It's scary being a student again
This blog title is very conflicting, as I am already a student, however under these circumstances I have experience and knowledge from my long term memory which supports how I approach ambiguity such as the new module coming up.
Over the summer, there was a great opportunity to take a workshop with a company dancer from Martha Graham Dance Company. I signed up with no hesitation. I had experience with Graham technique whilst at University, and I thought this was a great way to brush up on my knowledge of the technique, as I would be teaching my students this during lessons. I can honestly say at first I felt very uncomfortable. The teacher was great, helpful, supportive and created a movement conversation between student and teacher, and with this being over Zoom, I thought this was a great way to start situating myself as the student.
When we are in the classroom, as the teacher we are trained to provide feedback to students and promote and build a sense of ownership within the students, to build a self progressive journey in dance through the lessons we provide and guidance we give. We see misconceptions we address them, and we expect students to attempt to apply feedback and put in place intervention until the student understands and achieves.
As we can't see into the student mind, it becomes difficult to know if student's really understand unless we assess. During the workshop in the summer, I felt the immense pressure when the teacher stopped me and gave corrections. As it was over Zoom it was so difficult for me to really understand how the correction would feel or what I should be experiencing. The teacher did everything she could to get me to understand the correction, which was brilliant. But coming away from the class, I suddenly realised, is this what a student is feeling if they can't grasp an idea, correction or concept. Do they feel deflated and does this have an impact on their next lesson? As an adult, this wasn't an issue for me as I was able to identify the attempts I had made before succeeding, was me searching for the key information in my long term memory, with those small pieces of information such as well if my hips aren't facing the corner it became difficult for body to find a clear and natural tilt etc.
This was a great experience for me, to start seeing how it feels to be a student again ready for practical exploration in my project.
Hi Jessica - Thank you for your reflection and sharing your experience from the summer!
ReplyDeleteI also had a similar experience this summer; I took a 5-day virtual Graham Teacher Training program. I felt like I had to take advantage of it being a virtual platform this year, as it always takes place in New York, and I reside in California. It was tough! But as educators, it is always refreshing being in the "student seat" and experiencing what works and doesn't work for you. As I enter Module 3, my inquiry is looking at various way high school dance programs in the USA assess students in dance technique classes. It has always been a controversial topic, and 'grading' dancers beyond formative feedback in the studio (or over Zoom) is hard. This is a great perspective to put yourself in the viewpoint of a student. It gives me even more to think about.
Cheers to a new term!
Hi Simon, thank you for your response!
DeleteYour inquiry sounds very interesting, I feel too it is very controversial the way secondary school students are assessed in general and in Dance, over in the UK. I'm looking forward to reading and hearing more about your inquiry. The Graham Teacher training programme sounds exciting too, is it run every year?
Hi Jessica, thanks for sharing your experiences!
ReplyDeleteI always think about how our students , especially those at younger age, react to corrections and how can we be sure that we've passed on knowledge in a way that they'll get the results we want to see from them. How can we promote and built a healthy student-teacher relationship so that they don't feel "owned".
Many questions for the new term ahead!
Maria
Hi Maria,
DeleteThose are great questions to start thinking about. As a teacher, for me it is more of a need to know how are students are learning and if they are progressing beyond what we can see physically by practical ability. Reacting to corrections is difficult isn't it, with all of the preferred learning styles, sometimes we need to trial various methods before finding out how to support the student. It's interesting you use the word owned, as I think it is really important to teach students the basics, but when do you truly know they have all of the fundamentals to help them flourish both cognitively, practically and artistically.
Looking forward to sharing more ideas
Jess
Hello Jessica,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting perspective being able to become a student again and doing it over zoom!
Zoom is a great but it must be hard to communicate a correction effectively. I know my younger self would have struggled with being able to correct in this way (I always did better with physical correction).
I also believe that dancers tend to be quite hard on themselves and that feeling of deflation can escualte quite quickly. It helps to know what kind of learner the student is, as that can really help them to excel and keep them positive and engaged.
Hi Jacob,
DeleteI agree, it is very difficult to feel a sense of progression, without in person contact and responsive teaching. It made me realise when teaching my own classes, the difference between online interaction and in person interaction.
Thank you for sharing your ideas, it's given me a lot of things to think about. Looking forward to hearing your ideas.
Jess
Have you come up with any methods that aid your teaching?
DeleteI've been taking online pilates classes and the teacher uses visuals that we can relate to and she caters them to each client so they can appropriately correct. Just a thought!