Interview

My preparation in the previous blog explains that I decided to use two tools for my pilot surveys and this one was an interview with a dance colleague.  Conducting and planning my interview was eye opening for me and I have been self critical when reflecting on the interview.

The first critic is my question “Will having a qualification/degree in dance provide a performer with the knowledge to teach the students successfully”

The key being that all practitioners have different opinions on qualifications within the industry. How I approach the question when interviewing is determined on the use of my voice as not to narrow mind and influence the interviewee.

I decided to interview my fellow dancer Natalie, she is a working practitioner around the North West and a successful professional dancer. To save time and be as convenient as possible to fit in with her schedule, the most appropriate location was agreed to be the studio after class. The location agreed was home “Turf” for both of us and an indirectly way to still keep the interview professional. This gave the opportunity to be open with opinions and be flexible with her views. I did learn that planning the meeting straight after a class and on work territory, the outcome was beneficial as the work ethic is fresh and “on the mind.”

Critical reflection: As I noted that I interviewed a dancer and employer recently I have predicted that it would maybe be extremely beneficial to interview a non dancer or someone who is not connected to the industry. For my trail and error and own reflection the idea of interviewing a parent to find out their views on qualifications when they send their children to a dance class. Does is determined what school their childe attends? Whether they feel dancers with experience would have the appropriate facilities to teach their child correct movements and technique.

My intention about this interview was to ensure that the atmosphere didn’t incline towards a “catch up” environment. I planned to be professional and constructive by applying my school discipline and professionalism. Firstly I emailed and phoned to arrange the interview and then confirmed with a consent form to ensure the information collected was for university purposes only and my critical reflection towards my practice.

Researching through my ethics, I decided to record the interview to make sure my full attention was the data provided. Our agreed time was 45 minutes and I felt that noting her comments would of prolonged the interview, which keeping to my ethics and professionalism I did not want to over run.

I semi structured the interview by asking mainly open questions. Anticipating that open questions would give the possibility for Natalie to deepen her thoughts and opinions on my inquiry and give the flexibility to discuss the topic.

“What is your opinion on qualifications in dance teachers?”

“Do you have qualifications? If so have they help employment?”

Overall I have conducted an interview as my primary tool for my inquiry, using this tool has given me the opportunity to reflect on my behaviour towards fellow dance practitioners and present employers.

Reflecting on myself I think I was extremely professional and held the interview in a professional manner. However, I feel that there were limits in my interview such as the timing. I felt that 45 minutes with one person seems to be less constructive than the tool of a focus group and questionnaires; I have arranged to conduct this with my students. Obviously I will know the outcome when the focus group is confirmed and I have all the data collected. I detect that the questions should be directed to a wider audience to receive the best possible opinions and debates on my particular inquiry.

Pilot...6A

In the thought process of planning the professional inquiry using two tools feels like a dynamic way to develop one's answers with the question in hand. The idea of combining two tools using formal interviewing with and without questionnaires and an informal focus group seems like the most effective way to receive a beneficial outcome. The tools will be designated towards the appropriate people and using both methods will give the chance to be self critical and reflect on whether this worked or not. These methods allow the interviewee’s to develop their answers and be opinionated at ease. The interviews will involve students, fellow dancer/teachers and employers.

Focus Group 

Firstly using the tool an informal “Focus Group’ which will be directed at the students that take part in regular classes. Being a familiar face this will be an indirectly ease for the students to discuss their opinions openly. My thought process will also be the “particular type” of questions within the group that can involve everyone and enable development with the views.

“What are your opinions on qualification in Dancing? This open question allows the students to discuss their opinions in the group without feeling judged or criticised. These type of questions allows debates and honesty were they begin to develop on answers without knowing and “get into it” therefore when individually questioned their views will be extremely opinionated.

The main reason for using the students is they are currently developing their careers and to see their views on experience and qualifications should be useful and interesting. As students have become more outspoken the answers will develop my thought process and enable an insight to self reflection.

Interview and Questionnaire

The second tool to use will be individual interviews with all the focus group. The main reason for this will be for the students to enhance their opinions to a greater extent. I always like to be critical of myself and get feedback and I think younger students are the most honest and helpful as they always tell the truth, After the focus group whether they were just agreeing with the whole group or actually being extremely opinionated will come across in the anonymous interview and questionnaires. I feel I want to do this as some students do feel over powered and pressured into following the others, so this allows everyone to have a personal view and not feel pressure and ease. It also allows them to not be judge if they feel that from myself, even though I have voiced no judgement will be made I do realised that some people will not take this into account. I have also considered this as from personal experience in my vocational school I preferred sharing my views with this technique.

Interview with fellow dancer

Following on and developing the outcome, the next participants will be my fellow dance colleagues. Also taking the time to interview Sophie as part of the University. Working dancers and teachers have their own views on whether the qualification is a benefit or not. Using closed questions should be more effective within this group of people as this tool is slightly more personal and most of them have experience in the industry, which contribute to their beliefs. “Did you do qualifications in dance?” “Do you regret not taking up doing qualifications?” “Have you learnt more with experience?”  I will document their answers by recording what they say which will be slightly more formal but being a familiar face they will still feel at ease.

