SKIPPING THE INTRODUCTORY LESSON -

Every dancer must learn about their feet.This is because you will soon learn that as a dancer you must be comfortable with not just standing on your feet - but you must be able to use your feet to balance yourself (often on only one) - and sometimes you must propel yourself into the air with them. You must know not only how to stand but how to stand with strength and stability using all of the muscles in your feet and you must know how to identify when you are creating stress on your muscles and joints so that you don't injure yourself.

When you begin learning ballet as a child the task of finding your balance is not too much of a challenge but it is the first lesson you learn in dance class. You are usually of smaller stature and falling down is not a novel or unusual experience in your daily life. The art of standing is taught on the first day and continues with many simple challenges or games and we soon find that the little feet just respond because that is what they did last time.

As an adult learning to dance we sometimes skim at a fast forward pace through the simple lessons that are the basis for the subject matter. Why as adults do we think that we can skip a lesson and still keep up? Often there are very valuable lessons to be learned in simple introductory lessons that form the basis of a greater skill. Often we will justify the absence from class in the following manner - "I know how to stand - what do I need to re-learn that for?" Sometimes you think you know something - but you could be missing the nuances of the skill. This means that missing the introductory lesson will not allow you to move up that Conscious Competency Ladder! While you may think you are consciously competent - if you skip that introductory lesson you will find that you are actually unconsciously incompetent!

I am no longer Muddling in Moodle - 
I am now Swanning Around!

I am pleased to say that I have finished the on-line course for my PID Program. I have come away with some great information and valuable resources that should make my foray into adult education more enjoyable. As I began the course I was struggling to find the focus of this blog but I forged ahead and found that providing the information about learning was actually quite interesting. As I proceed from here I will try to keep the focus on learning but I may be a little more specific and focus on the subject of learning ballet.

I started in ballet classes when I was about 5 years old. The memories I have of the first class I took were that the teacher was the most graceful lady I had ever seen and she had beautiful red high heel shoes on. That day was the start of a love affair with dance that continues today.  While I have always loved to dance - I also soon learned to love to teach. What I found was that when my mentor (Betty Caplette) asked me to help her with the little children I would have to do things slower, more pronounced and with better technique. When you slow something down and define the parts you will inevitably become better at the performance of the task. I soon became a better dancer because I was a teacher - but I never had the burning desire to dance for anyone other than myself. I loved the stage - but I loved pleasing myself by mastering levels and steps for myself. I know I have found the "sweet spot" in turning a pirouette, a fouette and many other complex moves.

The love of teaching has not diminished. I love the moment when a light comes on in a student's eye because they see the subject differently because I explained it or demonstrated it to them so their brain could figure it out. While my kids were little I held ballet class one day a week with small classes as I felt it was good for my two daughters to take ballet for strength and coordination. More recently I have worked as a trainer for Elections Canada (Langley electoral district) and also Elections B.C. (Langley electoral district). I have found that I want to engage with adults in their learning process. I have used my self confidence of being a dancer to present myself in front of adults and I find that this is what I want to do when I grow up! With only one more course in my diploma program that qualifies me to teach adults - I am excited to find more things to teach and more ways of teaching.

Finally - for those that might not get the reference of the name change of the blog I will explain what Swanning Around means to me. While the phrase is an English euphemism for posing or posturing (Victoria Beckham is always swanning around in a little Gucci dress) - I will use it for another purpose. The swan is a predominant character in ballet (i.e. Swan Lake) and many dancers aim to be as graceful as a swan. What you may not realize about a swan is that while they are seemingly graceful above the water they are most certainly working like mad below the water to move their bodies around the pond. What we as dancers must do is appear to float from the waist up while the lower portion of the body does the bulk of the work with strength and support.

Does talking through something help you to understand it better?

While I was teaching my adult ballet class last night I stopped between barre exercises and talked about the mechanics of the moves, the muscles that we would be using and the sequence of moves for the exercises. When setting up the choreography of the class I worried that the sequences may be unusual or difficult to master but my students have not let me down with their performance of the moves yet.

The secret to their success is the fact that I usually give them an opportunity to "talk through" the moves they are going to make. I encourage them to use my words or to find their own words to connect the moves together in to a viable sequence of events. Here is an example of how this has worked for us.

My students have been learning about releves. They are basic ballet steps that involve balance and core body strength while using alternating legs as support. The action of the releve can be found in this video.

The ballet jargon goes like this -
Releve devant, releve derriere, releve passe en arriere, releve fifth.

