which as an actress sounds ridiculous I know, but the thought of doing an academic presentation that I have written is SCARY...

Anyway, if anyone has any questions about the inquiry process etc or anything that I may be able to help with, let me know as I am hoping to blog a few times a month during my teacher training :) 

Module 3 research and interviews

Hi Everyone,

I haven't blogged in a while as I have had some health issues but I am now back in the saddle and working like a steam train on my research project.

My working question is -

"How can I develop Drama learning to benefit the social skills and emotional literacy of Key Stage 3 & 4 learners with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (EBD)? Can developing these skills aid independence?"


I have drawn up a consent form/set of interview questions and should hopefully have completed the interview process in a couple of days so I can begin analysing my research.  The interview questions are as follows:

a)    How would you best define social skills in relation to the curriculum taught within this school?  What are the main topics covered within the schemes of work?

b)   What does the term ‘social skills’ mean in relation to KS3/4 with EBD?  Are there any particular topics within these social skills lessons that KS3/4 children with EBD struggle with (generally speaking)? Any examples?

c)    What does the term emotional literacy refer to in the context of this school?

d)   Does having developed emotional literacy impact KS3/4 in any way and does it impact differently on KS3/4 children with EBD? How? Any examples?

e)    What does future independence mean for students with EBD within this school?

*Independence; Capable of thinking or acting for oneself

                          ; Not depending on another for livelihood or subsistence

f)     In your opinion, would a series of workshops or a curriculum of work, specifically targeting social skills through drama teaching, benefit or inhibit the KS3/4 children in this school with EBD?

g)    How important is the role of a Drama curriculum within this school at present and (usually) how engaged within drama lessons are the KS3/4 students with EBD ie. Highly engaged, mostly engaged, somewhat engaged, not at all engaged/refuse to participate or even stay in the setting?

h)   In your opinion does drama impact upon KS3/4 with EBD?  How?  Are there any specific instances you could share?

i)     Are there any ethical implications/limitations to take into account when teaching EBD children?

j)     In a drama workshop situation, how many EBD children would you recommend working with at once (with support assistant(s) present) to most benefit the engagement and learning of participants and keep the sessions controlled but relaxed, in equal measure.

k)    In relation to creating workshop activities, are there any elements of a drama lesson you feel may not be appropriate/may be more beneficial to teaching adolescents with EBD i.e. Role-play, method acting, improvisation, script writing etc.

l)     In your opinion, would single sex or mixed workshops keep the participants with EBD more engaged? Why?

m)  Do you have anything else to add that you feel may be of interest to the research?

 *As defined by http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/independent

To go alongside the interview research, I am also sending out an email at work (SEN school KS3/4) to all the teachers asking them to select three of their  EBD students that they can observe and mark against the EBD criteria (as defined by the therapy team at my workplace).  This will give me a clearer context for the level of pitching for my artefact.

The artefact I am working on is going to either run as a scheme of work that can be used by the Drama department or as a series of workshops which could be run as an enrichment scheme or after school club, which specifically targets the areas of social skills that children with EBD general struggle with.

In terms of context, my workplace is extremely focussed on giving our learners the life/social skills they need to be able to live and survive independently upon leaving education.  Although it would be ideal that all learners have at least basic literacy/numeracy skills upon leaving education, these academic skills are not necessary to get a job for example.  If learners are able to follow audible/visual instructions, they are therefore able to fulfil a role in a workplace, earn a wage and live, for the most part, independently.  As I mentioned earlier, it is this independence that the head is most concerned with.

I have also been reading some brilliant literature on EBD (two books that were recommended by colleagues), as although my practical techniques for working with learners with EBD were successful, my academic knowledge of the subject was sparse.  This research project has afforded me the opportunity to underpin my practical knowledge and fill in the gaps of why I cannot always understand an individual or connect with them.

If anybody would like to offer any of their own experiences in relation my my interview questions above, ideas on successful drama techniques they have used with EBD learners or anything else you feel would be beneficial, I would find it very useful before I begin compiling my research.

