Introduction

This study began with a premise that possibilities provided by ICT applications can also be interesting for the educational programs focusing on teaching practical skills, which until now have been left aside in using ICT to facilitate teaching and learning. From the variety of such programs we chose to investigate the pedagogy in practical dance classes. Based on the reasoning that any ICT application in education needs to support the pedagogical context of a subject the main aim of our previous study was to identify, which pedagogical aims in practical dance classes need further facilitation. The results of the study showed that the pedagogy of students’ reflection can be considered as a widespread educational need of practical dance classes and therefore used as a basis for developing and implementing an ICT application. However, before we can elaborate on facilitation, we need to define reflection in dance education. Besides the practical relevance for dance education, this study is relevant in a scientific sense as we aim to uncover the characteristics of a highly cognitive activity - reflection in an educational context which focuses largely on bodily activities. In the current paper we address the following research questions: what is the aim, focus and process of the desired situation concerning students’ reflection in practical dance classes? Which problems are students currently experiencing according to teachers in the reflection process? This paper focuses on answering these research questions and discusses how using an ICT application could facilitate students’ reflection on their learning.

Methodology

Despite a consensus concerning the importance of reflection for learning, authors give different interpretations for the aim and process of reflection in education. Following, the classification of three notions of reflection provided by Procee (2006), we firstly aimed to identify, which of these traditions, embedded in different schools of Western Philosophy: Pragmatist, Critical Social theory and Kantian, are in accord with the pedagogical aims of practical dance classes. We interviewed seven randomly selected practical dance teachers from four different dance academies in the Netherlands. During the interview, teachers were asked to elaborate on their teaching practice. The interviews were analyzed in a qualitative manner. Firstly, the first author of the paper selected fragments related to the pedagogy of students’ reflection and placed them under the three categories of notions of reflection. No fragments were found for the Critical Social theory notion of reflection. Secondly, fragments in two other categories were organized and grouped, in this stage of the analysis the second author of the paper read independently through all the fragments and indicated whether she agreed with the organization and grouping within the category. The differences between the interpretations were then extensively discussed with the two authors, consensus concerning the organization and grouping was reached for all the fragments. As a result of this analysis an initial model of the pedagogy of student reflection in practical dance classes was created. Following, a content validation study was carried out. Firstly, the seven teachers whose ideas had formed the basis for the initial model were interviewed again. We asked whether they recognized the domains of students’ reflection described in the model and if they could provide examples of how it is applied in their classes. Secondly, we interviewed seven additional dance teachers using the same questions. In addition, all fourteen teachers were asked to indicate whether students encounter problems with reflection. The fourteen interviews were first summarized, following the semi-structured format of the interviews, the summaries were written under the same categories as were used in the interviews. The three authors of the paper then discussed the content of the summaries and grouped the summaries under the categories. Finally based on the analysis changes were made to the initial model.

Results

The results revealed five domains of reflection which students are asked to carry out: how they apply dance concepts and principles in practice; how they apply concepts and principles related to one self to practice; how concepts and principles related to dance are developed based on practice; how awareness about oneself is arrived based on practice. All these domains of reflection are in line with Kantian notion of reflection which aims to connect practical experiences with concepts and principles. In the final domain of reflection, related to the Pragmatists’ notion of reflection, students are aimed to understand  their longer learning process and based on the personal development make plans for future actions. The underlying idea of this domain of reflection is to improve one’s practice.

The results also revealed that, according to teachers, students encounter difficulties with reflection. They lack the criteria for reflection, it is difficult to perceive one’s process, and students can also have idealized perspectives on their process. In addition, due to the role a teacher has as assessor it is difficult to separate ideas of evaluation and reflection. Research has already shown that ICT tools can provide support for students to learn how to reflect since the use of ICT can make learning processes more visible. At the heart of applying reflection in practical dance classes, the tool should assist defining and achieving students’ individual learning goals and aid developing awareness over their learning process. Due to the discrepancy between the different roles dance teachers have, more aid could be gained from implementing peer-feedback activities for the reflection process. Finally, to support a realistic perspective of one’s development, a web-based video application could be used for analyzing recordings of students’ process within a dance work. In the Netherlands, experiments with the use of streaming video are currently carried out in professional training programs using the DiViDU-tool to support students’ reflection. We see that the possibilities provided by this tool, namely the realistic viewpoint on experiences supported by the analysis of video recordings and peer assessment features, could be adopted for practical dance classes to support the pedagogy of students’ reflection.

Reference