Critical Reflection Portfolio - Summary

Developing my Professional Practitioner Inquiry has been a process of evaluating my dance knowledge and researching Dance Fusion.

I prepared a list of questions to assist with the development of my inquiry plan.   The comments from other learners and my adviser (via my blog) inspired me to further thoughts and ideas that fueled my interest in researching the origins and authenticity of dance styles.  (Appendix A)

My challenge was to choose an appropriate subject that would sustain my interest and build my knowledge base on historical dance.  I read ‘Finding A Focus’ this lead me to start the filtering process. (Appendix B)

I participated in SIG’s,  discussed on my blog, dance group forums to discuss this.  My conversations with teaching professionals and academics highlighted interesting and varied comments.  These resulted with a yes or no answer.  (Appendix C) 

After reviewing the questions I changed them to an open ended question. 

The Professional Ethics tasks has given me a deeper insight into the subject.

With my background in corporate business and my dance management knowledge, I have a good mature understanding of business ethics.  This is further enhanced by the guide lines issued by the ISTD (Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance) for dance classes. (Appendix D)

I found guide lines from the ‘home office’ offering advice on inclusion of transgenders.  (Appendix E) and (Appendix F)

I experimented with a range of tools available to gather data and conducted pilot trials in surveys, observations and interviews.   I read about ethical issues and data protection designed my questions using 'survey monkey'. (Appendix G) 

The pilot survey was completed by my peers on my blog and SIG and some members within my dance practice.  With mutual support, encouragement and valuable advice from my peers, improvements were made to some questions. The final results produced a good balance of qualitative and quantitative data. (Appendix H)

I organised two pilot interviews to be filmed using the same questions as the survey.    Preparing the interviewee with the question prior filming proved to be successful.  Some answers proved difficult to process and longer to analyse because some answers given seem to have hidden meaning.  This was due to the probing questions.  I will give myself more time to analyse the data.

The pilot focus group was an impromptu covert discussion. I was able to target my questions to a specific dance style thus having a captured audience.  The planning needed improvement in all areas.

In evaluating these tools, I favor video recording. This is more beneficial to my inquiry, giving me more holistic answers for analysis. (Appendix I)

I reviewed two pieces of literature linking to my inquiry topic. 

I ‘set the scene’ by describing the ballet before analysing it.  I was compelled to describe the human side of choreographer and her particular dance style and wanted to share this.   I hadn’t identified new sources of reviews which was required for this literature review.  This was an important element to a review which would have give a balanced perspective on my analysis.  My adviser invited me to comment on my blog about a review recently discovered by a contemporary critic.  I learned about the different ways of analysing reviews and a variety of writing styles. 

(Appendix J)

A contrasting review was about the holistic and spiritual side of dance deepened my interest. I was able to compare a broad section of diverse styles across cultures that have effect on dancers.  As I analysed the two reviews I could see that the inquiry subject was still too broad as I had discovered further areas to investigate and for a time lost focus on my line of inquiry. (Appendix K)

The tasks in Reader 5 & 6 and the book; Researching Dance,( Horton Farley & Hanstein) showed me a structure and frame work emerging that would assist me with the overall planning of my inquiry.  

The ‘Delicious‘ tool is for storing and sharing bookmarks and other useful shared resources.  I continue to search for primary sourced material from specialist of the Middle Eastern dance, on line magazine articles, University library archives, books and TV documentaries and my journal.  (Appendix L)

I have a clear plan and structure for this project to keep me focused with sufficient material on Middle Eastern Dance. I am now more prepared with the framework in place to proceed with my inquiry.

Appendix A http://corindahall.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/part-4a-body.html#comment-form

Appendix B http://adesolaa.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/finding-focus.html#comment-form

Appendix C  http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Does-fusion-multiple-dance- styles-3682328%2ES%2E97966765? view=&srchtype=discussedNews&gid=3682328&item=97966765&type=member&trk=eml- anet_dig-b_pd-ttl-cn&ut=12YERJ5F9WC5c1

Appendix D http://www.istd.org/documents/code-of-professional-conduct-and-practice-for-teachers-of-dance/

Appendix E http://corindahall.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/ethics-task-5b.html

Appendix F http://corindahall.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/regulating-stage-schools-bbc-breakfast.html#comment-form

Appendix G http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5YGXLMH

Appendix H http://corindahall.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/dance-survey.html#comment-form

Appendix I http://corindahall.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/task-6-b.html#comment-form

Appendix Jhttp://corindahall.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/literature-review- no-1.html#comment-form

Appendix K http://corindahall.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/lit-review-2.html#comment-form

Appendix L  http://www.delicious.com/corindahall1/tag_bundle/BAPP