Communication. Can we we get lost in this process?

Effective Communication 
Definition: An Effective Communication is a communication between two or more persons wherein the intended message is successfully delivered, received and understood.

But how can we always be sure our message is delivered and comprehended the way we intend it to be? Can communication errors between senders and receivers occur?

In 1948 Shannon and Weaver designed and developed a model to describe the effective way a sender and a receiver can communicate. They found factors which can affect the communication process. Their model deals with concepts such as the source (sender), the channel,  the transmitter, the message, the decoder, the receiver etc.

By looking further into their model and research I've come up with more questions that I've originally started with.
Is 1-1 communication more affective than group mass audience communication?    
How can we be sure, especially us as dancers or dance teachers that we are delivering our message the way we planned on doing it the first place?
Are we playing a primary role as senders and the receivers gain the information as they want?

I believe that communication is not a one way process. We communicate by gaining the trust of our students, we think and act all the time by observing-watching and listening in our dance environment. As dancers or teachers we communicate our ideas through visual movement, and my own opinion is that our students receive our ideas differently based on the type of learner they are... Auditory or Visual Physical or Logical.

On the one hand  I think we should be adjusting the way we communicate based on our recipient, but on the other hand I think that art in general and dance more specifically,  is a very approachable field that can be understood and communicated in various ways.

Having more and more questions along the way...

Would like to read your thoughts on these ideas.
Maria

"Ethics"

   By being a Greek myself I notice how the word "ethics" comes from the Greek word "ήθος" ("ethos") which basically describes how we live our lives and what our responsibilities and rights are.
What is the meaning behind the words right and wrong or good and bad?

If we want to describe it in a more clear way ethics are a system based on  moral principles...
These principles have an impact on  how all people behave and live their daily lives.
But where does the meaning of choosing what I will do stand?

My opinion is that as humans we firstly adapt to all of the already existing moral principles in the world that allow as to live in a peace and in harmony with others, and later on we develop and adapt to those we think work and benefit for us.
But how does our instinct as as human beings  have the "luxury of choosing" ?
Does it work in our conscious mind and help us basically survive and how does this function everyday with having in mind the ethical consequences of doing it?
Are our motives for doing something always self-centered?
Or do we always think about others before we act?

Just sharing my thoughts and questions on the topic, what are yours?

Maria

Feeling lost in the process...

    As we are now in week 4 of the new term I find myself a bit lost in the whole process of studying and researching...I find my practice continually changing in many ways, as I am becoming an observer not only towards others, but also towards my own self.
I'm currently trying to organize my thoughts into written words and find more studying materials so I can familiarize more with transferring ideas into paper. During everyday life I try to keep a reflective journal of what I observe and notice during my classes as well as my behavior and students reactions towards me to use as date for further research.
   Although feeling "lost" I believe that this is a sort of "rite of passage", everyone goes through this not knowing exactly where they head to, but this kind of transition is part of life, not knowing precisely what you want to research or do can mean that you can try all kind of things before presenting any finished product at the end. If you feel unsecure and unsure for something "stuck" as I say, shake yourself off and keep going , ask for help or for others opinions if you feel you cant move on with research and all the new ideas you'll get  can create a whole new prospective for you.
   What are your thoughts on getting "lost" during the journey?
Maria 

Filming Dance-Evaluating Self

    After a very productive skype call on Sunday 27/9  I've come to realize that filming myself dance-teach,  but also filming my students class practices and dance performances  has many more positive outcomes than I originally thought.
While in the past it was so hard to capture this art form, nowadays technology has progressed so much and it allows us to capture-see-"judge" (and I don't know if this is the right word to use)-improve and change ourselves and our students in a way so we are able to see the  results we seek in ours and theirs techniques and dance behavior in general. Digging in it further I read an article by Ava Madison: RECORD YOURSELF! The Importance of Recording Yourself and Body Memory", (https://www.avamadison.dance/record-yourself/ )that mentions how important it is to watch yourself dance in a video because "this way we take a more active role in our personal progression as movement artisans and define our craft into art".
   Speaking for myself as a dance teacher I can say that after watching my students dance performances on video, I experience a big range of emotions running through my mind and body- with of course excitement being the first one of those- alongside always thinking were they stand now (especially of I had them as students from a very young age)  and how they progressed as dancers and individual people.
Aboard those,  thoughts like "I shouldn't used that step" or "I should have changed that routine" or "do an alternative ending" come running through, not only at that moments but as I am reflecting on it in the days to follow....So my question that originates from this conversation and brain storming is: Does our perception of ourselves as choreographers or creators of this form of art  change when we see the final results of our work? Do we re-evaluate the work we do? Or do we value it enough in the first place so that we realize that what we do actually has an impact on our students lives?
   Would love to read your opinions on these!
Maria

Returning Back!

 "The comeback is always stronger than the setback".

After some time off during a relaxed summer break I find myself being really excited to start the new term with Module 2 focus this time, looking forward to what this months of studying and researching will bring alongside a very busy work schedule as well.

Thinking back to all of the Module 1 outcomes I gained, I am now thrilled to see how it helped me understand and dive in more into my own preferred methods as a choreographer and teacher, and how this helped me be a better version of myself as a professional. I am now wondering how my professional practice can be more researched and how specific areas of my own practices can be further developed and analyzed through observations of my teaching environment. 

During the come back, I am starting to think how can I develop my personal interests more and how I can engage better through reading and analyzing publications and literature around my field of research.
I am feeling eager to finding an area that tickers more questions, something I want to explore and understand better so I can get more familiarized with by the end of term through all sort of methodology.

Lets all have a great term !
Maria

Creativitism though the making of an artifact!

