Can Secondary Learners be challenged through the mediums of aspects of performing arts and one off projects to engage and progress in English & Maths

Please could you take time to look at this set of questions to help a potential inquiry. All responses, unless you give express permission, or chose to publish your answers, will be treated in confidence.

I am looking at using Survey Monkey https://www.surveymonkey.com/ as the means of communication, this is because our Deputy Principal used the same method recently on something I participated in and it seems relatively straightforward, perhaps you could give it a try.

I would like to do two surveys, aimed at adults and students, I wondered about the thinking around this In relation to the student element.

Would you describe yourself as;

Creative Practitioner
Performer
Secondary Education professional
Parent/carer of a current Secondary student

What is, in your opinion, the most disengaged year group;

Yrs;
7
8
9
10
11

Most disengaged gender;
Male
Female

In relation to English and Maths, what are /is the biggest bars on learning?

Would a focussed holiday activity/project in October half term (not many families can afford to go away then) help?

Would students gain from working solely within a group from the geographical area they are familiar with or engaging with young people from different socio/economic and located environments?

Would students gain more from working within a mixed ability setting (ie including some special needs) or from working within a group roughly at a similar level and facing similar challenges?


...These questions, I hope to add to but would welcome some initial feedback

Thanks loads

Russ






















I explored themes around my inquiry recently by attending and speaking at a Rotary event. This worked on a number of levels, namely;

It got me up in front of people from all ages and walks of life in an informal and not threatening environment.

I was able to actively canvass their thoughts on issues raised by the kind of partnership work I do. It enabled me to hone further my thinking on the way forward in this sector.

Nearly all were actively engaged in working or volunteering in a school setting, in particular Secondary and/or had past experience and the results that could be achieved through positive interventions.

They were very supportive and positive to the Presentation.

I chose to use slide dog http://slidedog.com/ as my presentation aid, due to short research through the internet. I needed something that was free due to lack of funds on my part and due to the nature of my presentation being very visual around performance, this particular facility allowed me - after a prolonged period loading - to play longer and many more video clips to highlight aspects of the success and development of my work within a voluntary organisation, engaging school students.

I found I was able to use images and clips as an alternative to cue cards, hopefully in an engaging way for the audience.

Developing questions for a professional inquiry

I am seeking to organise some questions in relation to my professional inquiry and through discussions during campus sessions with Paula using a mind mapping exercise, I hope my potential inquiry is forming a sharper relief.

I am aware, as a participant, on a professional basis of using survey monkey, this seems a safe, anonymous and secure meaning of doing a survey such as this and I wondered if any of my peers had used it? what thoughts their were on it, as a medium of communication?

I will be seeking to actively engage with my peers through social media, joining and initiating a SIG group as I have identified, in particular, a number of students with similar interests and lines of inquiry.

Please feel free to message me and I hope to likewise do the same.

In anticipation

Russ

Campus Session Hendon Tues 25th March 2014

Hi All

This was a very useful session, particularly as I was reconnecting face to face with people after some family illness issues and other considerations.

I would particularly like to thank Paula for giving me some more intensive one to one time at the end of the session, brainstorming ideas around the question and how to closely define what that question for the professional inquiry will be. In addition the fact that determining several different lines of inquiry before picking one in particular, can in itself be used as evidence of learning.

Alan made an interesting contribution that struck with me within the session and made me think, when we were discussing gaining knowledge, as a concept.

Do we gain knowledge by, for instance, reading and taking in someone else`s perspective on a given topic and perhaps recounting it to ourselves or is knowledge something unique to each of us gained by individual unique experience in whatever sphere of interest, that may mean our understanding is enhanced on something for the first time. I hope what I have just written makes some sense and that I haven't taken Alan`s comments slightly out of  context of the point he was making.

I enjoyed a blog link on working with special needs students I have just read http://teachinglearnerswithmultipleneeds.blogspot.com/    

Hopefully I will be able to overcome my technological limitations and post more regularly now.

