Sunday Discussion group

 This was the first discussion group of the year and it was a great opportunity to hear new and returning students thoughts on the topics of "Knowledge, Information and Learning".

It was interesting to hear how, as dance teachers, the majority of comments ended up referring to the transfer of knowledge or information from us to our students and as one person said - " as a teacher we are seen by our students to have the knowledge to pass on to them".

The word map produced from the discussion group does open up enquiry for me. I look at the words and reflect on how each of the words is relevant to my teaching practise and to my understanding of the areas of knowledge, information and learning.

Transmission and communication make me think of how I communicate or transmit my knowledge and then afterwards reflect on the responses of the students. Was my transmission or communication effective? Did the process get the results that were intended? Did this action supply me with new information which stimulated my learning process.

As Helen said we need to flip the lens back to us and our learning process through the course of the MA.

The process to date has been difficult for me from this perspective as I have tended to veer away from anything that I was uncomfortable with. The terminology used by one speaker about having an "a-ha" moment typifies my learning to date. I struggled with understanding the requirements of the AOL's and wanted reassurance that what I was writing was "correct", but as was mentioned that Adesola says - 'just do it". 

As a learner, which is what I consider myself to currently be, I need to have these lightbulb moments where I start to make sense of the messy feelings that are sparked by the tasks of reflecting and understanding that these three words are always running in a circle. Things change, new information is produced which impacts your learning and ultimately your knowledge and when you question that information it opens up enquiry and you are made to realise that the circle of knowledge is infinite.