Task 6.D Inquiry Plan

How can using a real life experience as a stimulus influence or support the choreographic process for section 4A of the GCSE specification

Context of Inquiry

This inquiry will be conducted within a mixed gender secondary school which has recently received ‘academy status’ and is situated within the Runcorn area. The school has been judged as ‘outstanding’ by OFSTED in 2010.  They are a National Teaching School and a STEM Centre of Excellence. With regards to the schools demographics there are a total of: 1096 students on roll at the school, 49.5% of which are boys and the remainder 50.5% are girls. The percentage of students with SEN statement or on action school plus is 12.7% and 0.6% of the schools cohort are pupils with English as an additional language. In connection to the schools pupil premium cohort, 24.7% of students are eligible for free school meals.

The investigation will target students who study dance at GCSE level. After conversations with the Arts teachers I decided to base this inquiry on students who are studying unit 4b of the GCSE specification, I will be seeking out information on how a real life experience can act as a form of stimulus and influence or support the choreographic process. This study could potentially benefit both the students and my own professional practice. I currently work as a cover supervisory at this school and have just secured a placement for teacher training in the subject of dance, this will commence September 2015. This line of inquiry will be beneficial when I become a qualified teacher as it focuses on a unit of GCSE work that the students struggle with.

Rationale

After having conversations with a few year 11 students; I found many were using traumatic life experiences as a stimulus for their performances. When asked how dance has helped, the students responded differently. Some said it helped to communicate issues they didn’t wish to discuss which impacted on the construction of their choreography, others said it acts as a release, while some simply stated it helped them to forget and feel good. I have been using dance as a form of therapy for years without realising, whether I have been dealing with a loss, a break up or just life itself, one thing is for sure, my feelings and life experiences have impacted my choreography. I believe working in this way enhanced my enjoyment and contributed to the continuous flow of creativity which has helped me to create original work. This got me thinking about how the students could do the same and use this form of expression to better their performance and potentially raise their final grade. As some students are already doing this it will be interesting to see how their progress differs from the students using a stimulus chosen for them.

The healing nature of creative therapies has been reported in anecdotes that describe a way of restoring wholness to a person struggling with either mind or body illness. (Pratt, 2004) This has stimulated my interest in this topic and I have discovered many documents supporting the benefits of the arts as a whole and how they can act as a form of therapy, for students encountering difficulties as well as how it can support them as a choreogrpaher.

Upon researching dance therapy I contacted our school counsellor to discuss this as she has experience using art therapy. Through the medium of Art, I have found that students can express themselves perhaps more freely than trying to talk (Jenkins, 2015). She has agreed to help with any issues that may arise during the study and agreed to offer support for students. I asked if I could publish her email in my inquiry proposal as I felt it was very interesting and could potentially add new depth to my study, Appendix E Rachel Jenkins.

This line of inquiry may benefit the student’s physical and mental development, hopefully raising the quality of their work through ownership of learning. The work produced could potentially be heightened due to their levels of commitment and passion, in connection to the stimulus (life experiences). Working with students in this way will provide behaviour management strategies, enabling the students to channel negative energy into creativity. This will hopefully raise levels of engagement which will impact their overall achievement, befitting not only the students but the school as a whole.

Through this inquiry I hope to enhance my own professional development as a teacher by establishing new teaching styles that can be used in all creative subjects. This will also have an impact on fellow colleagues within the arts departments, by sharing new strategies for teaching whilst raising awareness to any students in need.

In connection to this I am already aware of Neil Flemings VARK model (2006) which consists of Visual, auditory, reading writing and kinaesthetic learning styles. However, I hope to broaden my knowledge and experience of how students learn and benefit from the various ways in which content can be delivered. Some students learn while others have tuned out or are having difficulty. In observing the best of teachers apparently there is no single best way to teach but teachers who cater for the different needs of students by

using a variety of teaching approaches are rewarded with improved learning (Fleming, 1995). My overall aim is to develop a style for structuring lessons that provides a safe and stimulating environment, to enhance a love of learning

Aims and Objectives

The aim is to investigate how life experiences can engage students and act as a form of therapy within performing arts; I will select a sample of volunteered students for this inquiry.

