TASK 2C-REFLECTIVE THEORY

Looking Outward

I choose to combine all of the Theories I have reviewed and discuss them as a whole....

The elements I will be reflecting upon of my Professional Practice are my Teaching and Performance based work. Definition of Reflection- The day to day activity we engage in gives information that we can draw from experience. Experience is observation of facts or events practice in doing something. From looking at the Reader many thinkers have looked at how we turn experience into learning and written about the tools they feel we should use to do this.

The key to Reflection is that we are learning from the experience and extending our own knowledge and understanding of the ways in which we reflect. John Dewey was interested in experience and said there were different levels of experience. He felt that the educational process is a ‘’continual reorganization, reconstruction and transformation of experience’’ which I feel whilst at school one does not fully appreciate and should be seen as a learning curve for all involved. It demonstrates that his theory is that we are always learning, engaging and changing from our experiences. His theory behind a reflective thought is that you should be engaging repetitively and with cautious concern. He felt that people who had a full experience and would be fully engaging within their lives that they would become a better part of society and have a better understanding to be able to deal with worldly problems.

This is a vital tool for engaging fully within the experience, I feel that it’s a vital tool for us to always try and fully engage to the best of our ability in whatever the experience may be and that school should be viewed as a learning curve for all involved. I felt that I was always learning from experience when you could view that I learn through my mistakes and to this day am still learning. I can remember viewing school as a chore as at the time you’re mentally very young and don’t have the capacity to appreciate it for what it is until you leave. In this current day school is so focused at getting the right results for the schools reputation when they should actually be focusing all of their time and energy into motivating the students to draw out the best of their individual ability.

In particular he felt that the integration within the Arts led to a ‘unique and valuable experience’. This is a fantastic view of being involved in the Arts whether it is within the Public or Private sector. There is so much experience you can gain from being involved such as self confidence, skill, ability, focus, self motivation, socially interaction and enjoyment. In the sense of Education I am so grateful that the curriculum has improved in its subject offering a wider variety of options for students wishing to pursue a career within the Arts as so many students are not academically minded that having the option to choose a more creative subject is excellent. 

I always do try and remind my students that until they are physically doing the movement repetitively they will not fully grasp the understanding of it at times. Therefore I feel that the students will learn kinesthetically, by physically doing the movement as appose to logically or mathematically.  Gardener also talked about the idea of VAK, Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic learning.  He also introduced the idea of ‘multiple lenses’ meaning the way in which we learn are like looking through the lenses at ‘learning and being a learner’. These theories were designed by Gardner to provide to the reader a clear understanding of the way in which we learn and engage. Within the lesson you could improve on each others way of learning by putting two students together; one who may learning logically and mathematically and the other musically to improve their learning skills

Twyla Tharp explains the idea of Muscle Memory where ‘‘her memory of the movement doesn’t need to be accessed through conscious effort’’ she has a physical understanding of the way in which to perform the movement ‘nonverbally’. I always use this to encourage my students who are struggling when learning a particular skill and to be able to perform something through the use of muscle memory only comes through the use of repetition

Relating in particular to dancers the practitioners Tufnell, Tharp and Moon show that the way we reflect does not have to happen through a written method. However they emphasize having the ability to communicate these ideas by means of poems, journals, sketches and drawings. The ability to be able to communicate the reflective process verbally is vital in gaining the understanding of the knowledge that has been learnt by the student within the class.

Schon’s introduced the idea of ‘Reflection in action’ where you are reflecting on it whilst it is happening. For example when one would be demonstrating a combination of steps across the floor and something is going wrong you would adapt on the spot to make improvements. This tends to be the ‘Hands on’ approach. He also had the thought of ‘Reflection on action’ whereby you would evaluate the process afterwards. To relate this to the dance class I feel that amending on the spot is difficult task to grasp and one that you may do when you are older as you have to have the complete understanding of knowing what is right or wrong. However to reflect on it afterwards is a functional way of digesting the movement for self correction and at times one may not be aware of the fact that you were wrong.

Kolb’s Learning Cycle

            Kolb’s view on Reflection is a cycle format. He believed that it is important to have the ability to recognize that you have had an experience and having the tools to be able to reflect on that experience. Relating this aspect of learning to teaching dance is essential in establishing the reason behind the way in which we learn and the reason for it. The cycle begins with the Concrete experience meaning the student is leaning whilst actually doing the movement. The Reflective Observation is where the student would learn by seeing others around them doing it and then reviewing and reflecting on that experience throughout. The Abstract Conceptualization is having the need to work it out in their heads first before applying it. The Active Experimentation is to conclude and learn from the experience and to try and plan out what they have learnt. He stated that the point in which you would learn and enter the cycle would differ from one person to the next and this is known as your learning style.