Theories relating to networking - Task 3B

'A work related community held together by either close working affiliation or more distant but common work interests or needs' is our given definition of a professional network.   However, researching the term online I found that many organisations and websites define the term as an activity to further relationships to achieve professional goals. Upon understanding further the concepts on networking, it is apparent to me that this is not the determining factor defining networking.  Networking is more importantly an acknowledged tool for learning.  Learning as a professional depends on networking to learn from collective experience and knowledge;  accepting that all knowledge is not held in the mind of one person and harnessing collective intelligence. 

A significant theory is the idea of Connectivism.  The sense that the 'know-how and know-what is substituted by know-where'  (Driscoll, 2000).   Learning environments are realised as changing.  Aside from learning by being told, it is apparent it is just as important to understand more the pathway to find knowledge.   George Siemens (2004) explains there is a 'half-life of knowledge' , as universal knowledge is ever expanding and therefore has a 'shelf-life' shorter than ever before. A change in knowledge creates a ripple across a network.   I enjoy the thought of a dancer or choreographer who could be distantly apart from me discovering something new and this expanding our network's intelligence.

Reading about Affiliation struck a cord with me on a professional and personal level.   It was interesting to read the study into the importance of affiliation in teenagers and children and the negative impact of not enough social contact when children are developing
(Crisp, Richard J. and Turner,  2007).  This is a strong argument for the importance of dance and physical education in schools.
 I am currently abroad to teach and help produce a show in Dubai and I have found that although the work is demanding and interesting I have been quite lonely as a newcomer in the workplace and to the country.   Therefore my desired level of 'homeostatis' is not fulfilled.  It prompted me to look at happiness in the workplace and weigh up whether fulfilment in a job is enough if the social life is effected.  I think that ultimately on a short term basis it is ok but that ultimately if I am not content in my personal life this would affect my working environment.  Overall lack of affiliation would have a negative impact on creativity.

Thinking of myself in Dubai, I would describe my situation here as being in an 'individualistic' culture
'...in individualistic cultures people develop social relationships in many and varied settings, but these relationships tend not to be particularly close. In collectivist cultures, on the other hand, people develop relatively few, but deep and long-lasting, relationships.' (Hofstede, 1980).  I am meeting many people and learning a lot, but I sense that my Dubai network is filled with many people that I have a passing affiliation with and who will be there for the length of the project and perhaps not for the longevity of a career.  I think this could be another way to define different networks.  There are professionals with whom you have a lasting relationship and learn a lot from.   There are also others  here you have been a part of their network in a strategic sense to get a job done but who pass in and out of contact.

 

This thought links to the idea of situated learning.    'Participation in the cultural practice in which any knowledge exists is an epistemological principle of learning' (Lave and Wenger, 1991).   As we are experiencing in the BA PP Arts course, learning is being acknowledged more so now than ever as coming from participation in a professional body / network.   Furthermore,  learning within our networks leads to ethical appreciations such as changes in codes of conduct.   This is an area I am interested in thinking further into in terms of dance.   Dancers as a professional body I think lack a professional code of conduct and clear guidelines on some pressing ethical issues.  Perhaps if we communicated within our circles we could understand and overcome some of the difficulties dancers are faced with today.

 

 These ideas have made me think of my work, my creativity and how I learn.   I think many people have the opinion that if you have a creative or arts based job, that you are creative and everything you do comes from you.   This idea of 'tacit' knowledge talked about in professional reflection. This is unrealistic, I constantly learn and get ideas from other people in my networks.   I am always looking for new choreographies and ideas for themes and pieces from people I admire or know personally.  I am passionate about dance and choreography, but my knowledge comes from experience and learning from people who have done the same before me.  When I was training one of my teachers said that the best dancers are not always the most talented but those who are hungry to keep learning,  I think this echoes the importance of networking.

