9 days; 9 reflections

"Its usefulness can be in proportion to the extent to which it is your own. It is an extention of yourself, not something outside of you. In it you can and should say what you feel. It is important to be yourself; that what you write is important to you, not just what other people say is important." (Boud, 1985: 54-55)

For the past 9 days I have set myself the challenge to write in my reflective journal in 9 different ways; 

1. Description
2. Initial reflection (stream of thought)
3. List
4. Evaluation
5. What if?
6. Another view
7. Graphs/charts/diagrams
8. Voice memo (and write up at the end of the day)
9. Mood reflection (through use of colour) 

I am very used to writing a reflective journal as it is something I started incorporating into my practice when I was at school. However it has been an interesting challenge to write and reflect in various different ways. I am usually very descriptive when I write, so the first day came as no surprise as very easy. I found day 2 ('initial reflection') a very useful change - it allowed me to just pour out my thoughts onto the page, with no regard to grammar or punctuation. This stream of thought was great in just releasing and allowing all my thoughts/feelings from the day (be that negative or positive) rush out which left me with a feeling of relief and an ease from tensions. I will definitely use this technique again in my reflective practice. 

Another technique I enjoyed was 'What if?' from day 5. I didn't have any idea what I would write or how this would turn out as I began writing that day, but the outcome actually left me feeling very positive. I wrote about how I day-dream a lot..what if I could be training somewhere else? What if I had done something differently at an earlier point in my career? What if I had spoken to a certain person? What if I hadn't had that injury? (etc.) And I began writing up a dream scenario for myself. But then I reflected on my actual experience and it left me realising that I needed to go through what I have, in order to have had my achievements. All in all, 'What if' left me feeling very positive and motivated to keep pushing in my practice. Next time I think I will use the technique a little less literally and see where it takes me... 

My least favourite techniques were 'list', 'evaluation', 'another view' and (although great to look at) 'mood reflection'. Non of these left me feeling particularly inspired. If anything, I actually felt more restricted. In my opinion, there shouldn't be any limits during reflection. 

To my surprise, 'voice memo' on day 8 was actually my favourite. Starting out, it felt very strange to be talking my thoughts out loud to myself, but I quickly left these feelings behind and became indulged in my reflection. To speak my thoughts and then listen back gave me another level of reflection. I could reflect further on initial thoughts and I actually found points of self correction to take with me into my practice, that I will not forget. In his article Reflection: turning experience into learning, Boud discusses the positives of reflecting out loud to others and allowing yourself to fully indulge in the experience; "However much the process may start by feeling stilted and artificial the effect is to provide a valuable contradiction to the feeling, 'My thinking isn't worth listening to.'" (p.88)

Reference

Boud, David., Keogh, Rosemary., Walker, David., (1985) Reflection: turning experience into learning. Kogan Page, London

2c - Reflective Theory task

After studying reader 2, I have taken a lot of time to research further into the use of reflection within my profession. I have found many interesting articles studying the uses of reflection in ballet - my current leading favourite “Reflective Practice in the ballet class: Bringing Progressive Pedagogy to the Classical Tradition” by Jessica Zeller (2017). Zeller goes into great depth about the strict training that ballet students are put through, describing the industry as struggling to “transcend its authoritarian pedagogic history” (Zeller, 2017). She is urging the ballet training to endorse more use of reflection within it’s training. Zeller sights Paulo Freire’s (1970) “in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor”, pointing out the floors in the education, particularly the lack of focus on reflection and self awareness. Within her article she delves deeply into the current ballet training techniques and discusses how the industry educates “the teacher as beyond reproach, students’ knowledge and experience are overlooked as essential elements in their learning.” (Zeller, 2017) I’m sure others in my industry would recognise a lot of the issues which Zeller raises, and it has made me reflect a lot about how we can rectify this for future educators...

