Developing lines of professional inquiry
Choosing a topic for my inquiry has motivated me to think outside the box. This year has been a year of change for me and my goals and ambitions have altered and somehow gone in a different direction. I feel I am trying to make a transition from performing to teaching and I need to know how I am going to get to where I want and how I can develop and expand my teaching knowledge in order for me to be successful in my chosen career.
I found the quote ‘enquiry based learning inspires students to learn for themselves bringing a real research- orientated approach to the subject’ Dr Bill Hutchings (What is enquiry based learning? – Centre for excellence in enquiry-based learning). This inspired me to find a topic related to my practice that will excite, motivate and challenge me for present and future research. Allowing me to not only gain a deeper understanding of the subject-matter, but also the knowledge, development and leadership skills required for tackling complex problems that occur in the real world.
Finding lines of inquiry need to be relevant to my needs allowing me to engage more with the subject whilst giving me enthusiasm to learn. ‘How to research’ (Loraine Blaxter, Christina Hughes, Malcolm Tight, 2010 – 4th edition) led me to thoughts and questions relating to choosing my topic:
- How would this inquiry benefit my practice?
- Would this inquiry challenge and excite me?
- What resources do I have to follow up my line of inquiry?
- Does the inquiry relate to my interests?
- Will this inquiry allow me to fully explore the subject and lead to further questioning?
- What would be the value of me researching and exploring this topic?
These questions enabled me to draw up the focal points and interests of my life and how they could help me decide on a topic.
Interests and Inspirations:
- Communicating
- New ways and methods of learning
- Performing
- Creativity
- Teaching
- Health and Fitness
- Music
- Yoga
- Reading/Listening/Watching
- Socialising
- Communicating
- Dance psychology
These are my main areas of focus points and interests in my life. All of which I feel link together giving me an influence to choose a topic. I am certain I want focus on the teaching aspect as that is where I see my future lying although I am very interested in psychology and relating methods of psychology to dancers . It appears to me that there is a broad spectrum of learning development and research to enable me to look further into and expand my knowledge on my chosen subject.
Initial Questions (Lines of inquiry)
- How would you teach a class of students/children at different levels with different capabilities and skills? Without holding the more capable students back but also not making the class too difficult and advanced for the less capable students?
- How would you get the best out of every student without focusing all your attention on the students with more potential than others?
- What strategies and methods do you have to help with the continuous improvement of students?
Discovering boundaries?
Motivational strategies?
Creating an enabling environment?
Creating positive relationships?
- When a student/child is constantly distracting the class and demanding attention from you – how would you keep the class moving forward without wasting time constantly having to speak to the demanding child?
- How would you keep children fully engaged when they start to get distracted whilst also keeping your lesson plans and objectives in tact?
These 5 questions are area’s I want to look into and research more about to allow me to teach a class to my best ability allowing the children to make sufficient progress. I know that these questions relate to almost any teacher in varied subjects as well as dance. I have decided to pass these questions on to a variety of different teachers and see the outcome and feedback I get allowing me to link it to my practice.
Although I believe these questions will give me an understanding of how different types of teachers deal with different situations and the varied methods, strategies and qualities of an experienced teacher, I however have 3 dance related questions which really interest and motivate me to research more about:
-Aspects of psychology for dancers?
- Psychological tools for performance enhancement and well being in a dancer?
- How different performers have different states of minds before and during performance? (Empathizing and systemizing) – Systemizing dancers are likely to focus more on the structure of the steps and neglect the audience’s perception of the performance whereas empathizing dancers are likely to focus more on the third party perceptions of the dance performance and neglect the details associated with the structure, or technique, of the dance.
These 3 questions form synergy and I feel further research could help link in with my teaching.