Employers

Proceeding on with the formal interviews the next participants will be personal employers to myself. This is to get an indication of the employees that work for them and whether all have a qualification or not. Open and closed questions will be used in this interview such as “ Do you think all employees should have a recognised qualification in order to teach?” “Are they people employed without qualifications?”

Environment

The environment of both interviews and focus group will be on familiar terms and on “home turf” which the studio is the most appropriate place for the class to discuss of all their ideas and opinions about the instructor constructively. There views will be straight from a class and so to be fresh and honest. This unfortunately may be slightly time consuming, however for the questionnaires the students are able to take home and answer the questions in their own time. 

The interviews will be well structured ensuring that the exact questions are asked and not to go into personal details. However, the individuals will be able to answer the questionnaires anonymously creating no pressure or obligation to write something that is not their personal thoughts. From personal experience when attending my vocational college we had to anonymously answer questions about other teachers for feedback.

The recording of the interview will be the questions that are wrote down by the students and then a tape of the interview with the employer and fellow dance instructors. I will have different evidence to back my focus group and interview up. Which will also show me for future analysis which of the evidence was the most beneficial.

Data protection Act- using consent forms and a contract stating that the all information documented from the interviews and questionnaire are for university use only. This will enable clean and honest environment and give the employer and student ease to voice their opinions.

5C

Reading through Reader five and consulting the Ethics and finding out what I have learn't has been benefiting for the two previous tasks. Using my tasks and my professional experience I have fitted them into the theoretical frameworks. In the profession where on a day to day basis I am confronted with all types of people with different morals and ethics is very interesting. As a teacher I have to have equal and professional ethics towards adults and children.

In my professional developing practice Deontology plays a huge part, Kant (1779) argues "the only absolute good thing is a good will" that everyone should help everyone regardless of the desire too, which in my opinion effects my profession. As a teacher I believe it comes with the territory to have the responsibility to educate a student regardless of whether your feelings towards the child are good or bad. If a child is being disruptive it is the teachers' role to still keep them on track even if you do not wish to help them. If I ask the children to individually perform a dance move this is based upon my will to personal critic or praise the child for their work. Ages or races do not play a part as this is purely for my personal practice with individuals to develop my own practice and theirs.

Virtue ethics also plays a part in my profession which I am beginning to be more aware of. The atmosphere of the class depends upon the attitude of the teacher, The Being of a teacher rather than Doing effects the students learning and the children's experience in the class to whether their attention is distracted or not. As my classes are underway each time I teach I learn that the students are enjoying and learning more efficiently if my behaviour and manners are appropriate for that certain class.
Therefore this leads to my reading further onto the diagram of Professional Ethics. Personal ethics combines with Professional code therefore ties in with Employment expectation. The behaviour of the professional effects the class and resulting in the position of the employment, having ethics gives you a guideline towards society. Professions within the society are based through ethics and is the foundation to starting new professional work.

The basic key to my learning is that I have been able to slot all my different morals into a category and reflect upon my profession to a greater extent. Ethics are personal and whether your a professional or not we all have them. Using the resources and personal experience that the ethical approach is a whole package of being and doing. The behaviour counts on the action and vice versa.
Ethics has to be within, I argue that everyone does have good ethics to some extent but I am still finding out alot of "Tit for Tat" which I noted in the first module.

Revised questions?

My Current Question?

"Does having a qualification/degree benefit a performers transition into teaching and choreographing easily?''

Changing the opinionated words to something more broader could help achieve answers.

Is having a qualification/degree useful in a performer to start teaching and choreographing? 

Will having a qualification/degree in dance provide a performer with the knowledge to teach the students successfully?

If a Dancer has the background in Dance education with a Qualification/Degree would this provide useful facilities to teach dance students?

My Question..

After a useful email from Alan Durrant suggesting I hone into my Question slightly deeper and asking the question from different perspectives.


Firstly with analysing the question....


"Does having a qualification/degree benefit a performers transition into teaching and choreographing easily?''


These have just popped up in my head and with the help of Alan Durrant also-

• What does this actually mean????
• Who will find this transaction 'easy?'
• Who will this benefit?
• What would be the benefit?

Will a performer obtaining a degree successfully pursue and develop a career in teaching? The aspect of building a career based on Dance is a difficult one as there is so much competition practically. 

However, I do believe that when educating the mind in more depth within Dance, it can improve the ability of the dancer. Using history and the renowned names to instruct and teach the children/adults the correct way techniques in performing such movements without the cause of an injury. Understanding that this does not apply to every dancer and teacher, knowing some teachers that just gone from dancing to teaching as used their experience as a learning base of trail and error. 

Luigi style. In Northern I trained with the Luigi style of Jazz to trained my body for simple but effective movements. This all was taught by our teacher David Needham who worshipped the art form and history of the moves. As we all thought it was very old school but an excellent way to learn and develop our ability in dance.