I plan to use interviews with open ended questions to give the students freedom to extend their responses, hoping to discover in depth detail relating to the topic of inquiry. This will provide students with the opportunity to discuss the process of this inquiry from their prospective; which will hopefully encourage learners to be more engaged and committed. Giving students the opportunity to voice their own opinions could possibly consolidate information; which students will input into their diary entry, giving the investigation a sense of unity as a whole.

Diary entries will be a productive way for students to document their individual progress; which will better my understanding of how the students are using their stimulus to help develop their choreography. In order for this method to be consistent students will log their experiences after each dance lesson. Students will comment on: how they are feeling and how their lesson has helped or hindered their progress that day. I hope to link patterns of behaviour to form strategies to best enable their learning.

Ethical Considerations

The selected sample will be a group of volunteers from KS4 GCSE dance classes. The health and well being of students will be taken into considerations with regards to health and safety giving the practical nature of this inquiry. Permission has been requested from the school it’s self for the inquiry to be conducted within those confines. The head teacher has agreed to this investigation and sent a confirmation email of approval. The head of the Arts department has also signed the employee support form and sent a confirmation email of approval. I have consulted with the schools safe guarding team who are going to proof read consent forms and guidelines. Further more to this consent, separate forms will be sent home to the parents of students involved.

All data will be stored on the schools data zone, for E safety and safe guarding purposes. All students will remain anonymous while involved in the study. The inquiry will be strategically planned so that data is gathered with in lesson time and interviews take place either during break or after school. A discussion will take place to see what dates and times accommodate the student best. If lesson time is not sufficient for data entry, then addition time slots will be allocated. The head of dance will be present whilst interviews are conducted, these will take place in the dance hall via a Dictaphone. A dance teacher will be present during all practical aspects of this investigation.

Analysis

Interviews will be transcribed and all data will be coded to highlight information specific or essential to the inquiry. I will review the data generated and compare my findings to existing literature; to see if there are any similarities or discrepancies. Data relevant to the inquiry will then be extracted to form the findings with in my reports.

Resources

·         Schedule

·         Questionnaires

·         Log books

·         Laptop

·         Dictaphone

Schedule

·         Week 1: Brief students on the inquiry. Hand out log books and distribute questionnaires to selected sample.

·         Week 2: Retrieve completed questionnaires and use data to construct interview questions based on answers. Monitor log books.

·         Week 3: Arrange and conduct interview with student A and B of the selected sample

·         Week 4: Arrange and conduct interview with student C and D.

·         Week 5: Transcribe interviews. Monitor log books

·         Week 6: Construct a method for coding and use this to analyse data

·         Weeks 7: Conduct second set of interviews with student A and B. Transcribe and code interviews. Monitor log books

·         Week 8: Conduct second set of interviews with student C and D. Transcribe and code interviews. Monitor log books

·         Week 9: Select data most relevant to the study and research literature that either supports or contrasts.

·         Week 10: begin to write up findings and continue to search for literature that supports data from questionnaires/ interview/ logs.

·         Week 11: Proof read and send off completed draft to tutor for feedback

·         Week 12: make relevant amendments utilising the feedback given and submit final copy. Distribute a student evaluation form to see how they have benefitted from this process. This is for my own professional development as a teacher and will not be used as a form of data for this inquiry.

Conclusion

In conclusion to this inquiry, I hope to develop my own professional knowledge as well as gaining a better understanding of how the performing arts can benefit students throughout their choreographic process of unit 4a who are using real life experiences as their stimulus. The results of this investigation could potentially heighten my awareness of specific matters that students may experience, better equipping me with the skills needed to deal with those issues professionally and effectively, within my teaching career. The information gathered from this experience could then be used to support fellow colleagues in their teaching practice and could potentially be utilised as a ‘teaching tool’ for other subject areas were creativity is required.

Bibliography

Fleming, N. (1995). I'm different; not dumb Modes of presentation (V.A.R.K.).

Jenkins, R. (2015, Jan). Art Therapy .

