Interview Questions for Students

I have put together a set of interview questions for the students involved in my inquiry. I am looking into the process and methods they use while creating a piece of choreography for their G.C.S.E. The students involved have chosen their own dancers, music and stimulus and have to rehearse and create outside of school hours. We have intervention on a Wednesday after school where rehearsals for this take place however some students rehearse at home. 

 I hope to collect as much feedback as possible from my colleagues to compile a final set of questions.

Questions for students

1. What is the stimulus for your choreography?

2. Why did you choose this stimulus?

3. What music have you chosen?

4. Why did you decide to use this music?

5. When do you rehearse?

6. How did you select the dancer/dancers for your piece?

7. How has it been working with this/these dancers?

8. What has been difficult about creating your piece?

9. Do you have any particular methods when struggling to create movement?

10. How much input with the movement do you feel your dancers have had?

11. Have you found anything difficult about the rehearsals?

12. Have you found anything difficult about working with the dancers you have chosen?

13. What has been good about working with the dancers you have chosen?

14. What advice would you give to a student about to start this choreography unit?

15. Looking over the process so far, is there anything you would change? Dancers, stimulus, theme etc? 

16. Have you enjoyed working on your choreography piece?

Questions and feedback for Teacher Interviews

I get by with a little help from my friends .....

I decided to interview my colleagues within the Performing Arts department at my school to add some depth to my inquiry. I plan to compile a set of questions that are based on my inquiry, that are relevant to all performing arts subjects. I wish to ask the same questions to compare the answers given by different subject teachers. Before setting these questions in stone I asked my peers to look over a brief rationale of my inquiry and the questions i plan to ask teachers for the interviews. 

      

     

       

I have now used their feedback and compiled a final set of question I now feel apply to all subjects. 

1.  Are there any aspects in your subject, particularly at G.C.S.E level where student have to work independently on something creative? If so, what does this involve?

2.  Do you find students work better in your subject when they are given a stimulus as a pose to choosing their own?

3.   How do you find student’s progress when using a real life experience or a stimulus that has emotional meaning to them when creating a piece of art?

4.  Do you think working in this way can be detrimental to their progress? Do you think it helps? Or does it simple depend on the student, the situation and the piece they are creating?

5. How would you support a student working in this way? 

6.What type of  scaffolding do you put in place for students when working in this way in regards to briefs, limitations, guidance etc?

7.Have you ever had a situation where this has been a problem? safeguarding etc?

8.  Do you have any method you use to identify which students would work in which ways best?

9.  What do you do when students lack in motivation when working creatively in your subject?  

10. How would you deal with a student who is creatively blocked? 

11. Have you ever had to deal with a student who becomes 'over-emotional' when creating? How would you deal with this situation?

Referencing

I have compiled a brief document with the definitions of different type's of referencing. This is something I always feel a little hazy on, I thought it would be a good idea to put together a helpful document that clearly states the difference between the styles and the information needed what using each. This has been a helpful tool for me and nice to refresh my understanding of each. 

sharing is caring......hopefully this can help others 

Harvard Referencing

What is referencing?

Referencing is a system used in the academic community to indicate where ideas, theories, quotes, facts and any other evidence and information used to undertake an assignment, can be found.

Why do I need to reference my work?

·         To avoid plagiarism, a form of academic theft.

·         Referencing your work correctly ensures that you give appropriate credit to the sources and authors that you have used to complete your assignment.

·         Referencing the sources that you have used for your assignment demonstrates that you have undertaken wide-ranging research in order to create your work.

·         Referencing your work enables the reader to consult for themselves the same materials that you used.

What do I need to reference?

All the information that you have used in your assignment will need to be acknowledged. It is essential to make a note of all the details of the sources that you use for your assignment as you go along. Harvard examples in this guide are based on guidance in:

The basics

Harvard is known as the Author & Date system:

1. Citations in the text of your assignment should be made following the in-text guidelines given in the examples on the following pages.

2. A complete list of all the citations used in your text will need to be provided at the end of your assignment. This is called your reference list or bibliography and needs to be presented in alphabetical author/originator order.

Capitals:

Harvard is not prescriptive about capitalisation of authors’ names in your reference list. If you do wish to use capitals, then the family/surname of authors are only capitalised in this reference list and not in the body of your work. If you prefer not to use capitals in this list, that is fine, but you must be consistent in the style you decide to use.

Italics & underlining:

Only the title of the source of information is italicised or underlined, but you should choose only one method throughout your assignment and stick to it! Do not use both italics and underlining.

Punctuation:

Harvard has no one true style of punctuation so the generally accepted rule is to be consistent with your style of punctuation throughout the whole of your assignment.