Part 3 The Networked Professsional - 3A My Current Networks

My current professional network consists of different types of circles;  virtual networks (online), close working relationships and more extended affiliation.  I use social media and virtual networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to stay in contact with people I've worked with and also to shop around for future opportunities.   Social media is invaluable as a performer as many of the contacts I have made through dancing professionally are not now people I would come into contact a lot with.  This is accentuated because so much work is offered abroad so I have to be online to keep in touch with people who have gone away with shows.  Also, the high competitiveness of performing and the lack of jobs means many roles are cast online.   Casting directors know they will get many responses within an hour of posting a job on Facebook for example, meaning up keeping my virtual network is a large part of my job.

One of the most important ideas that arose after reading Axelrod's research in 'The Evolution of Cooperation' (Axelrod, R) was that of cooperation, furthermore what others gain from having me in their network.   It is so interesting to me that cooperation was mathematically proven to have the best result when both parties cooperated up until the maximum benefit for both parties and to then defer.  So am I cooperative?   I think what I offer to colleagues and my friend network is experience on many different jobs (not all necessarily great ones!). I am also very relaxed with passing on contacts I have to other to help them out.  For me it is most important to keep people in my network rather than distance them.  This relates back to the idea of longevity of career, in my previous blogs on professionalism.   

How I would like to see my network progress is to build contact with experts in the fields and therefore build my network up in the hierarchy of the arts.  For example, there are a few people that I know of who run youth dance companies in my area.   A couple of which are really successful and have Arts Council Funding to produce touring works with their company.  As a less experienced dancer and teacher, I will look at what I can offer them in return for learning some of their expertise.  Running a successful dance company is an example of something that could only be taught by someone who has experience of doing it.  Also,  I have seen that there are a few blogs and online communities that offer expertise and experiences,  so my virtual network has expanded through this inquiry.   This echoes the idea of Connectivism and that 'knowledge is no longer acquired in a linear manner' (Stephenson, K in Connectivism: A learning theory for a digital age).   Strategically, I can only learn the logistics of launching a company from someone who has done it.   Furthermore, as performers our knowledge in the sense of changing ideas and resources for creativity is ever expanding.

On a practical level I have thought of ways of expanding my networks and therefore my resources to learning and also gaining employment.  Firstly,  I have researched some companies and dance schools that I believe to be successful.   All of which use their online tools to a greater extent than I am doing at the moment.   If I wish to expand my teaching and one day launch my own company or school I I need a website.   A professional blog  connected to this would also help to keep me connected with people I admire and also generate publicity.  More regular use of video sharing on Yotube for example would connect me to a wider community and allow for criticism from people outside my current network.

Talking about communities of practice and thoughts on reflection - Part 3 online session

We spoke this evening about 2 main themes; firstly any further thoughts we've had on reflection and our reflective practice and also on one of the theories of professional networking, and that was communities of practice. 

Upon hearing how others are getting on with the module,  we did touch on the in-action on-action and how people are using it in their working life.  I thought about whether anything has changed on my professional reflection and what I thought of was Kolb's learning cycle.  Over the past week I have moved to teach full time at a large dance school in Dubai.  It's been a daunting experience and I've been thrown into taking a lot more classes than I ever had before.  I've prepared as best I could for it and made lesson plans, and yet, when it has come down to it I think I still won't feel like I've done the best job I can at teaching all the groups until I've had more practice.   I thought that I entered the learning cycle normally in experimentation, but the past week has proved to me that practice is crucial in learning - practice based research.

 

 

 

These was my diagram displaying my communities of practice.    The obvious ones are the companies I work for and colleagues.   Tom came up with a good point, which was that our 'other jobs' the ones to pay the bills when we aren't performing are also very useful often in networking with other professionals.   As well as this, we touched on how difficult it can be keeping communities separate.   I know that if I am working another job (I used to work as a receptionist when I wasn't dancing) I didn't enjoy it when someone I knew who thought of me as a dancer or teacher saw me working the other job. I think I wanted to keep the circles separate, and as Tom put it, it's about compartmentalising areas of you work and life.   Conversely,  our networks often overlap and often when I have been offered a job (such as the one I'm in now) they will do their research on me and my background by looking at my other circles of contacts, be it online, or by word of mouth.   It works to maintain an extended network as likewise I can find out about employers through extended communities of practice.