Russ

Elevator Pitch

Paula published on her blog details on the "elevator pitch" I found this very interesting and confirmed some principles i try to work to

Russ

3a Current Networks

This is for me a very interesting exercise, in considering the various ways in which we network, consciously and subconsciously, every day of our lives.

It is something vitally worth being aware of and I guess performers need to be near the top of the list when it comes to being able to do this. It is a very necessary skill of the trade.

My experience is as someone who has moved away from looking for acting work but I find whilst sometimes the networking isn't "make or break" and worrying totally about where the next job or food is coming from, it has had to develop, like branches of a tree that go off in different directions, taking many different twists and turns to accommodate slightly different ambitions. It has had to become ingenious and had to accommodate sometimes more, sometimes less rewarding interactions.

What I am really hoping this course will help me achieve, is an understanding of different methods, particularly on line, where I know my adaptability and my abilities are definitely challenged. 

As a part time Artistic Director part of my task is ensuring the group remains financially solvent, for without that it is impossible to sustain as practitioners, this kind of a theatre company and move forward to exciting and ambitious work. So part of my current networks will reflect my situation as an artist, in education and being involved in the running of an arts organisation. In mentioning these networks I am not seeking to put them in a definite order of precedence, because at different times it alters, given the situation.

Friends

As we all know, its difficult to describe on paper, the value this has and sometimes in the most unlikeliest of situations. Other bloggers have mentioned bars/clubs/theatres and other social get togethers or, quite often bump into`s.

There is nothing like bouncing and exchanging ideas off friends, who quite often share the same aspirations, maybe teach you a different approach, enrich you artistically, opening up opportunities you never thought existed. They are sometimes able to finance some of these ideas  and are not all necessarily from the performing business. These are face to face interactions, which I think from experience are to be highly valued, partly because positive body language is harder to read from a text and can be a powerful tool, if used effectively.
These are all networks that can build with the years, become very important artistic sustainability wise and be great fun! 

Phone

An essential networking tool, when leading busy lives, I still rely greatly on my address book of contacts and I do send numerous group messages by text/email and am increasingly using iphone capabilities.

Organised/agreed Meetings

I have to attend many, some I have actively instigated or been invited along to. I tend to be very proactive in setting these up but try and focus on whats to be achieved. Can be the bane of a lot of lives, if not organised well. I find though that very little would happen without them. I am talking agents, business funders, charitable sponsors, performers. Some seriously good results can happen if the right environment is created. You can also quickly be able to find who you can work with.

It could be I am planning working on a project in a certain community, so I meet with relevant people there and enlist there help. I can join up different agencies to come together and we are a stronger body.

Definite Minutes and action points are important., for memory, as well as moving things forward.

Rehearsals

Again, networking is happening all the time, between performers. There is a saying that you need to be aware of the next generation of performers, because as with other professions, they could be your future employer. A lesson for any particularly difficult Director.

Now on line media

Through various channels, including Spotlight, The Stage and other audition notifications.

Your own website, which leads onto;

Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Flickr, You tube channels etc, where definite Web 2.0 principles are brought into play. My weaker area and one I really want to get a grip of. We have a website developed by a friend of a friend and it proves to be problematic in updating quickly but essential to do so.

Letters

Less frequently, but still appreciated in certain quarters

Paid for Adverts Banners, posters, adverts in paper media and google/facebook

Supermarkets I have literally unfortunately taken a group to perform in one and publicise a production. Although it did raise awareness and was financially successful perhaps not again, as a line should be drawn.

In Summary

I frequently enjoy networking and find it rewarding, although I would still consider myself shy.

One final thought on communication in general. We have found to our cost, in our small organisation that taking away proper channels of communication can lead to problems that will take even longer to resolve than if communication had been there in the first place. After all, it tends to be if the first misinformation has gone out unchallenged or unable to be effectively challenged, mud tends to stick, regardless of if its true or not, an example being certain tabloid disclosures.



  

2b Reflective Writing

In keeping a journal, I am hoping that good bits of professional practice are retained, not forgotten! which does happen and less successful ones refined or discarded.

