MA Dance Pedagogy

Hi everyone - I already had my blog up and running from my undergrad so these posts have been a bit backwards apologies! My name is Chrissie, I am currently working part time as a dance and vocal lecturer at a Southampton based college and the rest of the time I work as a Health Practitioner at a cardiovascular prevention service. I trained professionally at The Hammond School of Dance where I disciplined in Musical theatre, various dance styles, acting and singing. I have taught freelance dance and fitness classes for many years and have taught adults up to 60 and children from pre primary. I have worked with specialist population groups and vulnerable adults, and children with autism. I have worked in community centres, colleges, schools, universities and dance centres, each with its own unique learning experience for me. I did my undergrad distance learning at Middlesex and I really struggled with it until the last module we did. I did not do well at engaging in blogs and ke...

Just had a quick look through the claims to prior learning handbook and found a good blog of Helen's from last year, read it here.... http://helenkindred.blogspot.com/2017/09/ I think this module will be a lot about where I am right now and how my past experiences have got me here. From this I thought I'd start by creating a little mind map of what I've been part of during my dance journey. It actually made me feel really proud of everything I've achieved so far as a dance teacher. The course start has also come at a time when I've been offered my first work as a dance lecturer at a college too. So I'm very excited to use what I learn during my teaching in my MA studies. I have come to realise that outcomes don't necessarily have to be used to verify you as a person and what value to bring to jobs/studies/family/friends/anything in life. But it is hard to remember this sometimes. Tomorrow I'm running my first half marathon and I'm real...

We just had our introductory chat on Skype to start the term off. It was good to familiarise myself with Myunihub again and to go through the basics. Something new I've learnt... if the text book you want from Middlesex library isn't available as an online textbook, it can be arranged that the book is posted to you on loan! Brilliant. I finished my undergrad in January so I feel like I have had a big gap in learning but I'm keen to start reading our module handbooks and to start making notes... I always like my handbooks to printed off so I can highlight and annotate on paper... anyone else find this? I start my new job in a few weeks as a dance teacher at a college as well, and along with new housemates, a new haircut and the MA starting, my brain is at full capacity for 'change'. But I'm looking forward to utilising a study plan as that's definitely something I lacked in during my undergrad. How do you all see your pattern for studying working? It wi...

I taught and filmed my Professional Artefact last night, and whilst I had not planned on blogging about it, I felt it was a really important part of my learning experience, bringing different elements of my learning together. Whilst I originally just planned to do a solo piece of choreography that I would perform, the idea of doing a group piece resonated with me because I wanted to show the importance of other people in my inquiry experience. After booking a space I asked any friends I knew were interested in dance or were professional dancers if they would be interested in the project. Some of my friends who came along had very limited dance experience, but I thought this sat well with my inquiry findings as I want dance to be as accessible as possible for everyone, so I was really happy I had such a range of abilities to work with. We had two hours to get everything done and everyone worked extremely hard to get the choreography ready for filming i...

Whilst analysing my data I found it very enlightening to look at the context of my professional samples' work and then look at their corresponding answers. There were key links I interpreted as to how someone answered a question and the relation of that answer to their work. Katie was also a really important part of the inquiry as she is currently building her confidence and developing her teaching skills and is attending lots of classes during the week before she takes on her own classes. I felt this gave her answers a lot of weight as she could look at the situation from an almost 'insider-researcher' position. For example she mentions that "being praised and hearing you have progressed is always a nice thing to hear" (Katie, 2017) and I believe this is such an important statement as she is looking at that from how she feels in class, so has noted the importance of her feeling good after being praised and being told she has progressed. Roger also made...

If I am to reflect on who I am now in relevance to my professional practice and who I was when I started the course, I feel I have made massive leaps and bounds towards understanding more about my professional practice. When I first started the course and wrote my first blog, one student picked it apart so much I had to delete it. I felt vulnerable, on display and under qualified to be taking on this work. I was hesitant to write any blogs after this and kept my learning to myself. Even in my critical reflection in Module 1 I tried to point out all the advantages of learning alone to justify my actions. I then took a break from studying for personal reasons and I truly believed I didn't want to complete the degree anymore. I put off talking to my tutor and again tried to work everything out by myself. I eventually did talk to my tutor, and I explained I no longer wanted to study. She asked me if this was really the case and if perhaps I just needed a bit more time out before cont...

Whilst waiting for my draft to be returned I decided I should make use of my rare free evening time and go back to one of my favourite Jazz classes at Pineapple Dance Studios. I chose to blog about this because I felt really aware during the class of the teacher and their gestures, body language and vocabulary use throughout the class. The teacher was extremely welcoming and seemed excited to start. There was no aux cable when the teacher started to plug in their music so the class started a few minutes late, but the teacher was very practical about getting the lead as quickly as possible and there was a sense of efficiency which meant I personally didn't mind the class starting a few minutes late. During the set warm up and technical exercises there appeared to be a real 'buzz' in the room. The teacher smiled a lot and seemed excited as the music came on and we were preparing for an exercise. This left me feeling energised and wanting to put my all into each exercise w...