Pratt. (2004). Art, Dance and Music Therapy. Retrieved from http://jumpjet.info/Emergency-Preparedness/Neighborly-Response/Personal/Nursing/Art,_dance,_and_music_therapy.pdf

Appendix

Appendix A Critical Reflection

Critical Reflection

Module 2

Developing Lines of Professional Inquiry

I began this section of the module by thinking deeply about my future and the kind of teacher I wanted to be. Before devising the first set of questions, I thought about my career and what I would like to achieve over the next few years. Working within the Arts department of a secondary school has allowed me to gain firsthand experience of teaching and what it would be like having my own timetable and regular classes. The questions were based on my experiences taking into account the changes I would make for the future and were just a starting point. I put these questions to close friends and former colleagues who worked in a variety of settings within the Arts. I posted the results on my blog ( Radford, Claire. Developing Lines for Professional Inquiry. Blogger. [Online] 2014)

Using their answers I devised a second set of questions that focused specifically on the importance of the arts for teenagers and the issues for performing arts teachers within secondary schools. This time I distributed the questions to fellow colleagues within my school and posted their comments to my blog (Claire Radford. Developing Inquiry Questions . Blogger. [Online] 2014). I also discussed these questions with my SIG (Radford, Claire. Google Plus Communities. Teachers Of Performing Arts. [Online] 2014) which helped me narrow down my line of inquiry once more.

I found setting up a SIG to be challenging at first. Most of my professional contacts outside my current place of work use Facebook as a means for communication. This was a problem for me as popular social media websites are somewhat of an ethical concern for teachers leaving most unwilling to talk via these channels. I began to look for new ways to communicate with professionals, ways which would be both appropriate for teachers and suitable to use on school property. I found creating my own community on Google to be the best method. I also set up a LinkedIn account and a Pinterest, but found them to be very complicated.

Finding literature was also a struggle for me. My local library is very small and finding literature on the internet seems to just give me a headache. I prefer to read books and take notes. I struggled with this for several days before eventually reaching out to colleagues who introduced me to Google scholar. This was very helpful. I also decided to spend a few hours trying to work out the library on the Middlesex website, another computer based problem I found myself giving up very easily. I do need to devote more time to really digging around the MDX site and utilising all the resources there.

I managed to find a few interesting articles on the internet which sparked new ideas. Dee Dickinson posted an interesting article on the Johns Hopkins website titled: why are the Arts important (Dickinson, Dee. Johns Hopkins. Why Are The Arts Important . [Online] 1993).  Dee Dickinson is a name I hadn’t heard before, after further research I discovered she is the CEO and founder of New Horizons, a website that provides resources for educational change. The site is full of helpful teaching strategies with help on how to identify, communicate and implement successful educational methods.

It was interesting to see how far support for the arts can stretch. I found a newspaper article in the Washington post by a writer named Valerie Strauss and a speech from a Labour MP Harriet Harman on the importance of the Arts (Harman, Harriet. Speech On Young People and the Arts. Labour Press. [Online] June 09, 2014). I discussed these articles on my blog (Radford, Claire. Literature. Blogger. [Online] 2014).

Ethics

For this section of the module I looked at my own working environment and researched the schools policies and ethos. I have realised teaching has so many grey areas in regards to ethics; there isn’t always a set of rules to follow. A teacher needs to have a good moral compass and be able to trust their own judgment. Considering my place of work and the ethical aspects involved I created two lists, one for general teaching and another specifically related to teaching dance, I posted and discussed these on my blog (Radford, Claire. Ethics for Teaching in a Secondary School. Blogger. [Online] 2014). I searched through many school documents and spent hours reading ethics and codes of conduct. I posted the schools documents for my job description highlighting areas I thought were interesting or relevant to my inquiry which I discussed on my blog (Radford, Claire. Codes of Practice. Blogger. [Online] 2014).

The reader on ethics for this module has provided me with the knowledge needed to identify and focus on the main aspects of my job that are cause for concern with regards to ethics. From this I have deduced that; teacher student relationships, recording progress and behaviour management are all areas with many ethical dilemmas. This is something I have discusses in depth with my fellow colleagues, leading to new lines for inquiry.

The Kevin carter case had a lasting effect on the way I view ethics. It helped me to understand the concept of ethics and how sometimes there are no right or wrong answers, only opinions. When it came to making a professional and personal list of virtues I found some aspects entwined, but most were different. These differences highlighted a truth I had been previously unaware of; the difference between the persona I wish to portray in a professional environment and the kind of person I wish to be in life. This section of the module forced me to think about the kind of teacher and person I want to be, I posted my thoughts on this to my blog (Radford, Claire. Professional Ethics. Blogger. [Online] 2014).

During this module I have gained a great deal of knowledge regarding ethics, which in turn has triggered an interest I hadn’t had before. I am suddenly very aware of my fellow colleagues teaching styles and methods. I am particularly fascinated with contradicting approaches to behaviour management and the response different methods and teachers receive from students. This new interest I feel can only benefit my future practice.