The word 'Easy' is an opinion. Easy can be used differently in many terms and from each individual creative person. Using the word easy can offend students, As a dance student I had to work hard on my flexibility and the word easy was never used. Whereas many of my fellow dancers found it extremely easy to "wack their leg." As this was a personal experience, Generally I never use the word as to offend somebody who is struggling on one part, more often I say 'the step is less difficult.'

The word easy in my question states that moving from a dancer to a teacher with a national qualification should be obtainable. However, would every dancer be capable in such written work? As I have blogged before dancers are practical people and less writing is ever done, would other dancers find this difficult? Why can you not just teach the knowledge you already know from past experience and be recognised in Schools?

Benefit- I have asked whether having a degree would benefit a teacher, but will this qualification still benefit the teacher when all the curriculum has changed? When would the benefit happen? Will Dance keep changing and developing on better techniques? Having experience could help a successful dancer become a teacher or having the experience and the background in dance help a teacher become slightly more valuable.

I am beginning to believe my question would have to be broadened to be open to a bigger group of people. Questioning my question is giving me widen thoughts, that not everyone would feel the same about this and it wouldn't apply to everyone. It has made me critic myself to having such a small minded question using words such as Benefit and Easy. Analysing and looking deeper has given me the thoughts that using these words gives me a smaller target group and this could never really ben answered. I have to change the opinionated words.

My question is directly at dancers and performers that have a background in education and handling the thought of a degree or written work. Achieving my answer to my questions leads me to believe that after reading Steph's interview process that I should interview professional dancers who are currently teaching now and dance teachers with no experience in performing but more experience in teaching classes.

5b

Reading through Sophie and Nicole's personal researched codes of practice, it has bought awareness to few aspects of legal codes I am unsure of. Therefore studying further codes of practice with a friend and NDTA dance.
As a dance teacher and working daily with children aged 18 months to adults the codes of practice certainly differ from each other. My findings have lead me to pinpoint each requirement and whom to aim at. 
Recently I have been working with children from 18 months to 3/4 years alongside a dance teacher who has set up her own classes and company "Dancing Days." I extremely enjoy working with her, however noticing that when I taught my first class the parents sat and watched, joined in and questioned me. I was taken aback by this but ensured that I was qualified and happy for the parents to sit in and watch. I now totally understand why the parents would do this.


Contacting my friend about her business and her providing me with the legal requirements she had to have in place before beginning her classes were:

• Letting the parents watch the class
• Ensuring they are happy for you to teach and accept your qualifications
• Making sure the parents know the boundaries of interfering with teaching methods 
• The equipment is suitable and the room is the safest it could be 
• If video or taking photos of the children whilst dancing for the benefit of the website or other parents that consent is given in writing and signed
• All parents have signed for you to teach the their children

There are many more but most of the legal requirements she added herself are mainly to do with the parents and having consent for the teacher to take the class. Consulting with my friend as the reasons for putting these forces into place were..." It covers her back for everything" No parent or carer can sue for any harm, unsuitable behaviour, bullying etc. The reasons were extremely acceptable and I believe that the codes should be personal to your own practice. 

Furthering my reading into another source of NEA (National Education Association) and their requirements for teaching children. These are codes of ethics that all work places should enforce when teaching students. 


www.nea.org/home/30442.htm 


The subjects that stood out were the 
" Shall not intentionally expose the student to embarrassment or disparagement" 
My reason for this: Why would one embarrass a student?"  As a teacher you pick out students to develop their knowledge on the subject but never want to make them feel embarrassed. If you feel they are struggling. Having never come across this situation I understand this not crossing my mind, however it questions me to think... Have I embarrassed a child before? Did they get upset? Asking about and concluding that the ability to use your voice is the key, using various tones and approaches is the best way. 


This task has been a eye opener for me within my personal teaching pratice. As many allegations occur towards teachers and students, this is the most serious matter within teaching with the 21st century. Never have I come across such behaviour, however now it gives me an understanding to why parents and carers are reluctant to take their children to classes where they are uncertain of who the teacher will be. 
My assumptions for teaching children were on the correct track. However, I have over looked many aspects of teaching and the suitable behaviour around children. Personally I feel it creates more work and cautiousness when working but if applied in the correct term the classes should not change and no difference will be seen.
In the future I feel if building and developing my own company, now having a fuller knowledge and insight to the Safety of teaching and the Codes of Ethics towards children and adults. The "blurry areas" have been cleared and researching more on this topic is defiantly something that interests me. The security on children is the highest it has been in years unlike in the past when canes and whips were used. In my opinion children nowadays would not response to this form of punishment and discipline and would rebel. No one should be punished for learning difficulties or slow developing in any form of subjects.
I do feel I am a safer practitioner and I can use this knowledge to my advantage with parents and carers. Specific rules and regulations will develop my company and business showing that I practice safe and ethically.