Mapping Knowledge of Professional Practise

Mapping Knowledge of Professional Practise

Whilst further exploring my potential lines for professional inquiry, I came across a helpful blog from Rosemary McGuiness.

I found it really helpful to start with breaking down my understanding of my professional practise, and what I need to do in order to be a professional practitioner.

Her blog has enabled me to see how there is knowledge which is specifically unique to our own retrospective professions. Some of this knowledge and skills are linked entirely to our own profession, but also that some of our knowledge is most definitely generic and transferable.

Alongside this, looking at how Eraut suggests that we need to consider the elements of competency and capability, and how both elements create a sort of framing device for knowledge in the workplace. I found it very interesting how Rosemary states that ‘capability can be graded into various levels of competency’.

I was inspired to mind map elements involved when establishing my knowledge as a professional dancer, but also creating another mind map for comparison to establishing knowledge in my role as a dance teacher. (This is a role I feel I need a lot more research into to become and effective practitioner)

Attached below are my thoughts, apologies for the rawness of my notes!

From a dancer, or performer perspective, I found I could quite clearly specify the knowledge required for this as a profession. I noticed a lot of links between areas of knowledge and looked at how one area of skills can often aid another area. In comparison to my second mind map, I found I initially listed some generic knowledge, but that another page was needed to allow me to explore beyond the boundaries outside of generic and profession specific knowledge and into transdiciplinary knowledge. I included lots of different domains and they came up such as Business and Finance.

I was pleased to find numerous links between skills and knowledge in both professional practise areas. There were definite links between types of knowledge which has now provoked potential ideas for professional inquiry. For example, ‘What transferable skills do I have, what would be involved in the transition between dancer and dance teacher?’ Perhaps I may or could also incorporate the dance knowledge I have from my education into educating others, exploring if there are benefits to having dance, or expressive and physical movement on a specific curriculum. Are there benefits to musical expression for other age groups?

In conclusion, as you can tell, I found this mind mapping a really helpful exercise, thanks Rosemary!