These are my developing thoughts on the different ways in which you could keep a journal, the ones that I found easier to use and others that I could use in different situations; 

Description

This is sometimes something I do in an aural way with colleagues when evaluating what happened? the main events? and where and when. I know that a journal is personal to the individual and as has been mentioned by Adesola, is sometimes best to be left that way. It has been a busy time and when able to keep upto it

Initial Reflection

I liked this technique, as at the moment day to day situations have arisen that have caused an emotiolnal response. I found i was able to spill out strong emotions. I also spoke to a friend who is using this method as a way of dealing with a close family illness and the difficult decisions that may have to be made. In this light I could really imagine using this technique. 

List

On a number of occasions I use my phone to quickly write down song titles or ideas, sometimes that I end up using in a script or for musical ideas in a pantomime for instance. I read a blog from Lee Taylor who did the same with his iphone. i would use this technique again. 

Graphs, charts and diagram

I found this hard only admittedly doing it the once to attach some kind of benchmark to what may or may not be positive and how I could use this effectively, particularly over the short term.

What if?
 
I found this useful and tried it a few times. In my daytime profession of working with young people their are many times when what ifs? could be used. I shared this with some professional colleague friends who agreed and I have used it in my school work classroom and drama teaching context, in a confiedntial way.

Another View

In a different way, evaluation of your work by your peers and in particular young people, is important to me and whilst at times there is some trepidation, most of the time I have found that feedback is positive. This is a slightly different thing, imagining what others would think, is something we as human beings probably subconsiously do anyway everyday. I personally would prefer, at this point, going down the route of evaluation of my work, regularly, by young people and peers ( by this i mean, the management board I report to and colleagues) due to the fact i am not a regularly performing professional anymore.

 

I have a notebook, which basically also acts as my diary which I scribble things into, is confidential, this is my professional journal and something I can use it quickly.

 

I find increasingly however, that my phone and also a confidential online spreadsheet/database i have acts as a part journal because i can add my thoughts, refer to it if I feel able and acts as a memory jog for things I must tackle, it also, I have found has helped me evolve in my professional life. 

 

Task 2a Reflective Journal Task

I started a private journal last week and it would be true to say I have a lot to reflect upon. It is the middle of November (Movember) so actually, facially I am looking quite different, I never have a moustache but I have be cajoled, with some of my colleagues to grow one for awareness of testicular cancer.

I suppose, as my face changes, when i dare look in the mirror, with the tache, I hope some change is taking place in me, as a reflection of the work embarked upon on the course.

One of the things I have started to notice, is how difficult it can be to write subjectively, even to yourself, on matters that are very personal to you and emotive - particularly in a time of transition, in relation to parts of a professional life.

Due to the nature of it, strong passions are often involved. Building something up from nothing, to what you beleive is a stable, healthy, ethical and successful state involves some tender loving care, along with hard work, that I suppose is most easily defined in the time and degree of effort you know yourself, you have put into it. It also involves complex relationships with other practitioners, some of which you may have taken years to reach a certain fluid understanding with. The reward of this though, in my personal experience, is that you complement one another, through your strengths and weaknesses, to a far greater extent.

It can be absolutely gut wrenching, to see something that quantifiably has made such a difference to many lives be undermined, for quite shallow reasons and with a distinct lack of evidence.

I would like to think that had I started a journal some time ago, I may have picked up on my own weaknesses, in a decision making, democratic process that would have helped me bring the above situation to a head, a lot sooner, causing a lot less pain to everyone involved, probably in a more assertive way.

As part of my journal, on a daily basis,  I am seeking ways in which to critically reflect on simple things that have happened that day.

I also wonder if I can somehow turn the above into a positive outcome, as whilst the future looks a lot rosier now, I was forced, in a really negative way, to carefully plan any actions I chose to take, in consultation with others, with all the minutae of evidence required - a time consuming process - I wonder if this in its own garbled way, acts as some form of record keeping that can enhance reflective practise? answers on a postcard lol.

I do think it helped and made me and others, more lucid in justifying actions and decisions. I guess the passion actually carried this process forward.