After last week’s campus session I have been doing a lot of thinking about a possible topic and how I would research it.
The first idea that came to mind was something to do with different types of discipline when teaching. I then started to think would this hold my interest for a long time?, would I be able to cover such a huge area?
I then decided I wanted to do something I was more passionate about. I was watching a Tv show and there was a discussion about homosexuality and footballers, it was asking the question why is there a stigma surrounding gay man in the football industry and from that came a debate about homosexuality within the theatre. This led me to thinking about the stigma surrounding men in the industry, particularly in dance. I knew that this was something I was passionate about and began thinking of different topic ideas surrounding this theme.
As I am currently teaching in different schools, in after school clubs and PE, I began thinking of the boys I teach and there attitudes towards dance and felt this is something I could explore more.
The topic idea I am thinking of at the moment is “A research into effective stratagies for intergrating biys of pre secondary age into dance”. As I work with different ethnic minorities I wanted to incorporate something to do with this into my study so may add to the end of my title “ with particular emphasis on hard to reach groups such as ethnic minorities and white working class boys.”
Different ways I could research this
• Media research- Billy Elliot movie
• Media research – meet the Amish (coming on Tv soon)
• Interviewing young boys from my schools on there attitudes to dance
Notes on searching Journals
• Annotations – notes to yourself
• Include research books in bibliography
• Google scholar – cuts out commercial stuff
• G247-RESOURCES – library of journals- learning resources
-electronic database searching
-full text and citation
-Citation databases
-call / email librarians
Reflecting on what Ive written in this diary entry, I believe I have got a good basisto begin researching a topic area, my thought process and learning this week has gone well as it has made my objective a lot clearer to me. I now need to begin researching and collecting as many things as possible to do with my topic. I may begin by checking out a link that I saw on Danielle Stacey’s blog www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/brief.html-guidenceonresearch
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Thursday, 18 February 2010
An Extract from my learning diary (18/02/10)
Campus session one
I attended my first campus session, it was an introduction to the new module on research methods. I have bullet pointed an overview of my notes below.
• This module is the plan for the final project not the actual project itself.
What is Research?• Finding something new
• Advancing knowledge of professional practice in a systematic way
• Adding to what’s already been learnt
• Developing a deeper understanding of something
Ways into research
Dance performance phenomena
-director/choreographer
-music
-audience
-lighting
-performance time
The above are all variables (they can change at any time)
• A way into research would be to change one or more variable.
Other ways in• Curiosity
• Concepts/issues/contexts
• Problem/issue based
• Mind mapping
• Peers
• Employer/manager/director
Data Resources
• What am I interested in?
Plan something close to home
• What my topic area is
• Where am I getting my info from?
Literature Review
• Literature – searching for work-related content
• Where things come from – theories & concepts
• Finding out what you don’t know
• Finding literature that is against what you think
• Critical thinking
Overall the campus session went very well for me. It helped me to have a clearer picture in my mind of the task in hand and helped me focus on each bit of the module as a small step rather than trying to tackle the module as a whole. The session broke down the module into sections and set clear points of what we had to do and I feel the way I made my notes throughout was a clear and concise way to help me keep focussed on the task. I think, in future, even though I cannot attend all campus sessions I will try and bullet point different problems and issues that I come across throughout the duration of the semester as I believe this will focus my mind on the task at hand.
I attended my first campus session, it was an introduction to the new module on research methods. I have bullet pointed an overview of my notes below.
• This module is the plan for the final project not the actual project itself.
What is Research?• Finding something new
• Advancing knowledge of professional practice in a systematic way
• Adding to what’s already been learnt
• Developing a deeper understanding of something
Ways into research
Dance performance phenomena
-director/choreographer
-music
-audience
-lighting
-performance time
The above are all variables (they can change at any time)
• A way into research would be to change one or more variable.
Other ways in• Curiosity
• Concepts/issues/contexts
• Problem/issue based
• Mind mapping
• Peers
• Employer/manager/director
Data Resources
• What am I interested in?
Plan something close to home
• What my topic area is
• Where am I getting my info from?
Literature Review
• Literature – searching for work-related content
• Where things come from – theories & concepts
• Finding out what you don’t know
• Finding literature that is against what you think
• Critical thinking
Overall the campus session went very well for me. It helped me to have a clearer picture in my mind of the task in hand and helped me focus on each bit of the module as a small step rather than trying to tackle the module as a whole. The session broke down the module into sections and set clear points of what we had to do and I feel the way I made my notes throughout was a clear and concise way to help me keep focussed on the task. I think, in future, even though I cannot attend all campus sessions I will try and bullet point different problems and issues that I come across throughout the duration of the semester as I believe this will focus my mind on the task at hand.
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