One key tool which I often use for my own reflection is through video-based learning. Filming myself rehearsing/performing and then being able to look back and self-correct has greatly helped me in the past. This often draws my attention to corrections that I may have been given by others, allowing me to see from the outside, and reflect on how I can endorse the correction in to my training next time. I also can create an opinion on my own individual way of moving, leading to finding my personal artistic signature style. This tool focuses on the use of Schön’s ‘reflection-on-action’ concept and also Kolb’s ‘reflective observation’ entry to the learning cycle, along with building on my use of Dewey’s ‘reflective thought’, leading to my “continual reorganisation, reconstruction and transformation of experience” (Dewey, 1916).

During my research I started to wonder if there was a point when maybe reflecting could potentially take a more negative turn on our training? I am often guilty of over-thinking and I wondered if this could be an issue if my reflective practice isn’t handled the correct way. Dr Alice Boyes describes it as rumination; “A little self-reflection is a good thing but ruminating - brooding too much on an event in the past - is the biggest predictor of common mental health problems, according to a 2013 study.” (Boyes, 2015). So although reflection should be a key part of training and is an integral part of our everyday professional lives, we need to be able to recognise when to stop. “For anxiety-prone people, rumination often takes the form of self-criticism.” (Boyes, 2015) My aim is to introduce more reflective thought into my practice, keeping a positive outlook on it’s use and to not allow it to become a source of any anxiety when I dance. But are there more techniques that should be taught in order to not allow our reflective thought become ruminative?

Looking more closely at Kolb’s learning cycle, I reflected on my own use and development in order to identify where my entry into the cycle is. Vince Russ (1998) sights “Kolb (1984) maintains that "learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience" (p. 26).” When I was younger, I definitely learnt best through abstract conceptualisation - when learning new styles or steps, my teacher would always refer the step to a ballet technique/terminology in some way, which would help me to connect and understand the new movement. Now I am more of an advocate in the use of active experimentation. I like to play around with a movement until it fits to my body. Maybe this has come from more trust in myself and my abilities? 

From this task I have learnt that I shall be using reflective thinking, not only in my day to day practice, but also to help with my class teaching. I plan to start to actively make a difference to the way the ballet industry educates and start to include more self reflection within the classroom, in order to bring the ballet training out of it’s old school, traditional ways and into our modern actively thinking and rapidly growing modern day. Hopefully this will install more confidence in ballet students to stand out from the crowd and be proud to show their personalities. 

References

Boyes, Alice (2015). Make anxiety work for you: How to use ‘overthinking to your advantage, Telegraph London. 

Dewey, John (1916) Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, facsimile of edition 2010, Charleston: Nebu

Vince, R. (1998). Behind and Beyond Kolb's Learning Cycle. Journal of Management Education, 22(3), pp.304-319.

Zeller, J. (2017). Reflective Practice in the Ballet Class: Bringing Progressive Pedagogy to the Classical Tradition. Journal of Dance Education, 17(3), pp.99-105.

Task 1b: Professional communication technologies

So I haven't quite mastered a short and concise blog post but here goes!..

The term Web 2.0 is a new one for me and at first (as with everything new) it seemed like quite an alien and daunting term. Web 2.0 is a platform in technology which gives us the opportunity to learn, share and contribute in discussion. Web 1.0, is a one way form of communication (the creator gives you information which you just consume). TV, newspapers and magazines are all examples of content being shared through Web 1.0. Web 2.0 introduces the next step; where us as the reader/consumer is given the opportunity to contribute and in turn also become a creator. Social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.) blogs and Wikis are all example forms of Web 2.0.

Tim O’Reilly’s Meme Map (as seen below) really helped me in understanding the uses and conditions of Web 2.0. The meme encapsulates all important areas of our Web 2.0 study from Reader 1.

http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html (Viewed 06/03/2018) 

Here I have summarized my understanding of the 3 competencies that are relevant to professional practice through the use of Web 2.0; 

1. Architectures of participation

Oxford dictionary writes that participation is “The act of taking part in something”  (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/participation 08/03/18). In terms of Web 2.0 we see participation with two uses - not only as taking part but also by contributing and creating. In order to participate, the opportunities to get involved must be easily accessible,  which is what Web 2.0 can give us due to it’s forever evolving form. 