 

Inquiry task 2D

"The hierarchy of education".  Being a dance teacher I feel passionately about this and it is so wonderfully expressed by Sir Robinson in his speech.  Is there a culture out there in the World that does stand the arts in the same importance in education as fact based subjects?  In this speech by Ken Robinson published on the TED website, he makes a controversial point. We live in a culture where academic subjects and those who do well at them are held in high regard and the arts are undermined. He believes, like me that all areas of education and growing up are equally as important. I don't believe that any subject is more important than any other, and there may well be a majority of people who would not enjoy dance and will flourish in other areas.   But what about the percentage that 'dance to think'?  Don't we have a duty as a country/culture/World to cater for everyone in their education?   Dance should not be seen as a past time.  For me it is when I feel like I am thinking and learning to my full capacity and therefore a necessity. 

Twyla Tharp spoke about 'muscle memory' as a form of intelligence which dancers use.  She thought that muscle memory should not be 'accessed by conscious thought'  (Tharp and Reiter, 2006) as it is something that we know innately or  is tacit knowledge.  Similarly Howard Gardner,  thought that people had various intelligences, one of them being bodily/kinaesthetically.  These ideas are widely known as a theories about learning and people's learning styles.   Why then, in schools do we not incorporate movement more into the learning of other subjects?   For me it seems so restrictive that children sit still for the majority of the 6/7 hour school day.   I truly believe that their are some that need to move to learn,  because I was one of them.  I am not generalising,  I know that the majority of the population do their thinking and learning being still, but I don't think it is the answer for everyone. 

Today I read an article about Isadora Duncan.  When her children were growing up she taught them about the arts, the theatre and literature, that was all.   People of the 1900's would have thought this radical and absurd, which it is.   I thought however, if she had been a famous academic who only taught her children about say, mathematics and science would people have had the same view?  
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/isadora-duncan-1877-1927-the-mother-of-modern-dance-101714348/114147.html

So far through this section focusing on reflective practice I have been really drawn to learning more about this idea of different intelligences and how people learn.  I am interested in finding out more about research that has been done in using movement to teach other subjects.   I would like to look at any corroborative research that not all people can sit still to learn, and movement in learning other subjects could be beneficial for some.

I have started to become more aware of the different thinking / learning styles in children that I teach over the past few weeks, and this had made an impact on how I am teaching.  In one of our Skype sessions, myself and Jessica spoke about how we have thought about changing what we are doing 'in-action' rather than reflecting about it afterwards.   I also have thought about changing the structure during the class if something is not working as I want it to.   So, I've changed the default way I go into teaching.  Sometimes by teaching the dance first,  sometimes by showing them first, sometimes listening to the music and asking the children what it makes them think of etc.  So I think by being more aware of different learning processes I am more open to changing the structure of a class to get the most out of children if it is not working the way I think  it could.
 

Harnessing Collective Data and Kutiman!

Kutiman is an Israeli DJ who spent 2 years creating pieces of music by editing and mixing YouTube videos!  This is my favourite video,  I think he's incredible.

Anyway,  it made me think about the Part 1 of module 1 and Tim O'Reilly's article.  He talks about 'Harnessing Collective Intelligence'  and in a way this video describes that.

