MA Dance Pedagogy

I have just been reading through some of the completed feedback forms looking at some of the issues we face as teachers and how we overcome them. I also wanted some personal opinions from instructors about different parts of class experience. Something very close to my heart being discussed was social groups in classes. I want to have a look at the reason I think this is so important to my work here. Part of my work at my health care company is being a Care Planner. This job requires me to have 1:1 sessions with clients discussing barriers that prevent them having a healthy lifestyle. These barriers can be nutritional, physical, psychological or social. For me, putting someone on the list for an exercise class or course is not just about getting them to lose weight, it is also about giving them access to a social group. A social group that may form naturally or be pushed by a teacher. For a vulnerable or indeed just an independent person out in the community, a social group in ...

Just to ease myself into module 3, I have done a brief summary of module 2 and have noted some concerns I need to address..... Inquiry title :  An inquiry exploring styles and approaches to leading an adult dance exercise class. Research/inquiry questions : How can I as a professional dance teacher plan and deliver classes to encourage motivation? Breaking this down I want to look at:  - what is motivation - intrinsic and exstrinic. Look at concept that I cannot create intrinsic motivation as it in internal, however I may be able to encourage extrinsic motivation which can lead to intrinsic motivation. I can do this by.... - encouraging clients to adhere to classes which may hopefully led them to having instrinsic motivation -delivery of class - personality of instructor, structure of class, music. Ethical issues : Keeping conversations/written work from professionals and work focus group strictly confidential apart from for the use of the inquiry...

*Updated after speaking with Paula* Just wanted to jot down some inquiry question ideas to use in interviews with my fellow professionals...... How do you feel the fitness industry could cater more towards inclusive fitness classes to encourage adherence in classes? What ingredients do you believe create an enjoyable class for participants? What are your view on social groups or a sense of community in exercise/dance classes? Are they necessary - if yes why, if no why? Do you believe lack of social groups within your class would affect the number of people that attend? Or visa versa. Do you believe its important to create a sense of community in classes? (need to word this differently as it plays towards a certain answer) What do you believe is the single most important factor in an exercise class to increase participants enjoyement? What is your personal technique for motivating participants? How would you include specialist population groups into your classes wi...

I just saw a post from 'Get UK Active' on Facebook about a new generation of dance classes where people dance in the dark. See original post here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40043153 It looks at the idea that dance classes are focused on using a mirror and making sure everyone looks the same, whereas the idea of these classes is that its focused on the inner self and good feeling you get from dancing. There is enough light to stop you bumping into the person next to you. I wanted to look at both sides of the argument and challenge my immediate thoughts on the concept. I agree that dance classes in majority can be focused on people at least attempting to look the same in the mirror, so everyone in time doing the same movement. However I would look into my own classes and say for my own teaching I really encourage people just to move and try their best, its about challenging themselves to get better, not to be perfect. And challenging youself can be a positive...

It was an important learning discovery during the planning for my project to look at the limitations the inquiry would have as a small scale inquiry - as much as I would have liked to take on a large number of participants to get a larger amount of exploratory sample data, this would be impractical. It led me to reflect that the whole point of this degree is work based learning - we are working whilst learning, and we do not have the advantages of those who have their whole weeks dedicated to their research projects. So practically I need to do something that will not allow for any dips in my professional performance but instead will only enhance it. Therefore its really useful that my inquiry will be centered around my own work and won't be something I necessarily need to start from scratch to use in the project. However whilst we do not have as much time dedicated solely to our research project, we do have the advantage of working already in our field of choice and having that...

For my inquiry I will be choosing to use inquiry tools to properly and effectively analyse data. The tools I'll be looking at using are; observation, interviews, focus groups and surveys. Originally I like the idea of using all the inquiry tools but I appreciate it will be time consuming and don't want my work to suffer for the sake of trying to fit everything in. I would ideally like to use observation as my main source for collecting qualitative  data. I believe this is most appropriate to my research question and will give me a rich source of data to use. I would also like to use a focus group and survey but perhaps as an additional piece of data to support my findings from my observations. All of the inquiry tools have their own merits and limitations and I need to make sure I prioritize  what I want to find out to pick correctly the tool I will use. Merits and limitations to inquiry tools - Observation  Merits - Observation is a great way to collect qualitat...

A colleague mentioned to me about looking into the theory of arousal in sports psychology. The main premise of the theory in a greater sense in that to keep someone happy they must maintain a balance of the right levels of arousal meant for them as an individual. Some individuals may have low levels of arousement and these may be satisfied by something like reading or sewing. Others may have a much higher level of arousement and need to seek out certain activities which are extremely exciting to them, something like roller coasters, skydiving, etc. People all have different levels that need to be satisfied. I'd like to look at the premise of this in sports and exercise classes. The premise of arousement in exercise and performance in general is that we need to have a high level of arousement to perform at our best  - however when we are over aroused we will begin to lose our technique and our performance will suffer for this. If we looked at say for example, music and arous...