I see it as a cycle -

Web 2.0 creates opportunities 

↗                                       ↘

The platform grows, Web 2.0 learns              We see, participate, contribute

 ↖                        ↙

Others see, participate, contribute

Web 2.0 has bought us forward into a time of mass communication, there is an unlimited amount of people who can participate and with the more users, the more it improves. Ullrich et al. (2008) states “Each user is therefore immediately a member of a community with a low barrier to participate.”  (P.707) 

2. Remixable data and transformations

This is about the materials and data which we use and reuse in Web 2.0 such as photographs, music, text and ideas etc. There is a noticeable blurring to the authenticity when it comes to sharing or contributing to Web 2.0. This allows us to be able to share what isn't necessarily 'our own' but we can build on it in order to create (or add) something which is 'our own'. There isn't an obvious distinction between the creator and the audience.

3. Harnessing collective intelligence

Not only does Web 2.0 allow us to share and build relationships within our individual professional networks, it also allows us to expand further than this. The online community comes together as strangers and equals in order to share and communicate. Web 2.0 has 3 key functions which allow us to do this;

• It is a social system (allowing people to interact and share)
• It has an intelligent search engine (will link you to people/events of similar interests)
• User intelligence (we actively help improve the system just by using it)

My professional use of Web 2.0:

As a dancer, one of my main uses of Web 2.0 is through dance forums where I can access and share information about upcoming auditions, productions and current news updates from the industry. I use sites such as;

https://www.danceeurope.net

au-di-tions.com

balletcompanies.com

www.pointemagazine.com

dancers.mandy.com

www.networkdance,com

On sites such as Network Dance and Mandy Dancers, you have the opportunity to have your own profile. This is an easy way to promote yourself within the industry and to keep everyone updated on your activities and share information. I also regularly receive emails detailing auditions and news which the site has deemed significant to me personally. My Network Dance profile is; www.networkdance.com/Syanne-Day/#board

I am also a big user of social media and can be found on a few platforms this way. I have a Facebook, Instagram and Twitter account. I mainly keep my Facebook as a personal account and try to only use this to stay connected with friends and family (who like many others in my industry are scattered around the world!) My Instagram account is what I would consider my more 'professional' account. I use this to promote myself as a dancer by sharing information on productions I am taking part in and rehearsal process updates. Reflecting on this, I could be using this a lot more and could be sharing a lot more than I do. 

To touch on the ethical side of this reader, I want to share a revelation which I recently had regarding my Twitter account. I have to confess that up until recently I thought I had deleted my Twitter account which I had made and used many years ago. Turns out I hadn't actually deleted the account, and all my young and naive tweets are still all online for everyone to see. Now I didn't write anything too outrageous or ethically wrong by any standards, but I am not keen on the idea of current/future employers seeing my tweets from way back before I even considered life beyond school days! Maybe I think too much about what I post, but I bet there are many people who probably do post without thinking. Are they considering how this may reflect on them professionally? Does this affect us professionally when applying for jobs? As these platforms grow and become more and more apart of our daily life, should we all be taking more care in what we contribute to the online society? I only pose these questions as I know how social media and indeed the use of Web 2.0 is now a huge part of society and is growing everyday.

I read on Izzy Clough's blog from this task about how social media can have negative knock on effects on society in terms of mental health and how social media can cloud our judgment of real life. There are not all positive effects and although it is exciting to see this platform grow, I feel there should be now more education put in place at schools to educate the uses and knock on effects if social media is not used with the right kind of care. Should social media and what we post online be a bigger part of our education when we are younger? Could this help us avoid regret when we get to that professional stage? I know not everyone would listen but surely it will at least allow some of us the opportunity to make more rounded decisions about what we choose to post and contribute to?

