Natalie's BAPP Blog

So we're halfway through week 3 already and time is moving scarily fast, as it has for my entire BAPP journey so far! I attended the 'Welcome back' Skype session on Sunday 16th September, which was mostly about looking at the new course page online and going through some of the new forms and documents. Over the following week I wrote up my response to my Module 2 feedback and my study plan. Although my study plan didn't reveal anything I didn't already know, it was helpful to write in black and white how I learn, how I plan to use my time and the Skype sessions I plan to attend. I then attended an all-module Skype discussion on Tuesday 25th September. I didn't have anything specific in mind to speak about but thought it would be beneficial to engage with other students in any discussion. I feel like I ended up offering lots of my own experiences and advice to students in Modules 1 and 2 and actually found it really helpful to revisit ideas from earlier in

As suggested by Laura, I mapped out my professional practice. The key areas I explored were my practice as a dance teacher, my practice as a cover supervisor, my personal wellbeing/training/development and my future - considering where all of my current practices are taking me. I found two topics I am particularly interested in learning more about: Differentiation is a huge part of my practice because of the range of ages and abilities of the students I work with. While I am confident I have some understanding of what differentiation is and how to create/adapt tasks to suit different learning styles, I would like to know what makes differentiation most effective and how differentiation varies between subjects. For example, I teach practical dance classes and also cover classroom based lessons - should differentiation vary or take much the same form? Creativity is another large part of my practice as a dance teacher. I have plenty of opportunity to be creative when choreographi

On Tuesday I attended a great Skype discussion with the most people I've seen in one chat. The 9pm time slot obviously works for lots of us! I joined late so didn't catch everyone's names so apologies if I don't give the correct people credit for what they contributed. I've had a busy couple of weeks and haven't managed to do anything productive towards my BAPP so didn't have anything new I wanted to talk about. However I was keen to participate in other people's discussions to hopefully help them and to reconnect with the tasks. Someone asked for ideas or tips for getting started started on Module 2, something I have also struggled to do properly. Laura (I think, although not sure which Laura) suggested physically mapping out our professional practice as a spider diagram. Much of what we write will be what we noticed/learned in Module 1 such as what we do, how we do it and what we need to be able to do it. We then need to look further into which are

On Thursday I attended a Skype discussion with Adesola and Jae. I haven't been on a Skype chat with so few people before and, to be honest, I wondered how beneficial it would really be with so few people's input. Very! - it turns out. I began by talking about a vague inquiry idea I'd had - basically technique vs creativity in dance (wasn't sure what question I'd draw from this). In my practice as an ISTD dance teacher, there is a strong focus on technique and being 'correct' to enable students to pass exams to the very best of their ability. In my role in a secondary school, working with extra-curricular dance events and GCSE dance students, much more attention is given to creative processes, developing choreography and communicating meaning. Obviously they do overlap but are not always given equal importance. This topic is interesting and important to me because I think my own practice is unbalanced. My students generally achieve well in technical element

On Saturday I attended a "Starting back" Skype chat. It's amazing how fast the time has gone since starting the BAPP - suddenly I am beginning Module Two, offering anecdotes and tips to the new Module Ones and looking ahead to planning my inquiry! I also found it, in a way, reassuring to regroup with other Module Twos and hear their thoughts as they look ahead. Adesola asked us to consider what we would write about in our first blogs of the term. I have decided to recap what I learned during Module One and and any useful tips I picked up along the way. It might be a useful read for other students, particularly those just starting out, and I know it will help me focus and think about what I need to do to help myself. Set time aside specifically for BAPP work. I have always had a talent for procrastination and will put things off for as long as possible. Although I work well under pressure such as a looming deadline, it can create a lot of unnecessary stress! By tim

Last week I attended an online discussion with Adesola, Jae, Matt D and Matt S. We all seem to be in a similar place; working on essay drafts and writing blog entries to support our essays. Adesola reminded us to make sure we are using our time in the best way - she reiterated that our blog entries are not assessed and so shouldn't take time away from our essays. If we haven't done the tasks, there is no point going back and doing them for the sake of it. Their benefit lies in the support they provide for our essays. We can/should use individual blog  entries as appendices to evidence our learning and what we write. Matt D (I think) wanted to clarify whether we should include other people's views/ideas/theories in our essays. Adesola's immediate response was "why wouldn't you?". We discussed how the purpose of our essay is to summarise our learning so far, which has involved looking at existing ideas on communication technologies, networking and reflecti