After a lot of days,weeks, at home trying to figure out a new daily schedule given the circumstances I am starting to think of new creative ways to express myself, writing being one of them.
Maybe this is the best way for me to try and keep my mind place with all that's been going on the last few months. Our changed everyday schedules and not being able to go to work as usual is definitely a a task. We might as well recognize that we are experiencing a whole new lifestyle and this is something that I think will change our future ways of acting and re-acting to situations that may occur. Bottom line is that we must try and remain as calm as, after all because health is the most important thing and maybe we can try and think about going back to our regular schedules and how we'll be changed as individuals.

On Tuesday we had a Skype discussion on artifacts, writing, and how our everyday lives impact on the way we tent to express ourselves through the creation of something, that being an artifact that can represent our personal lives,working environment or past to present development, or an essay.
We discussed a lot about the creation of an artifact that needs to be done for our final grades in Module 1, and Ms Helen and Ms Adesola developed the idea of by creating an artifact we are basically communicating an idea, we are developing something regarding our own practice and our own views and opinions about our field of work. This is where I started thinking of how an artifact can show the course or  journey for myself firstly being a student in dance and then growing and deciding to follow a career as a teacher in this specific field, or maybe show my own journey so far in this MA program.
Later on Ms Helen gave us the idea of an artifact illustrating layers, layers that as I understood it can represent the different stages of someones life, or maybe the different stages of someones work environment and daily events that someone comes across. On the other hand, I started thinking of my own personal work development and how by creating an artifact in the form of layers somehow can actually represent how experiences formed me and helped me grow as a person firstly and secondly as a dance teacher.
Finally we discussed about that whatever we create should basically be something that speaks through us. We should allow others have a clear vision of how we see things through what we create, either this being a written essay or an artifact.

Nevertheless, I will keep on trying to develop a clear vision of how I want to develop my own artifact.
Brainstorming after all is what we can all do during this challenging time we go through.
Hope everyone remains safe and healthy!

15/3/20 Discussion Skype

On our last Skype call which was on last Sunday. We firstly talked by ourselves for a change which was quit new and interesting to me, while Ms Helen and Ms Adesola joined us on the second half of the call. This gave us the opportunity to talk by our own about a lot of things including our experiences and how they always have a strong effect on how we see things, bias and how this comes basically as an opposite to control the most recent one on the Corona Virus Pandemic that has an negative impacts on all of us.

When we discussed about experiences we analysed how the experiences we gain through dance give us opportunities to form a pattern and develop a specific ways to respond and react to situations we have during our everyday lives as artists and teachers.Thinking about this now I find myself thinking on different experiences I've had a a teacher and how these impact on the way I react on situations I face now. Still wondering if my ways will keep changing and developing whilst I experience more and more or if I'll choose to follow a specific way regarding response to situations I think works the best.(?)
When Ms Adesola brought up the conversation about how bias and control work through research frameworks, I agreed on how many people use bias to gain control and how we are all basically somehow biased because all of our former and current experiences have developed a way we have grown and developed as individuals, not only in our work but also on our daily life.
Finally we all brought up the subject that is the virus that is torturing the life of many these days.
My own school has been closed for about a week now and will remain so until the end of April...
Staying home and going out of daily routine has a weird impact on me I must say, especially thinking about how work used to keep my away from the house until late.

We all agreed on doing more Skype calls and keeping in touch with each other in order to exchange opinions and ideas regarding the current situation!
Hopefully this will keep my mind in place!

Practice Leading To Embodied Experiences

   As a dance teacher I always wonder If I can ever be sure that students have completely understood an exercise or syllabus when being explained, and truly recognize the meaning behind them if they haven't familiarized themselves through continual practice.
   Starting to study and getting deeper into the meaning of embodied experiences , and also by watching myself and reflecting to my teaching methods, I have found out that every student has their own way of absorbing knowledge and gaining education through different patterns and routes in a class.A group always consist of students coming from different backgrounds, some come and you can have a brand new start with them and try to pass on your knowledge to them, and others are shaped and formed differently if they already have a dance background.I found myself being prepared for a class several times and while I am there I start trying to find different tools to approach them because of the different ways each one should follow as a way to try to make their experiences embodied and actually understand what they are being taught.
   While education can be described as the process of gaining knowledge, I believe that its really important to try to make the journey of learning interesting and fun for kids and try to always find new ways of making them familiarize with dance, as a result this will lead to making every experience embodied.
Witnessing myself as a teacher after actually finding some ways to pass on knowledge and information differently to each one, resulted to make a better and more solid dance base for them and also more and more are in a better path of developing more confidence about their own way of reacting and responding during a dance class.
But then again, always trying to find new ways to get close to students and approaching them will always be a little overwhelming.

First time member of the MA program!

   On Friday 24th of January I had my first welcome Skype regarding the MA Professional Practice, Dance Technique Pedagogy.
It was an introductory session with both of our mentors and other members, which included a lot of information  on the program but also on general information on the university.

   During our discussion we talked about blogs and how important they are to be used as sources of learning, how if you are unsure about something you can discuss your ideas with others, and also about how questioning something is a privilege.
I couldn't agree more because I always believed that questioning ourselves on different matters both on our daily life but also at our working environment, is something that makes have an even bigger will to be able to achieve more through dipper research and hard work to achieve our goals.
Also we discussed about how  the work you do before handing in something is more important, and  I would like to add that I think that all the knowledge you gain through studying and researching is what will stay with you forever, and will be extremely helpful in your future life and career because every day you can learn something new,something you never knew before and something that may change a thing you believed in completely.

   As this is my first time on  this program I felt really comfortable and secure that I will have all the help and support  I will need along the way to complete my MA through discussing with others and keeping in contact with our mentors.
Very excited to start!