What I have suggested to my ladies to help them remember the sequence goes like this -
front foot - down, back foot - down, front foot to the back then stay where you are.

So the question needs to be re-asked - Does talking through something help you to understand it better? Research shows that talking to yourself can be a good idea and that it can indeed help you optimize your performance.I think my own classes have shown that for pyschomotor learning you need to allow your brain to connect to the subject matter with words that can be quickly assimilated into movement. When you are presented with something complex and you are able to perform it by talking your way through it - you will ultimately positively affect your self confidence level. Increased self confidence will allow you to then try more complex moves and the circle expands again.

Once again we have found a topic that goes back to the performance of the brain!

Today I am climbing a ladder! I promise it is safe and I will not fall off...

The Conscious Competency Ladder

The  ladder of learning can be steep and other times quite flat. Today is the day that my students will be able to decide which rung they are standing on. The beautiful thing about adults in the classroom is that they will be happy to take responsibility for their learning and accept that they need to learn more. Sometimes the skill comes easily and other times it is a struggle. Usually when they discover where they are on the ladder they will make great strides to move to the next rung!

Noel Burch, an employee with Gordon Training International, developed the Conscious Competence Ladder in the 1970s. You can use it to manage your emotions during a potentially challenging learning process.The model has four learning levels:

1. Unconsciously unskilled (Unconsciously Incompetent) – we don't know that we don't have this skill, or that we need to learn it.
2. Consciously unskilled (Consciously Incompetent) – we know that we don't have this skill.
3. Consciously skilled (Consciously Competent) – we know that we have this skill.
4. Unconsciously skilled (Unconsciously Competent) – we don't know that we have this skill (it just seems easy).

The model can be a useful guide for your own learning, but you can also use it when you are coaching others, to guide them through the emotional ups and downs of acquiring new skills. What rung are you on in your learning?

This week I was asked why I want to teach adults and it has led me to do some thinking about all that I have learned since I have entered my Provincial Instructor Diploma Program. Why indeed!

I think the greatest factor is that I feel I can bring things to life and engage learners in the subject matter. When I first began training people (through the election process in my local electoral district) I thought of myself as a performer. Yes - I was "the Sage on the Stage" and here we are almost a year into the diploma program and I realize that while I do have a "performance" side - I also have an ability to engage other adults and present material and allow them to make their own decisions. I realize now that the better teaching scenario is to "Guide on the Side" by allowing adults to take responsibility for their learning and to assist them as they see fit. These characteristics are what make teaching adults an enjoyable experience for me.

Characteristics of the Adult Learner

Adults are a pleasure to teach as they are generally motivated and eager to be in a classroom setting. I enjoy the interactions they provide and the input to the curriculum that they provide from their own life experiences. In particular I love that moment when a student has an "a-ha" moment and the concept cements itself in their own mind or body.

The word to describe adult learning is Andragogy. Quite a coincidence that this is the majority of my name? I think not! It is quite obvious that I should be involved in this experience.

Today a friend told me that I tickle her brain. What a sweet and funny sentiment! It has occurred to me that it has taken me exactly 10 weeks to effect a change in one of my student’s lives. This certainly tickled my brain!

To put it all in context – I was teaching my adult ballet class and I always start by asking the ladies to speak about something that happened in the last class that has stuck with them for the week. I feel that this interlude brings their minds back to the dance studio and gets them remembering what we worked through the week prior and hopefully “gets their head in the game” before we begin the class. It always surprises me what is meaningful to my students and also what has stuck!

The surprising thing that was brought up this week was our discussion last week about how exercise can actually fight debilitating diseases like Alzheimer’s. There is a good article about this subject by US News. Another of the ladies said she has been struggling to get her legs to do the correct exercises at the ballet barre and last week she stopped focusing on her legs and focused on her posture and body structure. Her big surprise was that when she shifted the focus off the legs onto her body – her legs suddenly started doing exactly what she wanted them to do. Again the brain is an amazing machine!

Just to keep my ladies going I promised that I would stop teaching them about their brains and teach them about balance and core body strength. I am just wondering how long it will take them to figure out that no matter what I teach them about their body – it always relates back to their brains! I guess they will figure it out when reading this blog! Just in case you want to know why you have a brain – I have found a TED Talk by Daniel Wolpert that explains it beautifully!

The sun is out - the birds are singing and I feel like I want to break into song. Happy by Pharrell Williams comes to mind first off... but you don't want to hear me sing.

