Skype with Paula and Task 6A - Reviewing Reader 6

Skype with Paula

 

After contacting Paula on the 23rd March it all of a sudden made me realise how I needed to become more specific with my Inquiry and where I was to carry out the study into my Inquiry.

As I work in a variety of environments I came to the conclusion that I wanted to base it at my own Theatre School 'Step onto Stage' as I am my own Boss and can do Interventions with a variety of ages whilst being in control of forms and child protection at the same time.

As I spoke about what I wanted to achieve, Paula then reminded me that the VAK (Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic) learning investigation has already been done before, so instead I will need to find out how the VAK can help my own practice and how I would incorporate that in my place of work. As we spoke more and more I realised how much my Inquiry is about how I want to improve my own practice and how I want to gain more knowledge into catering to ever child's needs. I am enjoying how my Inquiry is helping my own business and myself which will also have a large impact on the teacher I hope to become.

 

Here is a Mind map of What I want to gain and have more knowledge in.

 

Above is my mind-map of all the different things that are going on in my mind that I want to be able to do so that I can become the best dance teacher and to get the most out of each student as possible whilst having fun by doing what they love to do.

 

I will now begin to look at other possibilities of titles however all the work I have looked into will be very useful and will enable me to look further and deeper into how I can incorporate the VAK rather than looking into what kind of learner are certain children etc. but to also look at other ways in which children benefit from learning.

 

Task 6A - Reviewing Reader 6

 

When researching further into our Inquiry we have four main research methods we can use;

- Observations

- Interviews

- Focus Groups and Surveys

- Looking at and analysing literature and documents

 

Observations

Due to me teaching whilst carrying out this investigation I will be able to observe what certain areas the majority of the group have responded to and what they haven't. This then can be recorded at the end of the class or during by jotting down and keeping a record on the record of interest over a certain amount of weeks. This can become time consuming as I would need to analyse my observations, to keep on top of this I could do an observation every other week rather than each week.

The observations can be done by taping/videoing however this would mean another consent form going out to parents and the keeping of confidentiality will become more difficult.

However much you can tell what your students have gained or not gained from a lesson this approach involves a non-verbal response from the students.

 

Interviews

I know that I will be wanting to interview certain people with a greater knowledge than my own within the areas in which I want to excel at as a teacher. By doing this I will approach people with my questions already thought out ready to question and discuss a certain issue but having the flexibility to delve into other areas that come up and have relevance to my inquiry.

I would prefer to do my interviews face to face whilst making notes.

The interview method involves questioning or discussing issues with people. There

are a number of different types of interview method (indebted to Bell, 2005).

• semi-structured interview which includes set questions or themes with

the flexibility of following interesting or useful emerging issues is often

most appropriate for the work-based researcher because of its

inherent flexibility.

• non-directive or open interviews that allow the interviewee to talk

about anything they like

• narrative inquiry (related to open) where the participants use a

storytelling format

• informal interviews which have an overall data gathering aim using an

extremely non-structured approach

• informal/guided interview which provides topic areas to cover but no

set questions. Interviews are time-consuming but they can allow the

collection of valuable data about motives, expectations and attitudes

that are very difficult to collect by any other means.(Reader 6, pg. 17) 

The two sections I have highlighted, which have been taken from the reader, will be the ways in which I would like carry out my interviews. I would like to do them in this style because if I have not got much knowledge in these areas, unlike the people I will be interviewing, I need to learn and take in what they are sharing as it may help me in my inquiry as it could link in with my inquiry which I may benefit from.

 

Questionnaires

As I will be working with a large group of children and a variety of ages I have decided that a questionnaire is the best idea by getting feedback off my students. To gain the best possible answers from them I feel that if the answers where numbers from 1 to 10, 1 being it didn't help at all and 10 being it helped me to really understand, then all age ranges will be able to answer clearly and effectively by circling the appropriate number to them. I am also contemplating on putting a small box under each question so any further comments can be written in more detail for those who are older.

Expect to receive approximately 20% response rate from a postal questionnaire and 50% from face to face delivery. (Reader 6, pg. 24)

Here I will make sure that my questionnaires will be given out 5minutes before the end of class guaranteeing that I will get most, if not all back.

When putting together my questionnaire I know it needs to be laid out carefully so the questions flow and to make sure I analyse it before it is sent out.  When reading and looking further into Peter Bryant's finding's it gave me a greater knowledge of how to word my questions and what to avoid;

Some key things to think about as you write your survey instrument…
1. What questions should be asked?
2. How should questions be phrased?
3. How to ask good questions
4. What is the best question sequence? (P. Bryant (17/3/10) )http://peterbryant.smegradio.com/?p=42

Bryant then goes on to talk about;

The clarity of a question. This target would be met by keeping the question clear, making it easy to read and by keeping the language simple. When answering Bryant also says a good idea is to put down a scale for the target audience.
 Embarrassing questions should be avoided unless necessary. Questions involving private or personal data should of been cleared through an ethics approval process.

Double-barrelled questions are sometimes confusing and may not get the most accurate reading as they will have two or more thoughts and can only give one answer.

Age questions are very useful so you can see if there is any connection to the answers and ages.

What Bryant has done is reminded me about many different faults that occur within a questionnaire but has also given me great methods of achieving the most accurate readings from a questionnaire.
I look forward to putting my questionnaire together and finding out more information ready to investigate further into my Inquiry.