Month: October 2018

Integrated Arts Week 7

This week’s lecture was based on looking at the assignment briefing and looking into what we have to do for it and the blogs. Also, we got any questions about this modules assessment that we had answered by the lecturers.

The first workshop my section went to was the drama workshop. We focused on looking at some more drama conventions such as teacher in role, hot seating and Vox pox. Teacher in role is when the teacher takes part in the drama by changing their character and being able to lead and try to direct the drama subtly by directing questions and answers. One key point to this way of learning is that the teacher has a clear way of showing that they are in role and the drama has started compared to when they are the teacher and need the children’s focus. “In drama, teacher involvement is fundamental.” (Booth, D. 1985). The second convention we looked at was hot seating. This is when one person in the class becomes the main part of the drama and is questioned with everything the rest of the class wants to know. This is like teacher in role, but it doesn’t have to be the teacher who is in the hot seat it can be anyone in the class. The third one was Vox pox which is where the children are in groups and one person goes around acting as a sort of reporter asking the individual people questions about what’s going on and how they feel about it. I think that all the conventions from last week and the three new ones we learnt this week could be used over a term or a year in one topic doing drama. I especially think that teacher in role seems effective as the teacher has a wee bit more control over the direction the drama goes in and the tone of the questions and answers without being the teacher. I also feel that the other conventions are effective too as they allow the children to be creative and express themselves through their drama lesions, but the teachers needs to feel comfortable enough to allow the children to take their learning in their own direction. One experience and Outcome that could be completed doing a series of lessons including a few of these different conventions on drama could be “I have developed confidence and skills in creating and presenting drama which explores real and imaginary situations, using improvisation and script. EXA 1-14a”

The second input my section completed was the music workshop. First, we presented our mind maps that we were to complete from the week before which was about the links between music and other subjects in school. We then went onto looking at figure notes. How they can be used in schools and what they are. I learnt that figure notes have a few stages before the children can learn the conventional way of reading music. It starts with colours and shapes that also have corresponding stickers to stick to the instrument to make it easier for the children to match them up and begin to play. I think this is a very effective way to introduce musical instruments to beginners. As I’ve never played music before I felt this was very helpful and less daunting to start with. We then had a shot at using the figure notes our self. We were using the glockenspiel, my partner and I tried playing super trooper by Abba and jingle bells. One experience and outcome that could be achieved by doing this activity with a primary class would be “I can sing and play music from a range of styles and cultures, showing skill and using performance directions, and/or musical notation. EXA 2-16a,” as the children could use the musical notation of figure notes in order to play musical instruments. I found using the figure note reasonably easy especially since it was the first time I have ever used them. If I was given proper music to try and read and play I would not have done as well and would have been really overwhelmed.

Overall, the theme of creativity, self-directed and paced learning runs through both the subjects of music and drama. In both the workshops we explored the theme of creative learning which runs through both as the figure notes allow the children to learn pieces of music they may never have thought they would have before and in the drama lesson the children are able to let go and become someone else, to let their imagination run wild and have fun. Also, in both subjects the theme of self-direction goes with both. In drama the children can control what direction the theme of their piece of drama goes and in music the children can decide and judge what pace their learning goes at depending on how fast they are picking up the current learning. Overall, I feel that both the workshops today have been very helpful, and I would feel a lot more comfortable teaching either of these subjects to a class now.

 

References

• Booth, D. (1985) Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads: Reading and drama in education, Theory Into Practice.
• Education Scotland (2004) – Curriculum for Excellence; Experiences and Outcomes [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/Experiences%20and%20outcomes [Accessed: 23rd October 2018]

Integrated Arts Week 6

This week’s lecture we looked at two documents and the importance they have to teachers when they are teaching the arts in primary schools. The first being “Creativity Across Learning 3-18” which talks in depth about creativity and all the different aspects of it. The first section is the definition of creativity, “Creativity is a complex concept which can impact on children and young people in many ways.” I feel that this explain creativity well as it doesn’t give you a clear definition because there isn’t really a clear definition of what creativity is, it is too complex to put into a statement as it can mean a lot of different things to different people. This document aims to talk through the many different meanings and features of creativity and mainly it in school. The second document was “Creativity Money Love” which is many mini essays combined into a book/document. Each essay talks about a aspect of creativity and different ways they can be shown. During the lecture we looked over these two documents but since the lecture I have started to read through them for further study.

The first workshop my section completed was for visual arts. We were focusing on imagination and the way your eye sees things, we did this by finger/hand painting with ink. We were to print with different parts of our hands/fingers, then look at the shape and see what we saw, like when you look at the clouds and you see shapes. Some shapes I saw were a dog and some bugs for example. I think this would be a really good activity to complete with children as it lets them get messy and children love to make a mess and get creative and it allows them to let their imagination run wild and then explain what they see. I have attached pictures of some of mine and my peer’s creations.

The second workshop we went to was, our first drama lesson. We started by discussing the six ways to complete a drama lesson, role play and improvisation being very similar and basically meaning to act. Then there still image and thought tracking which consists of the people standing in a single frozen position and one person coming out of the image to explain what was happening. Then there was flashback and flash forward, where you dramatise a period of time before the present image and then again for a period of time after to show the significant changes from before, present and future. We were to base our performances on the idea that we lived in a room in the “Windows on the West” by Avril Paton. I have attached bellow a drawing I have completed showing the story we represented in our group’s drama performance. one experience and outcome that could be completed by doing this activity with a school class would be, “I have developed confidence and skills in creating and presenting drama which explores real and imaginary situations, using improvisation and script. EXA 1-14a.”