  So while Pharrell has produced a wonderfully popular song that has stayed on the top 40 for quite a while - it started to bug me last night. Yes - it is very repetitive. And the funny thing is that I was talking to my ballet students about the virtues of being repetitive! What can repetition do for us? In a song it is pleasant for a short time and then after a while it just starts to grind on my nerves. BUT - in motor-skill development repetition is wonderful. Why do we do it? To create muscle memory!

What is muscle memory? It's training our muscles right? Wrong! We are really training our brain! Of course you know that as everything you do is managed by your brain. Here is the interesting part - while you are training your brain to respond in a certain manner you are also rewiring your brain. You are creating new neural pathways and stimulating brain activity. This happens in physical exercise (you have to think about it to do it well) and it happens when you do something like Sudoku. By creating new neural pathways you are also fighting brain degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. So get out there and be repetitively active!

The saddest news I have for you is that research has found that it generally takes about 10,000 hours of practice to reach mastery of a skill. I am sure that is why you may want to start very early in life learning physical skills. If you want to check out more information about muscle memory I have two websites for you to visit - one from lifehacker and one from Sports n' Science.

Now go back and crank up Pharrell and dance - only 9,999 hours and 56 minutes still to go to reach mastery!!!

We are in week 5 of my eight week online course studying the best use of social media in adult learning situations. I am still struggling to find my identity and define what kind of teacher I want to be. As I journey through this teaching certificate I am suddenly looking at all the teachers and coaches around me and trying to define what makes them good and how would I do it differently.

Last weekend I took a first aid course. I found myself thinking about how the instructor was teaching us instead of the information that we were supposed to be there to learn. He involved us, he made us repeat what he said and he made us repeat it again so that it was burned into our memories. I feel that he was a very effective teacher. I understand that he has to get us to just react in an emergency and not stop to think about what to do. The reactions should just happen from repeated memory patterning. This is because the brain slows down when it stops to think and in an emergency time is often your enemy. This is what I have been learning through my other classes in my Provincial Instructor Diploma Program.

While all study and no play makes Sandra a dull girl I decided that today I would check on Facebook to catch up with what has been happening with my friends. I see that my good friend from high school is at a conference in Kuala Lumpur where he is expanding his technology knowledge. When I met my friend he was struggling to catch up to his peers in grade 11 as he had been kept back for another semester in grade 10. When I graduated he said he would be staying in high school for one more year to catch up and make sure he had enough credits to graduate and then he could also stay on the track team for one more year. At that time I was unsure of what he would choose to do with his life. Well he has made great choices and while he was a solid friend to me then - he is an inspiration to me now. He has not only excelled at learning as an adult but also at teaching. 

I would like to share a quote from the conference he is attending that is very worth sharing. +Rod Narayan has just posted the following: "Love this quote from the Deputy Minister of Education Malaysia "Doctors can save lives, teachers can save a generation" #desasia." Thank you Rod - you are certainly doing just that with your students. And yes - I am following Rod on Twitter now!!

I guess I had better get back to my research on ways to use social media to transform education...

Muddling in Moodle by Sandra Gore is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at //goremaysandra.blogspot.ca/.

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As I work through my on-line course I am being led to investigate copyright and copyright infringement. We have been asked to find examples of copyright infringement lawsuits and to share them with each other. The concept of copyright is not foreign to me - it seems to me that if you made it then you should get credit for it! But that is my small world thinking perhaps and the on-line world is fraught with peril.

I have found a report of a company that used a picture of Omaha Nebraska and ended up with a lawsuit for $8000 for posting the picture without permission. (find the article here) The company eventually settled with a payment of only $3000 but what a costly mistake. This could be enough to put a small emerging company out of business.

We have also seen how a copyright which was used correctly then expired and the resulting "art" had to be removed from the internet. Check out the report from the Ottawa Citizen as they discuss Chris Hadfield's adventure into copyright space.

Let me know if you have any similar stories to share!

I have been challenged to build this blog and to fill it with items of interest in my "field of expertise". I am not sure if it is more of a challenge to fill the blog or to identify what my "field of expertise" is exactly. I do not have a red-seal trade to blog about. I do not have a university degree to blog about. I don't even have a scintillating hobby to blog about. What can I offer? Parenting tips could be a powerful source of interest these days - but my kids are young adults and are wonderful (especially when they are getting along!) and don't require much parenting from me these days. I could blog about my job as an administrative assistant - but I have a great boss and team in the office and I am only working here until August of this year. So I guess the more obvious choice would be to blog about my journey as a student on my way to becoming qualified to teach adults.

