6a. Integrated Dance development survey

Hello Everyone, I have Created a survey “Integrated dance development survey”. I have created this survey to aid my Professional inquiry I aim to use these results and help to develop integrated dance in local communities. Here is the link :

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FTW7GLR

I would be extremely grateful if you could take a moment to complete my questionnaire. I am trying to complete as many as possible to.

Thank you again, also any comments and thoughts would also be appreciated.

5c, Professional Ethics.

Prior to looking through this course reader I didn’t really have a professional opinion on morals and ethics. This reader has made me look into my own personal day to day life and realise ethics is constantly surrounding us everywhere we go. The reader also displayed to me that there are two types of ethics Personal and professional, these two often coincide with each other as many decisions and responsibilities in the workplace use both ethics.

            Personally I have never really looked into my own personal ethics although there was one case study which made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I study is surrounding the photo to the right. In 1993,Kevin Carter, a documentary photographer took this photograph and it caused controversy throughout scholarly professionals. Here is an extract from the case which disgusted my personal ethnic views. “Kevin Carter came across an impoverished girl in Sudan struggling to crawl towards water where everyone else had headed. As he

Was observing her a vulture landed near the girl? Carter waited for nearly 20 minutes for the bird to spread its wings in order for a good photograph, but it never did. After taking some photos anyway, he did not help the girl reach the feed

Station and instead left her to die.” This Case study made it apparent to me that many people have different ethics which I may or may not agree personally with. It has also opened my eyes to the devastating effects of professional ethics.

Sounding the professional Dance industry there has been a lot of controversy over equality ethics over the years. With help such as the quality act http://www.equalities.gov.uk/equality_act_2010.aspx discrimination against homosexuality and sex is getting more scares and it is an essential part of any code of conduct (Task 5b). Throughout my professional practice of Dance teaching I have to take all these  ethic views with a high level of professionalism and try not to allow my own personal ethics get in the way when not appropriate. From researching ethics it has made me become a lot more aware of the whole topic.

            During reading the course reader on ethics one case study stood out to me as it was surrounding my professional practice. The case study was called “The Dance Class” Alicia is a student on the BA Professional Practice course in Middlesex and she is

Completing her last project – an inquiry into how warm ups are used during dance

Classes. To further her research she went into 5 schools to observe these dance classes. She completed an interview with Flint this is what she found “Flint did no warm up at all and belittled one dancer in particular. Alicia could see that this dancer was upset but she made no complaint. Alicia also noticed that the other people in the class ignored his bullying

of this particular person. She interviewed Flint at the end of the class and asked if

he had been aware of how he had singled out this one person for ill treatment. Flint

replied, “I am only preparing her for the real world – if she can’t survive a bit of

Criticism in my class she is not going to last too long in a dance company”.

I personally find this shocking as a dance teacher it should be your personal and professional ethic to ensure all dancers are warm and you create a positive learning environment. Through critically reflating upon this case study it has opened my eyes into the ethics of other dance teachers and has made me more aware to look into the ethics of colleagues in my work place.

            This reader has been extremely beneficial to me and the development of my inquiry as there are a lot of ethics that surround integrated dance that I have touch upon in this blog. I am hoping to investigate the ethics sounding my inquiry.

5b. Professional practice Dance Teaching Codes of conduct. (Comparison)

I decided to research Teaching Codes of conduct and compare them with my own initial thoughts. Thankfully they were all relatively the same as my own. The one major difference I noticed was the use of wording, it appeared to seem more legalised and formally spoken. To help myself or other colleagues in the future I researched “how to write a code of conduct”. This Website made it clearer to me and enabled me to see how and why we have codes of conduct and how to format and write them professionally   http://www.gtce.org.uk/teachers/thecode/why/.

Whilst I was researching codes of conducts for dance teaching this website stood out too me. http://www.cdet.org.uk/teaching-and-qualifications/code-of-conduct/  It displays a simple professional outline of information that should be in a code of conduct, and thankfully most of the regulations I used were displayed in this example. Such as this section,

• suitable flooring appropriate to the technique taught, with a clean, safe surface; to minimise the risk of injury;
• adequate heating levels and ventilation;
• Suitable, secure and safe area for changing.
• Abide by Health and Safety statutory legislation requirements, understand his or her responsibility in case of a medical emergency and keep records in an accident book.
• Ensure that all fire regulations are displayed and adhered to.

In my Code of Conduct I choose to include such regulations as “Recognise professional development and potential of all students” Throughout the first code of conduct this type of regulation doesn’t accrue although I researched a New Zealand based Dance centre http://www.danz.org.nz/danz_code.php  and there code of conduct is full of this types of regulations such as “Recognise the role of dance in developing the whole person.” I found this interesting that codes of conduct appear to have different sense of ethics in there codes of conduct. This would be an interesting line of inquiry to develop in the future.

5a. Codes of practice /Regulations

Act with professionalism with other colleagues in the workplace and be cooperative at all times.

(initial personal view) Codes of practice/ regulations for teaching Dance

1.     

2.      Display a high professional manor at all times.

3.      Eliminate any discrimination against sex, religion/ethnic views, Sexual Ordination, Age, ethnic origin or any other status.   

4.      Display respect all students demonstrate a fair and pleasant working environment.

5.      Have an “open minded” approach to teaching all students, not allow personal views to override a professional decisions.   

6.      The professionals should respect confidentiality and try to develop a sense of trust throughout all students.

7.      The Professional should constantly look to develop to enhance their area of teaching, and constantly demonstrate with a high level of skill to maintain high quality training.

8.      Always obtain “lesson plans/structure” to enable development and evidence.

9.      Always Practice classroom discipline punctuality and manor.

10.    Recognise professional development and potential of all students.

11.  Recognise varying technical ability, physical ability and be able to teach accordingly.

12.  Ensure that all participants are appropriately dressed and are not wearing anything that could injure themselves or others i.e. Jewellery

13.  Ensure that throughout the lesson you obtain a high level of health and safely also make sure the location meets the following criteria.

o   Accident report book/ sheets. To record any injury or accident that may occur during the lesson.

o   Appropriate Risk assessments have been taken out.

o   Suitable flooring for the technique taught with a clean safe surface.

o   A secure location with private sex changing facilities.  

o   Ensure that all fire regulations are met. Fire extinguisher appropriate meeting point, escapes.

o   Appropriate heating/air-conditioning and temperature of the lesson.

14.  Make sure that you warm up and cool down the participants appropriately to avoid any harm or injury.

To construct this code of regulations for Dance teaching I have had to rely on my own personal experiences of working in different locations and students. I have also had to rely on my own personal professional ethics.  

4c. Award Title.

Upon the completion of critically reflecting my questions and research on my field of inquiry, it has become apparent to me that I was focusing on too broad of a topic, and needed to demote all my attention to one area of integrated dance. Integrated dance has always been a great passion of mine. Although I have strong ethical views towards the background of integrated dance I want to research further  into the development and promotion of it in local projects and communities. Therefore I have decided to base my award title on the development of this inquiry. I feel this award title would be appropriate BA (Hons) Professional Practice (Integrated Dance development). I have also decided to use this as my award title and main focus of inquiry due to my hope to start and progression of a integrated dance class at my workplace. I feel with the development of this class it with compliment my field of research and aid me in progressing my inquiry.

If you have any thought on my Award title such as phrasing or word use please comment it would be much appreciated.