Bibliography
-O'Reilly, T. (2006) What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the generation of software, viewed 6th March 2018
-Ullrich, C., Borau, K., Luo, H., Tan, X., Shen, L. & Shen, R. (2008) 'Why Web 2.0 is good for learning and for research: principles and prototypes', ACM, pp. 705-714
-http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
-https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/participation viewed 8th March 2018

Opening the doors (Tuesday 20th Feb discussion group)

Last Tuesday I attended my first discussion group. It was great to hear from other students from varying different stages of the course. I have to admit - at first when the module 3 students were discussing the 'importance of literature within their inquiry' and their 'literature reviews', I had pretty much no idea how I was ever going to be able to contribute towards the discussion. But by the end of the discussion, my understanding had become clearer and I could see how the work I am doing at the moment (in module 1) is in fact giving me valuable skills to practice using before I get to that same stage.

After reading our module 1 handbooks, all of us new starters were keen to discuss Web 2.0 in order to further understand it's use. Matt (from module 2) helped us all greatly in describing Web 1.0 as a source for giving us information, whilst Web 2.0 gave us the information whilst also offering space for us (the reader) to contribute. We had all started to try and reflect this into our professional lives and were struggling to understand the connection, but Helen and the others from the higher modules informed us that we needed to look at it all with a much more broader view.

Bearing this in mind, I had been keen to discuss the use and content of our blogs. I understood that it was a use for us to reflect and share with fellow students, but I wanted some clarification of how broad I can go with the subjects that I write about. I was told that there wasn't really a limit to this, just so long as my blogs can inspire a broad discussion with 1 key question running through them. Like 1 thread running through the centre, with many branches of relevance that can be discussed. Essentially my blogs should be opening the doors to interesting and (hopefully) some relevant and thought-provoking discussion!

I hope this can help (particularly any module 1's who couldn't make the discussion, but may have had similar queries to us).   

Blog no.1!

Last Saturday (10th Feb) I attended the induction Skype session as I begin my journey at Middlesex University. Meeting and hearing from other students, both old and new on the course was a great help to me in not only settling my nerves in re-entering the academic world, but also in hearing about how fellow professionals manage to pursue successful careers in their fields as well as working to complete a degree.

I unfortunately do probably still remain a bit of a mystery to everyone who was part of that session as my microphone was not working (for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on!) So I spent the session trying to get involved as best I could by typing. Thankfully everyone was very patient and still made me feel included. And as I said (or typed) during the session, it was as if I was prepping for my blogs as trying to get across thoughts and feelings through written word (where you don’t rattle on for too long) isn’t always the easiest.

Coming away from the session, I have noted down some of the key points made of which I will be taking forward with me into this course:

• Create your own set of deadlines. I started a new dance contract this week. It was a very last minute achievement and really didn’t expect for my whole timetable to be turned upside down all at once, with uni and job starting at the same time. So the idea to create my own deadlines on top of the course set ones, will be of great use to me. That way I can stay on top of my work, but also with extra time left in case performance/rehearsals become especially busy. This way I should always be able to submit my work on time. 
• Note down as soon as you have an idea. An idea for a blog or a point of interest to research or reflect on could pop up at any time but just as easily could be forgotten if not written down immediately. I have now started to carry a notebook around with me dedicated to these all important moments of inspiration. 
• Voice memos. I have never used this before, but it is a great idea if there isn’t time to write down an idea. So I will use this to store up ideas from moments when I’m especially busy. 

We also discussed the use of writing our blogs. Adesola told us it was best to write short blogs regularly (trying to stick to around 400 words). This will help with refining our thinking and help us to build on our academic writing style. Blogging is also a great tool to encourage discussion, so it is best to go at writing a blog as if it is a question in process. 

And so I have come to the end of my first blog. I am very much looking forward to meeting more professionals on this course and reading and discussing ideas with everyone!