I have recently signed into an on-line class that requires me to become more electronically savvy. What a challenge for this linear brain. I am struggling with the connectivity portion that demands that I tweet, FaceBook and blog for the next eight weeks. I have long maintained that my life is my own until I give it away on FaceBook and I am having an inner struggle with the concept that I have to now let everyone else know what I am doing at any particular point in a day. Privacy is a concept I have prized and this is a real eye opening concept to have all the accounts I have just signed up for. My content must be my own - no copy and paste - no risk of copyright infringement. All real challenges in a modern world when one wants to stay up with technology and communications.

So - if this is to be a blog by me it does not have to be about me. I have found a wonderful video to share that speaks about taking ME out of Social MEdia and focusing on we. I feel that this is a must watch for anyone who is starting an on-line adventure. Now let's see if I can shift my focus to we and find worthy information that will make a difference in a life. Enjoy this TedTalk by Kylie Lang.


Enjoy the day!

Mothers' Day

Today is a celebration for mothers everywhere. Some want breakfast in bed, some want a phone call from their children, others can only spend their day remembering time spent with their kids. There are so many ways to celebrate your mother or your mothering...

My family decided that we should spend the weekend camping so I woke up in my warm bed in our 1972 SportsCoach. Yes that is the lovely retro camper that came with white shag carpet from front to back and up the walls! We have had the camper in our little family for 22 years and have enjoyed many trips with it. I had decided early on that if I had to leave my house for the wilds then I had better have a good sleep so that I would not be a bear to the rest of the family. With a little shopping I found a queen size mattress that would literally fold in half and we could therefore get it into the back of the camper. This has proven to be the best investment ever because now when the kids say they want to go out in the woods I am assured of a very comfortable sleep!

So back to my Mothers' Day... How did I spend my day? I made coffee for those that need a shot of caffeine to get their day started. Then I cooked bacon, scrambled eggs and pancakes for the seven of us. Then I cleaned up the dishes, washed down the kitchen area of the camper, cleaned the bathroom and stowed everything that had been used and prepared for the trip home. I had the momentary thought that many mothers would resent that they had to not only cook the breakfast but they would also have to clean it all up. Then sanity set in.

I spent the the morning with my children. They did not argue and they thanked me for breakfast when it was done. Beyond that I watched as they worked together to break down the campsite without being told what to do.They laughed with (and at) each other. They showed me that beyond being siblings they are also friends. They showed me that they can use manners when least expected and that they appreciate the things that I do for them even though they may not vocalize all of those thoughts. Thanks kids for showing me that my journey through mothering has shifted to a new phase where I can enjoy the fruits of my labours and I can step back and enjoy the beautiful people that you have become. That is my gift today. Thank you Katy, Paula and Graham. Now I just have to find a way to celebrate with my own mother!

Happy Mothers' Day!

I have spent the day looking over other people's blogs and wondering what I should add and what I should say. This whole experience makes me feel like I should have something really important to put out there in cyberspace! So in my journey through other blogs I looked at content and then I came back to my own blog server and looked at some of the options. One of the options asks me if I want to earn money by placing ads on my blog page. Well that seemed like something a starving student would be interested in doing! Then I started to look at how the ads are matched to the content.

Now - back to the blog that really got my attention - This Recently Married Man Just Realized Marriage Is Not For Him - by Seth Adam Smith. The sentiment was quite nice. The comments were varied in opinion and the pictures of him and his lovely wife were good. As I was reading this post through FaceBook and not on his actual blog I clicked on the Viral News Stories link (which is a user name for 10fing.com) and I was able to read his story. The startling laugh came at the end of the story when the "ad matching" device had inserted an ad for "How to fix your marriage" by marriagemax.com and then there was an ad for a divorce lawyer! Now really - I am sure when Seth wrote the loving words about his wife and marriage he never intended the words to be accompanied by an ad for a divorce lawyer!

I guess that means that I will forgo the earning potential of putting ads onto my blog!! Who knows what might end up on my blog!!

So while I spin my wheels I have another great song for you to enjoy!

"The talking head is dead, but the need for thought and reflection will only increase." - Jose Bowen

As a teacher being a student, I am remembering how to open my mind to new experiences and concepts. My journey to the completion of my PID begins with this small step into the on-line world of blogging. Let the adventure begin!

Enjoy the Talking Heads while I think and reflect on all this...