For books, record:

• The author’s or editor’s name (or names)
• The year the book was published
• The title of the book
• If it is an edition other than the first
• The city the book was published in
• The name of the publisher

For journal articles record:

• The author’s name or names
• The year in which the journal was published
• The title of the article
• The title of the journal
• The page number/s of the article in the journal
• As much other information as you can find about the journal, for example the volume and issue numbers

For electronic resources

• The date you accessed the source
• The electronic address or email
• The type of electronic resource (email, discussion forum, WWW page, etc)

Bibliography

What is a bibliography?

You may sometimes be asked to provide a bibliography at the end of a piece of work, in addition to a reference list. What is the difference?

·         A bibliography is a full reference list of all the sources which you have consulted in preparing a particular piece of work, but may not have cited (for quotations, paraphrasing etc.)

·         A reference list only includes the sources that you have cited, not your background reading

Appendix

What is an Appendix?

Appendices allow you to include detailed information in your paper that would be distracting in the main body of the paper. Examples of items you might have in an appendix include Images, videos, lists of words, the questionnaire used in the research, a detailed description of an apparatus used in the research, etc.

Your paper may have more than one appendix. Usually, each distinct item has its own appendix. If your paper only has one appendix, label it "Appendix" (without quotes.) If there is more than one appendix, label them "Appendix A," "Appendix B," etc. (without quotes) in the order that each item appears in the paper. In the main text, you should refer to the Appendices by their labels.

Action Plan

Action Plan

Objectives:

To have a clear understand of unit 4B of the G.C.S.E. Dance specification and the different methods used by students during the choreographic process.

To find new methods and techniques that could potentially motivate students when create movement.

To discuss in as much detail as possible the choreographic process/ what students enjoy most about this unit and what they find difficult gaining a deeper understanding from student’s perspective.

Benefits gained by achieving my goal:

·         A better understanding of student’s choreographic process.

·         A better understanding of independent learning and the process.

·         New method to help future G.C.S.E students.

·         New teaching methods to help fellow colleagues when working with students creatively.

·         A greater understanding of the choreographic process overall

What I will do now:

Inquiry

·         Collect as much data as possible

·         Keep a Professional Journal after every observation and interview

·         Observe and record the next 4 G.C.S.E intervention sessions

·         Give students questionnaires

·         Interview all students with open ended questions based on their response to questionnaire

Send out ideas for interview questions for teacher and collate to finalize a final set of questions for Performing Arts Teachers Interviews.

·         Interview all Performing Arts Teachers

·         Hold group discussion on how they found working on unit 4b and all independent learning they have had to do for the course.

Critical Reflection

·         Critical reflection ( work on this throughout the inquiry adding information as I go)

·         Collate all data

·         Research methods for analysing data

·         Research and collate literature ( ongoing throughout inquiry)

·         Scan all documents for appendix

Professional Artefact

·         Seek advice on the best program to use to edit and create artefact.

·         Edit and create Professional Artefact

Oral Presentation

·         Write an introduction to the presentation and inquiry

·         Evaluation of the inquiry tools used

·         Main findings/ future impact of findings on my career

·         Conclusion/ things I would do differently or change

·         Collate all this into a power point presentation including professional artefact and critical reflection

Steps of inquiry in a logical/ chronological:

Week 1: 16^th Feb

·         Review feedback and make changes to plan

Week 2: 23^rd Feb

·         Review feedback and make changes to plan

·         Discuss with Tutor and Sig new changes to inquiry

Week 3: 2^nd March

·         Put together schedule for inquiry.

·         Create and distribute consent packs for students and teacher involved.

Week 4: 9^th March

·         Observation 1.

·         Write and reflect on observation in Professional Journal.

·         Give students questionnaires.

·         Collect consent forms.

·         Send out ideas for interview questions for teachers.

Week 5: 16^th March

·         Observation 2.

·         Write and reflect on observation in Professional Journal.

·         Collect remaining consent forms.

·         Collate feedback on interview questions for teachers and finalize a set of questions for Performing Arts Teachers Interviews.

·         Interview first set of students.

·         Interview both Dance teachers.

·         Research literature ( ongoing throughout inquiry)

·         Blog thoughts and progress made.

Week 6: 23^rd March

·         Observation 3.

·         Write and reflect on observation in Professional Journal.

·         Collect remaining consent forms.

·         Interview second set of students.

·         Interview Art teachers

·         Research methods for analysing data

·         Research literature ( ongoing throughout inquiry)

·         Blog thoughts and progress made.

Week 7: 30th March

·         Observation 4.

·         Write and reflect on observation in Professional Journal.

·         Collect any remaining consent forms.

·         Interview third set of students.

·         Interview Music Teachers

·         Interview LIPA Teachers

·         Record Group discussion.