Thanks Everybody :) 

Module Two: Critical Reflection on Professional Practitioner Inquiry

Critical Reflection on Professional Practitioner Inquiry

Developed Professional Questions:

The journey to finding a line of inquiry that checks all of the boxes on my list has certainly been challenging one, with many twists and turns along the way.  My initial thoughts led me towards trying to simply gel together the two key areas of my career over the years; Performing Arts and Teaching.  This led me to my initial question, ‘Is there a core educational need for Performing Arts based subjects within the National Curriculum Framework’? However, after a long discussion with my lecturer, I began to realise that this area was too broad and would lead me into exploring cultural and social theories, which I did not feel would be of great interest to me (see ‘comments’ section in appendix A). 

As government is highly influential upon the National Curriculum, I also created a ‘Delicious’ profile (see appendix B) and collected several Education and/or Government related articles using both this platform and my SIG (see appendix C), a ‘Google Community’ that I created.

During this time, I was also in contact with the Head of a Secondary school Performing Arts department in Derby.  Conversation with her not only sparked new ideas for inquiry topics, but also led me to thinking about the need to create an appropriate title that would be of sufficient subject matter, in order to make me a suitable candidate for a PGCE in Drama course, in order to gain QTS as I wish, upon completion of the BAPP degree (see appendix D).

After liaising with colleagues within my workplace and peers involved in my SIG, I found new clarity and direction for my inquiry; Drama to Inform Emotional Literacy and Learning to Learn (a working title), which checked all my boxes.

Ethical Considerations:

Although I was able to understand the principles of ethics and explore the current ethical considerations/literature guidelines within my workplace (see appendix E and appendix F), before I had a working inquiry title, I was unable to apply these theories in practice and in turn, to plan for the inquiry project itself.  Once I had clarity on the inquiry area however, it then took a conversation with my lecturer to understand how ethical implications need to be thought of in the abstract when planning research; not all ethical considerations for every inquiry situation are in the handbook (see appendix G).

Liaising with my SIG also helped to bring forward additional ethical implications and by learning where other people were running into problems (see ‘comments’ section in appendix H), I learnt where I too, could potentially fall down when conducting my own research.

Evaluation of Tools:

Due to an overly busy schedule, I was only able to conduct one pilot telephone interview with one of the members of my SIG (Sinead Mcmenemy).   We also discussed afterwards how this tool would benefit both of our inquiries, especially the semi-structured questioning format.

Being at work so much had its own benefits however, as it allowed me the opportunity to discuss my thoughts on the ideas in the handbook, as to which tools would best suit this inquiry with two of my colleagues, who have also been involved in conducting their own practitioner research.  They agreed with my thoughts and also gave me ideas on how best to approach the ethical side of the research for example, helping me change questions to make them non biased or open ended to allow for the best data collection (see appendix I).

Conclusion:

I feel Module Two has allowed me the opportunity to explore in detail where my interests lie and to gain clarity on these areas of interest, whilst affording me the time frame in which to begin developing these ideas in preparation for the final Module.

Writing interview questions

I meant to post this a while ago, but here are some suggestions from a colleague on how to improve some questions to make them more ethical and therefore better tools for data collection in interviews:

My questions are in black and his suggested changes are in red -

Would you say performing arts has a valid place within an SEN setting?  If so, why?

How do you feel about the performing arts in an SEN setting?

Can you think of an instance where a child has responded particularly positively in SEN setting? Can you think of an instance where a child has responded particularly negatively in SEN setting?

Make these two separate questions


Would you say groups of children respond differently to performing arts depending on their SEN (i.e. Do autistic children have a more positive response than downs syndrome children or is it always a completely individual result?

(maybe don't give an example unless you feel it is essential, otherwise you may already unwittingly have got them thinking about downs and autism as opposed to the whole range).


