The Project Module Begins

Starting off........

A quotation from my Project Proposal explaining my project to refresh my intentions during this module;

My research project will be looking into the study of teaching choreography efficiently. I will be specifically working with a group of young amateur dance students, with the ultimate aim of creating a dance that looks presentable and professional as possible......I shall focus my research on a dance class whom I currently teach at The YEM Theatre School based in Hampshire. I have been a teacher with the school for six years and presently teach drama, street jazz, tap and ballet. In this research I will primarily be working with my senior street-jazz dancers. At the time of my research taking place; the school will have just finished their biennial show and be starting a new term of work.

So with the show over, the project will be the perfect element to get the students back into training. The project will give them something new to focus on with the outlook of improving their dance abilities.

The Project Module
Learning Outcomes
This module will involve "planning and developing" "implementing and delivering" and finally "monitoring and evaluating".

A work-based project usually involves the same factors, including:

• role/impact of the worker-researcher = This project involves teaching a class and choreographying in order to gain data.
  
• organisational context = set up of the class involved and class plans plus other methods of data collection i.e. a survey of professional dancers


• aspects of change = the class format may alter accordingly and elements connected with the set experiment


• self-managed with advisor/principal support = organised but overseen by the university and manager of the school
  
• specific knowledge base = teaching skills and choreographic skills


• collaboration = with staff and students


• ethics = permission for filming, disposal of video content after analysis is complete


• methods = quasi-experiment and survey of professional dancers


• end product = to have found the best method of teaching choreography, improving teaching methods, raised an awareness of learning


• personal learning = individual levels of class members and how they learn, my own teaching/choreography abilities


• university requirements = education related and beneficial to areas of teaching, learning, education and choreography

Learning Diary Four Wednesday 21st April

An extremely useful campus session yesterday. Being able to discuss freely with your peers and tutors really helped me understand the areas I was stuck on. I would like to thank Sophie Gilbert for explaining some of the proposal points to me and I would like to also thank Peter for clarifying those points as well as clearly explaining my idea in another light.

I keep seeing on the advisor blogs and campus session slide shows about "not being too vague" with your idea. No one wants you to save the world with your research as you are likely to take a lifetime trying to. I always seem to think "yes that's so obvious, I'm not with my project; I'm being reasonable" but really I wasn't. I now know how I can specify my research even further thanks to Peter.

I am looking at "the best methods of teaching my choreography to female street-jazz students aged 14 to 20", which has been narrowed down from "best methods of teaching choreography". What I hadn't considered and even since sending in my proposal draft, was what determines these "best methods"?

How do you measure this?

What specifically do I want to look at?

So since this light bulb realisation I have decided on "accuracy". The accuracy of my dancers performing a choreography will be measured and experimented with. I will determine an average first and see if this is improved by changing my teaching methods. Looking back at my previous notes, accuracy was one area I wanted to look into.

I am quite excited about starting this experiment.

The methods will be developed from the survey I carry out on professional dancers, and from their experience try to create some new and varied ways of teaching a choreography to the group.

Lots will need to be done in terms of ethics for filming these classes during the experiment, but I'm looking forward to preparing it over the Summer.