Group skype session with Adesola (18th March)

The group skype this week was really beneficial for me because it got me thinking not about the 'tasks' as an add-on to my working day,  but tools for reflection that we can use throughout the day.  People came up with different ideas for ways to record our journal.  I think it was Granger said he uses voice notes, and then sends them to himself to listen back to later.  This is a great idea for me and I used it after I taught my classes on Friday night.  Came back to the notes today to write my lesson plans for next week - thanks for that!  We also touched on what we react to when creating / learning.  Adesola made a point that the writing styles are tools to come about ideas that might we might not record any other way... so perhaps if we take a photograph a day maybe we'll see a recurring theme.  This might generate an awareness of something maybe we are thinking about subconsciously.  For example, Adesola mentioned how she always comes back to the theme of light in her work and how this idea of light is not just in a literal sense but also what that could mean metaphorically; giving light on a subject, light on what someone else is thinking.   I came away thinking about what generates creativity in me and what I'm effected by.   I think at the moment I react to music and listen to so much music every day when I'm choreographing or teaching.  In my journal I have now listed different tracks that I might have found that day.   So many emotions and ideas can be revisited when listening back to.  In regards to Gardner's learning styles, maybe I am a musical learner?

Another theme we spoke about was the idea that all of the tasks we have in the handbook are like a constellation of ideas that we can call upon as learning tools.  Adesola pointed out that the course should be seen as a way of having the opportunity to reflect on our professional lives in a way maybe we didn't have a chance to in the past;  we were all probably thrown straight into our professional careers and have leanrt a lot of the skills we have 'on the job'.  Now,  we can use the course as a way of developing our thoughts and ideas and that the tasks set should be means to carry out perhaps inquiries into ourselves as people and professionals that maybe we haven't had the chance to do before.  Probably the most prominent point for me that Adesola made was the course as a whole is giving us an opportunity to reflect and experiment with the ideas put forward to us.  Maybe we won't come to an 'answer' on many things but to be ok with that.  It's helped me understand the nature of the course a lot better and I find it more exciting actually.  Now I can not worry about 'understanding' all the ideas given to us in the resources. But they are ideas to call upon as a process of learning that will continue throughout the modules and also my life!

This links in with Adesola's recent blog:  http://adesolaa.blogspot.com/2015/03/step-gently-on-line-campus-session-with.html  'making sure you are not narrowing your ability to engage with events to what you expect to find.  – also ties in with Module Three: using reflection to support yourself not having to know the ending of the inquiry at the beginning! (see my last post) – its all connected.'
 

Task 2C: Reflective theory

John Dewey coined the term 'reflective thought'.  He defined the process as "active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends". (Dewey, 1933).  Dewey's most basic assumption was that learning arose from the intensity how one experienced an event, and the process of reflection upon it.  For me, being aware of the idea of reflective thought is one of the most important tools for my own reflective practice.

 Dewey made special reference to how reflection was especially important to professionals with careers based on a process of change.  Working in the arts we depend on a continual growth in our work.  Reflective thought is a constant process invaluable in creation or teaching.   Be it when creating a lesson plan for young dancers, or creating a dance work, we use reflective thought as a process to enlighten our work.  Dewey described reflective thought as 'continual reorganization, reconstruction and transformation of experience' (Dewey 1933).  For me, this translates as a process of three stages.  Initially being fully present or ‘in the moment’ in the event.  This will allow clarity when I then record what took place, and my initial feelings on what happened.  The next stage would be to evaluate the event, taking care to acknowledge my own biases and strengths; why I felt a certain way about what had occurred.  From there I can reflect on my conclusion of what took place, and how this could shape future outcomes. 

David Kolb published his model of the learning cycle in 1984.   His theory was largely influenced by John Dewey’s ideas, among others.  “Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (Kolb, 1984).  He created this model:

 

He created the model on the conclusion that everyone experiences the event in the same way:  we experience the event, we observe others, we think about the experience and we actively experiment (or test the idea).  The process of learning would be to make a full loop on the cycle, reflecting in each of the different forms and going full circle.

What ‘type’ of learner we are depends on where we enter the cycle, according to Kolb’s model.   What I take from this is that we are not only one type of learner but all enter the cycle at different stages depending on the experience.   In the majority of cases, and the events I have recorded in my journal I believe that to feel something is understood I have to test the idea myself.    Clarity for me doesn’t come from experiencing or watching others.  When learning, as I am now writing this essay, I needed to read up on the idea.  I then created notes and graphs and read other peoples’ thoughts through their blogs or articles.  Not until the point of active experimentation (now) do I feel the Kolb’s theory is starting to be understood.

