If life is what happens to our plans, then dance is what happens to our steps.
ideas sometimes when you wait they come to you.

Preparation for starting with BAPP

Friday 31 October 2014

Group SKYPE chats 4th & 5th :First tuesday (and Wednesday!!) Coffee shops.

Our Group SKYPE chats are coming-up
Tuesday November 4th at 11am (in London time)
Wednesday November 5th at 8:00pm (in London time)
(Please sign-up for which group chat you will join by writing a comment on this post.)

The chats are always really useful and a great way to learn more through sharing and hearing how other people are thinking about things.

Looking forward to talking to you next week.
Please comment on which chat you are joining in on and also any memories or useful "aha! moments" that have happen during past group chats.

Adesola :)

Thursday 23 October 2014

Up-coming events

It is great to go to conferences and other dance/arts events. You can meet other people inquiring into their practice share ideas.
Check out this at MDX in December
http://transmissionperformancesymposium.wordpress.com

Wednesday 15 October 2014

October 15 PM Skype session: have a look at what we talked about!!

Today’s PM SKYPE session went well. We were a conversation of five people. We talked about The tasks and how they need to be useful to the overall point of the BA – a BA in Professional Practice. The tasks are not there as hoops to jump through they are there to get you thinking. We found there might be good reasons why you do not do a task at all. The point of them is get you thinking about what you do and learn from being a professional in your field. They are there to get you to make real (concrete) your practice. See where “YOU” are in it.

Rachel is going to write a post on this: how the first module is to help you ‘to real-ise what you learnt as a professional rachelmorris8387@blogspot.co.uk

Tina is going to write about this too from the perspective of why or why not to ‘do’ tasks but to think about them, http://lynnterry001.blogspot.com

We talked about what a Literature Review is and how it is about seeing where people stand or what they think in a particular area or field of practice. Chiara is going to write about this and also about how it is interesting to talk to and listen to people who are in modules you have completed because they remind you of ideas and feelings you experienced, http://cvainella.blogspot.com

Sarah is going to write about how useful the conversation was for hearing different perspectives on the tasks and activities in the modules, http://sarahsmales.blogspot.co.uk/

It is great to talk together to work out ideas and to hear what other people are thinking. This course is not about completing things we ask you to do it is about getting you thinking and talking to people getting you thinking and communicating your ideas.

Looking forward to November SKYPE talks.

Adesola




Wednesday 8 October 2014

OH no!!! More next week :)

Todays pm SKYPE session had a lot of technical difficulties: teething issues for people whom this is the first time to join in. I know this is frustrating and a number of people did not connect with the conversation who wanted to, so I will run another pm SKYPE next week Wednesday October 15th at 8:30pm (in London time).

Looking forward to talking to you all.

Please indicate in the comment if you will be joining in.
Keep smiling!!

Adesola

Tuesday 7 October 2014

Oct 7th AM SKYPE session conversation points


This mornings group SKYPE session went well – we had some helpful and interesting conversation. We were Lara, Gemma, myself and Hannah joined us at the very end.

The point of all the sessions we have (campus, skype even on-to-one with your tutor) is to feel like you are an ambassador for the rest on the BAPP learning community. That is share what you got out of the interaction what you learnt , what got you thinking, what it made you question. So true to form Lara and Gemma are going to write posts about what they thought was valuable about the conversation this morning.

Gemma is going to write further about how nice it is just to hear the voice of other students talking about their experience and realising they are like your own. Also practical aspects like adding people to your blog by making sure you have ‘follow’ activated on your blog site. Also starting to ‘follow’ other people to start to get connected. Lastly we talked about how basically this is all about starting to change your student self to a professional practice self, through reaching out and finding the information and connections that you need to develop your work. We are offering you lots of tasks and things to think about but only do this if you are linking it to your professional practice to developing yourself and your understanding. In other words ‘use’ things to find out more and develop do not just do them because you think you have been told to. We are seeing active development and responsibility for developing your professional practice what it mean to be professional and that is what this BA is about . Check out what Gemma has to say http://grwalker92.blogspot.co.uk

