Wed 28th Oct Online Session/ Task 2a

When I read Reader 2 I felt a bit overwhelmed by it all and didn't completely understand what I was reading. This session made everything so much clearer, I re-read Reader 2 and thing's are making much sense!

After researching into all the different theories of learning which were mentioned in Reader 2, I am now 100% certain that I fall into Howard Gardner's theory. He believes people have different ways of learning also know as 'multiple intelligences'

Garnder says "these differences  challenge an educational system that assumes that everyone can learn the same materials in the same way and that a uniform, universal measure suffices to test student learning" 

I fall into a couple of his learning styles, I researched for more of an explanation for each style and these are the ones I think I fall into:

"Bodily-kinesthetic - use the body effectively, like a dancer or a surgeon. Keen sense of body awareness. They like movement, making things, touching. They communicate well through body language and be taught through physical activity, hands-on learning, acting out, role playing. Tools include equipment and real objects."
"Musical - show sensitivity to rhythm and sound. They love music, but they are also sensitive to sounds in their environments. They may study better with music in the background. They can be taught by turning lessons into lyrics, speaking rhythmically, tapping out time. Tools include musical instruments, music, radio, stereo, CD-ROM, multimedia."

These are quite obvious as they link straight to my professional practise (dance.) However, I can link these back to when I was at school studying for my GCSE's. I definitely remember things when they have been put into a rhyme; I used to make up silly words and poems and songs to remember the important stuff which falls into the musical style of learning. I know I also learnt a lot more if there was a real object in front of me which I can touch and move about e.g. science experiment at school because later, when I  came to an exam, I could replay and visualise what I did which falls into the kinesthetic style of learning.

The online session gave me a few ides for my reflective journal which I'm very grateful of as I had no idea what I was supposed to be writing in it before the session. Here are a few of my ideas:
- Write my lesson plans for each week then highlight what I got done and what I didn't do.
- Write about how each lesson went; what could be changed, what I could of done better as teacher, what went well and what didn't go so well, how my mood affected my teaching and interaction with the children, did I handle a certain situation correctly.
- Write about how my rehearsals go each week, what I need to work on as a performer, what choreography I couldn't get and what I could get (Did I use the Donald Schon method of 'reflection-in-action'?)
- Write about how my shows go; did I perform as well as I could? If not why? Did my mood effect it, did something go wrong, was the space not as good as I hoped for?

Overall very good online session! Now onto my reflective journal :)
Hope this helps someone :)