Around the same time as David Kolb produced his ‘learning cycle’ other ideas of learning styles were published.  Howard Gardner, as well as Peter Honey and Alan Mumford creating different models of learning styles. 

Gardner produced a list of intelligences.  This was not to say that people could be pigeon-holed into being one type of learner, but a way to create awareness of the different intelligences that we use as tools to learn.

‘Anything that is worth teaching can be presented in many different ways. These multiple ways can make use of our multiple intelligences.’ (Gardner, H).  Later Gardner speculated on the idea that we use multiple ‘lenses’ to learn and that we can cross over.   After a recent group discussion with Adesola and other module one students, it occurred to me that we all probably use all of these styles to learn in different situations.   I developed my thoughts on this further after the discussion on my blog:  http://catherinehayward.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/group-skype-session-with-adesola-18th.html

Another important theory that relates to professional practice, particularly for myself in dance pedagogy is the idea of reflection ‘in-action’ and ‘on-action’.  This idea was coined by Donald Schon in the 1980’s.  He said that there are two types of reflection: we reflect during the moment and ‘critically respond’ to what we are experiencing, 'in-action' or we reflect ‘on-action’ and think through / discuss the event after it has taken place.  

There is an argument that ‘in-action’ is harder to achieve as it relies on independent thought and reacting in the moment.  I enjoy the idea of ‘in-action’ being harder to achieve because we as performers have to do this in our professional work, such as when we are learning choreography but have to perfect it and take correction at the same time.  However,  my initial thoughts upon reading about Donald Schon’s theory was that perhaps we don’t always naturally respond ‘in-action’ but that it is something we learn through our practice.   From my experience children learning to dance don’t naturally analyse and think ahead while learning for example, but it is something we as performers learn to do so that we can become better, quicker.  I believe that reflection 'in-action' is a skill and like all skills it requires practice.   While teaching now, I am more aware of changing my plan 'in-action'.  If I can see that something is not being absorbed by the students I am not afraid to change what I am doing and teach it from a different angle or change the content in that moment.  I have found that with time I am becoming more confident in this approach.

Now I am consciously aware of the theories behind reflection and learning strategies, I noticed I am more thoughtful of the approach I take when teaching children and adults.  More that this I am also intentionally aware of my own learning process and what works for me.  I have found that rather than always going to my ‘default’ way of explaining something that I have been more willing to try a different approach teaching.  This way I have been able to try out the idea of learning styles with my dance and drama groups.  I want to see if there are students who are quicker at picking something up if I mix up the order I would usually teach.  For example, this week in my drama lesson I started with the students lying down and listening to someone perform what they were about to learn.  Then I asked them what they thought of the performance and what they would change.  My usual approach would be to go straight into teaching the lines and listening to somebody else afterwards.  It was interesting because it sparked an interest in a couple of children who would normally not be so forthcoming in having an input.  This idea of changing structure to appeal to different learning styles is something I would like to practically try out further. 

Reflective practice is invaluable to the arts, in that we are dependent on growth and change to create our work.  Therefore it is something that I have always carried out, however I am now intentionally recording and analysing experiences using different tools I haven’t used in the past.  This has meant a greater depth of questioning the process behind my own work, and where I am headed.   Moreover, recording reflections through my journal has revealed common thoughts that occur not always consciously.  These thoughts need the attention of being recorded in a journal to allow them to be acknowledged as recurring ideas.  From there they can be addressed; to be learnt from or to be used as material for creation.

 

Atherton J S (2013) Learning and Teaching; Reflection and Reflective Practice [On-line: UK] retrieved 22 March 2015 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/reflecti.htm


Dewey, J How we think, (2007) reprint, Champaign: Standard Publications, Inc.


Gardner, Howard (1983) Frames of Mind the Theory of Multiple intelligences, New York: Basic Books

McLeod, S. A. (2010). Kolb - Learning Styles. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html