Inquiry pilot and draft

This section of the module was all about trial and error. Just when I thought I had finally narrowed down my inquiry question and finished my draft I would stumble across a road block and changes would have to be made. With an ever changing timetable and student’s time being limited I have been forced to make many drafts considering many different approaches to my chosen topic. My inquiry will be based on the effects dance can have on teenagers and how it can act as a form of therapy.

After gathering information from fellow colleagues about the important issues within the department and researching outside opinions on the importance of dance, I decided a line of inquiry most beneficial to my future practice would need to be one that benefits the students. After observing a yr 11 class I realised many students were using dance as a release, an escape from disruptive home lives or general teen issues. Some even use real life traumas as a stimulus for their GCSE choreography. I realised dance can act as a form of therapy and after several conversations with students and the school counsellor (who has experience using this form of therapy) I decided this was something I needed to research.

I researched this topic in depth and found many articles on arts therapy, but not so many on the effects for teenagers. To help narrow down this topic I devised a questionnaire specifically for teenagers related to dance therapy and gave it to a GCSE dance class, I posted the questions and discussed this further on my blog (Radford, Claire. Questionnaire. Blogger. [Online] 2014). The results confirmed I was onto something and that I had several students within the class that would be ideal for the study. After reading the reader on tools for inquiry I found that all four methods would be beneficial to my study. I considered and discussed how each method could potentially be beneficial to my inquiry and also commented on the negative and ethical aspects in relations to my study and posted my thought on my blog (Radford, Claire. Tools For Professional Inquiry. Blogger. [Online] 2014). I had previously planned on using all four methods during my inquiry, however when it came to putting together my draft I realised there would be too much data to narrow down. Hopefully I can incorporate more methods if time allows and the study runs smoothly.

After many attempts I finally devised a rationale (Radford, Claire. Rationale. Blogger. [Online] 2014) and completed the final draft of my inquiry plan (Radford, Claire. Inquiry Plan. Blogger. [Online] 2014).

Through this line of inquiry I hope to develop my own professional knowledge as well as gaining a better understanding of the importance of dance therapy for teenagers.

Bibliography

Dickinson, D. (1993). Johns Hopkins. Retrieved from Why Are The Arts Important : http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Arts%20in%20Education/dickinson_why_arts.htm

Harman, H. (2014, june 09). Speech On Young People and the Arts. Retrieved from Labour Press: http://press.labour.org.uk/post/88265413304/speech-on-young-people-and-the-arts-by-harriet

Pratt. (2004). Art, Dance and Music Therapy. Retrieved from http://jumpjet.info/Emergency-Preparedness/Neighborly-Response/Personal/Nursing/Art,_dance,_and_music_therapy.pdf

Radford, C. (2014). Codes of Practice. Retrieved from Blogger: http://claireradford1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/task-5b-codes-of-practice.html

Radford, C. (2014). Developing Inquiry Questions . Retrieved from Blogger: http://claireradford1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/task-4c-developing-inquiry-questions.html

Radford, C. (2014). Developing Lines for Professional Inquiry. Retrieved from Blogger: http://claireradford1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/task-4a-developing-lines-of.html

Radford, C. (2014). Ethics for Teaching in a Secondary School. Retrieved from Blogger: http://claireradford1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/task-5a-ethics-for-teaching-in-high.html

Radford, C. (2014). Google Plus Communities. Retrieved from Teachers Of Performing Arts: https://plus.google.com/communities/114130618054157730705

Radford, C. (2014). Inquiry Plan. Retrieved from Blogger: http://claireradford1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/task-6d-inquiry-plan.html

Radford, C. (2014). Literature. Retrieved from Blogger: http://claireradford1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/task-4d-literature.html

Radford, C. (2014). Professional Ethics. Retrieved from Blogger: http://claireradford1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/task-5c-professional-ethics-reader-5.html

Radford, C. (2014). Questionnaire. Retrieved from Blogger: http://claireradford1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/task-6a-questionnaire.html

Radford, C. (2014). Rationale. Retrieved from Blogger: http://claireradford1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/task-6c-rationale.html

Radford, C. (2014). Tools For Professional Inquiry. Retrieved from Blogger: http://claireradford1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/tools-for-professional-inquiry-before.html