Lara is going to write further on how we talked about the importance of finding your own learning style. Try playing with some of the tasks to see what works for you in terms of how you have a meaningful learning experience. You don’t have to do everything suggested they are just ideas to get you thinking. You can try doing things or talk about the idea to people you work with to get their thoughts. The important thing is that what you do is purposeful. The purpose is not to do it to show you did it, it is to use doing it to think more about and develop your Professional Practice. That is what the BA is in. Check out Lara’s post on our conversation at http://larafbapp.blogspot.co.uk

Our next group SKYPE is 8:30 (in London) on Wednesday October 8th (tomorrow). If you want to join in please say so in the comments box below. Also it would be great to hear what you think of the points made in our conversation. What do you think Professional Practice means?

Adesola







Sunday 5 October 2014

End of week one - question, posts and the journey

End of week one: Lets have a little check-in:
Module Ones you should have your blogs going and be trying out the tasks and posting reflections on the task (these do not have to be epic!! People are busy and what to know what you are doing and maybe reading on the train or something.)

Everyone what ever Module you are on, make sure your posts also include your reflective practice everything responds to your Professional Practice because that is what the BA is about. It is not just an exercise in telling us about something, it is about you looking at how it is meaningful to you in terms of your working life.

Module Twos are starting the journey of crafting your inquiry. Module two is a bit of a step-by-step process. You have to trust the journey and start it!! I have written a bit about thinking about inquiry questions below. Start blogging ideas and talking to other people, forming interest groups and chatting through possibilities.

Module Three you should be responding to your feedback from Module 2. Send a one page outline of your response and any changes you want to make after feedback. Then you can talk this through with your advisor. Check with your adviser that any consent forms you have are approved. After this you will be starting to get into the field, the data collecting process - exciting

Interesting blog post from Julia http://julia-v-gil.blogspot.de
about getting started back and asking questions raised some useful ideas about wording the question.
Wording the question is important not because the words are important but because the words you choose have an impact on where you go with the question. So I would advice to stay away from questions that imply an answer!!

Like "How can one become a versatile dancer?" that implies an answer and to get a good answer to this you would need years of inquiry not just next term.

But you could unpack this question like 'What do people consider a 'versatile dancer' means?' - you would then look at what you think of as a versatile dancer, what other dancers think, what a choreographer thinks, what people have written about this and then compare any differences or similarities (that is the analysis). Then you would know more about HOW to be a versatile dancer because you would know more about what it means to be one.
See what I mean?  The goal of the inquiry is not to answer something but to know MORE about something. To end the inquiry able to ask better questions about it because you know more about it!

What do you think? In comments have a go at writing a question and explaining what you would do to anylase the data you got as I have done above. It’s a fun thing to think up a question even if you are not on Module 2. Also I would love to hear where you read other peoples blog post. Is it travelling to work? One evening a week? At work? Over breakfast???


Looking forward to hearing from you
Adesola


Wednesday 1 October 2014

Week One and Office hours

We are Week One, our first week. Now is a time to be sorting out and getting started. As we talked about in induction here are some points that are important as you start:

1)   Work out when you have to have your assessed work hand-in by (January 2015) and make sure you understand what it is. In other words where are you heading on the journey of this module?
2)   Make a space for your work – in your diary through organised times for when you will working, in your house/office/coffee-shop through having a place to ‘shut the door’ and start working, in your life embracing the notion you are a student (again!!).
3)   Start to open lines of communication with the BAPP learning community, this is through starting your blog and giving us the address, visiting other people’s blogs and leaving comments, getting skype sorted out, contacting your advisor if you have any questions etc…

I am going to have virtual ‘office hours’. These are times when you can skype in to talk to me without an appointment. These will be Tuesday and Thursdays 10am to 11am and Saturdays 8pm to 10pm.

So for comment to this post please let us know what tips you have for starting back/starting-up. What has worked for you?


Adesola