What skills, if any, does performing arts give SEN children?


What do you believe the performing arts offers pupils with SEN? Unless you specifically want the participant to talk about 'skills' (eg ability to use voice to represent a character) as opposed to qualities such as confidence/self esteem

Do you have any further information on the performing arts and SEN children that I could use for further research purposes?

Is there anything else you want to add? (might be worth including this as they may give you a pearls of wisdom that otherwise might have been lost!!)

Module 2: Task 6c - Award Title

Since embarking on the BAPP course, I have been mulling the award title over, back and fourth in my mind, as I am aware of how influential the title of the BA qualification I hope to hold upon completion will be, especially in respect of where I want to take the next steps within my career.

I initially thought that due to how many years I have training in the 'Arts', I should choose between either;

BA Hons Professional Practice (Dance)

BA Hons Professional Practice (Drama)

BA Hons Professional Practice (Performing Arts) 

BA Hons Professional Practice (Musical Theatre)

In order to help establish what my award title should be, I found it beneficial to find definitions of the above ideas;

(These definitions are the ones I consider to be most applicable for my use.  All definitions found at www.oxforddictionaries.com)

Dance:

... Dance steps and movements considered as an activity or art form:

the rules of classical dance
Drama:
...The activity of acting:teachers who use drama are working inpartnership with pupils
Performing Arts:
...Forms of creative activity that are performed in front of an audience, such as drama, music, and dance:a centre for the performing arts
Musical Theatre:
...A genre of drama in which singing and dancing play an essential part:a successful professional career in musical theatre

I then considered including 'education' or 'teaching' alongside one of these options, for example;
BA Hons. Professional Practice (Dance Teaching)
BA Hons. Professional Practice (Drama Education)
However on further reflection upon the years spent training within dance, drama and musical theatre as a performer, I felt that I should not restrict myself at this point in my career by emphasising that I am  just a teacher rather than both a teacher and performer.  
Another exploratory path I took, was to use my professional network to assess what my colleagues Degree studies had involved.  This made me rule out 'Performing Arts' as this had apparently been mostly exploratory of Physical Theatre, something in which I have had little experience and therefore, awarding myself this title, I would feel like a fraud! Again, with a 'Musical Theatre' title, there would instantly been implied singing aspects, which although I have worked as a singer in the past, I would not want to become a music teacher at any point.  
As I already have accredited qualifications in Dance (through the ISTD) which are well recognised when applying for dance teaching positions, coupled with the fact that I would like to progress on to a PGCE in Secondary Drama (an area in which I have a great deal of experience professionally, as both a performer and teacher, but no official accreditation of this as yet), upon completion of the BAPP I have decided that the most suitable award title would be;
BA Hons. Professional Practice (Drama)
Rationale:

Training at the prestigious 'Italia Conti' School on the 'Performing Arts and Musical Theatre' (three year programme) course, before working professionally as an actress, presenter and dancer, I feel I have lots of knowledge and expertise within this area.  Throughout my training and professional career, I have always had a passion for teaching.  I am currently teaching drama and dance to pupils ranging between three and eighteen years as well as adults.  The professional knowledge I have gained throughout my performing career plays a huge role within my daily teaching, both in practical and theoretical elements of lessons.  Alongside my wealth of performing experience, I have worked as a teaching assistant in a variety of educational settings (mainstream primary, secondary and SEN) working with pupils aged three to eighteen years. Within this practice I have found my true passion lies within Secondary Education - Key Stages three to five.  Following my BA Hons. Professional Practice Degree, I wish to pursue a PGCE with QTS course to enable me to become a fully qualified teacher within this chosen field.  Although I do want to go into teaching, this title could also be used within further performance roles training (such as an MA in Drama), if this is a route I choose to follow at a later stage.  My chosen line of inquiry reflects this award title, as emotional literacy is of great relevance within the current National Curriculum and exploring ways to link this within drama lessons, I feel will definitely benefit my future work and my students education.