·         Research and collate literature for review

·         Scan all documents for appendix

  

Week 8: 6^th April- (Half term)

·         Begin writing up Critical review

·         Collate and analyse all data

·         Discuss with sig progress made

·         Blog thoughts and progress made.

Week 9: 13^th April (Half Term)

·         Continue writing up Critical review

·         Collate and analyse all data

·         Seek advice on the best program to use to edit and create artefact.

·         Edit and begin to create Professional Artefact #

·         Discuss with sig progress made

·         Blog thoughts and progress made.

Week 10: 20^th April

·         Continue to develop Critical review

·         Continue to edit and create Professional Artefact

·         Discuss with sig progress made.

·         Blog thoughts and progress made.

·         Send Critical Review to tutor for feedback

Week 11: 27^th April

·         Finish Professional Artefact

·         Write an introduction to the presentation and inquiry

·         Evaluation of the inquiry tools used

·         Main findings/ future impact of findings on my career

·         Conclusion/ things I would do differently or change

·         Collate all this into a power point presentation including professional artefact and critical reflection

·         Discuss with sig progress made

·         Blog thoughts and progress made.

·         Finalize Critical review applying tutor feedback.

·         Send Professional Artefact to tutor for feedback

Week 12: 4^th May

Finalize all three parts ready for submission and presentation

Inquiry: Interview Questions for Teachers of Performing Arts

Interview Questions for Teachers

Hi all, I’m putting together a set of questions to interview my fellow colleagues within performing arts as part of my professional development. I am currently conducting an inquiry based on creativity and the methods that work best for students within performing arts. To be more specific:

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

A brief insight to my inquiry:

The investigation will focus on students who study dance at GCSE level. After conversations with the Arts teachers I will be targeting individual students who are studying unit 4A 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. Working with students in this way will provide behaviour management strategies, enabling the students to channel negative energy into creativity.

This line of inquiry may benefit the student’s physical and mental development, hopefully raising the quality of their work through ownership of learning. I hope to develop teaching styles that can be used in all subjects. This will hopefully raise levels of engagement which will impact the students overall achievement, befitting not only the students but the school as a whole.

By conducting this piece of research I hope to enhance my own professional development as a teacher. This will also have an impact on fellow colleagues within the arts departments, by raising awareness to those particular students in need.

My inquiry is based specifically on dance and the choreographic process the students go through when working independently. I hope to observe and interview students who are using a real life experiences as a stimulus and document the process they go through in contrast with students who have a stimulus they don’t personally relate to.

The inquiry will focus mainly on dance but I would like to interview and gather information from all the performing arts teachers to see what their thoughts are of students working in this way. I have put together a very rough draft of questions and would appreciate your help refining them. Can you think of anything important I should be asking? Any input and feedback would be greatly appreciated.

1.  Are there any aspects in your subject, particularly at GCSE level where student have to work independently on something creative? If so, what does this involve?

2.  Do you find students work better in your subject when they are given a stimulus as a pose to choosing their own?

3.   How do you find student’s progress when using a real life experience or a stimulus that has emotional meaning to them when creating a piece of art?

4.  Do you think working in this way can be detrimental to their progress? Do you think it helps? Or does it simple depend on the student, the situation and the piece they are creating?

5.  Do you have any method you use to identify which students would work in which ways best?

6.  What do you do when students lack in motivation when working creatively in your subject?

Inquiry. Part 1

Inquiry

Today was the beginning of what I’m sure will be a long but exciting road ahead. I conducted my first observation and explained my inquiry to the students.

I put together a pack for students involved and handed it out at the end of the session. The pack included: a letter explaining my inquiry and what it is for, the MDX recording and consent form and a questionnaire. I hope to have all consent forms back by next week.

Putting together a letter for parents was a first for me. I made a draft and sent it to the head of the school to review before I put on the school letter head and distributed to students. He got back to me the same day which was great with a few changes. It felt a little like being back in school, having my work marked by the teacher. As nerve racking as this experience was, it was a great learning opportunity for me. It felt great knowing he understands my proposal and I have his full support.

The students were a little nervous in front of the camera at first. They were worried about missing steps and discuss errors in front of the camera. I sat them all down and explained the purpose of the inquiry is to look at how they create, the issues that arise when creating and how they overcome.  Once I explained this I notice a drastic difference and felt I captured some insightful evidence I can draw upon at a later date. I hope to use this footage along with the recordings of interviews for my professional artifact. Capturing their progression from start to finish will be a great way to showcase how this unit works. This may even be a useful resource that I can use later on in my career.

I decided to keep a learning journal to document my thoughts on the session observed and work collected. I think this will be a great tool to use when coming to analysing my data.