Reference

• Education Scotland (2013) Creativity Across Learning 3-18
• Education Scotland (2004) – Curriculum for Excellence; Experiences and Outcomes [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/Experiences%20and%20outcomes [Accessed: 17th October 2018]

Integrated Arts Week 5

The first workshop my section completed this week was the music one. This week was very different and special as we had a class of school children in who for the last year had been learning to play instruments such as violin, viola and cello. The children were in to talk to us about how good and fun it had been for them to learn how to play such difficult instruments that they never would have done otherwise and never thought they would be able to play an instrument like I did in school. Also, they were in to teach us to play the instrument.  I have never played an instrument and have no idea where to start reading music or holding the instruments never mind playing it. So, every primary school pupil was paired with one or two university students and they went through step by step on how to begin to learn to play their instrument. I was paired with a little girl who played the viola, and another university student from my class, the pupil began by showing us how to hold the instrument and what the different strings were called. Then by the end of the class we were able to play a few notes on the viola together with the teacher singing and the pupils playing a harder tune. This was very insightful for us as students as it literally put us in the place of the learner and the pupil as the teacher it made us realise how daunting and confusing it can be when you are being taught something new, which made us sympathise with the pupils in our future classes. It also put the pupils in the place of the teacher and would have made the children realise how frustrating it is when the learner doesn’t understand something you are saying or even if they do understand they do it wrong, so it would have made them sympathise with their teacher and understand that sometimes that is the way they feel. I have attached bellow a few pictures of me and my peer trying to play the viola. One Experience and Outcome that could be connected with the learning of musical instruments in class would be “I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound, rhythm, pitch and dynamics. EXA 1-17a.”

The second workshop my section had today was dance. We started by doing a warm up where we copied Sara’s dance to thriller with stretches incorporated into it. We then went into our small groups and went over the dance moves we made up the week before, we were then given a certain order to do the moves in and we had to learn it. Next we went into a circle and did phone number dances where we made up a dance move for every number 0-9, then we had to do some maths problems to figure out the order we were to do they moves in and add the two dances together, this was good as it showed us a way that maths and dance can be connected an interlinked in the school. We were then given a Halloween picture to make a dance move up for for example ours was a mummy, and then they were put in an order and we learnt them all together and did them to the song ghostbuster. This is all in preparation for the next time we have a dance workshop to put everyone’s dances together and perform it as a class. I have attached bellow a video of the two dances our group put together and then the Halloween one we made up as a class. One experience and outcome that could be connected with a lesson similar to this done with a primary class would be “I enjoy creating short dance sequences, using travel, turn, jump, gesture, pause and fall, within safe practice. EXA 1-08a.”

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References

• Education Scotland (2004) – Curriculum for Excellence; Experiences and Outcomes [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/Experiences%20and%20outcomes [Accessed: 15th October 2018]

Integrated Arts Weeks 4

This week in the lecture we focused on the way we view art and the way we as teachers make space for art in schools. The main example of this was room 13 in the school where they made an unused classroom into an art room/studio where it can be messy and dirt without the need to be cleaned and tidied for other subjects. The picture of this room shows the children being creative in their own way and this is thought to be because of the space they were given to express themselves. We then spoke about how you have to view an art lesson and this can tell you how much engagement is being taken onto art. McAuliffe (2007) explains how a teachers encouragement to children can help them reach their artistic potential “Through a rich curriculum and responsive teaching, children should learn more about themselves and their world through art and design as well as learning about art and design.”

 

I learnt and found it quite surprising that in Scotland there is no governmental restraint on Curriculum for excellence in terms of art. Whereas we discussed that in England and other countries Art is a very straight to the point and is mainly a teacher-led subject this is very different to the way art is taught in Scotland because we allow our children to have a say and lead their own learning while having the freedom of creativity I think this works better than the way it is in other countries as the children can portray their imagination thought their work and express themselves in ways that they can’t do in other subjects and would find it hard to do this in other countries where the curriculum is very laid out to follow.

The artist we look at to inspire and give us an idea of what we were going to be doing in the work shop was by a man who we learnt changed his name from his birth name to Bob and Roberta Smith to try and get noticed in the world and it worked for him. His work portrays messages through his art work. These are mainly short and snappy campaigns and messages that get his point across and try to get people who read them to think about what he is trying to say while also making him creative and fascinating to look at which will draw people in to read them. His messages vary from politics to the importance of art and what he thinks will be significant in our home lives.

I decided to work in a pair and we had a look online for some ideas and then came up with our snappy slogan that we were going to put on our poster, we decided to go with “Strive for Progress not perfection.” We felt that this could be connected to art as different people perception of a perfect piece of art is not all the same and that as long as a child is progressing at their own speed, it doesn’t matter what it looks like to one person it is only their opinion. Also, we felt it could be connected to teaching that they aren’t “perfect”. This experience and outcome can be connected to completing this activity due to the children coming up with their slogan or quote, “Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and
feelings through activities within art and design. EXA 0-05a / EXA 1-05a / EXA 2-05a.” We were then taught and told to use the printing style to create our posters, so first I wrote in bubble writing our slogan the way we wanted it to look on a piece of paper then we flipped is and my partner went over it backward onto a polystyrene plate with a pen so that it would go through the other side and create an indent for printing, then we coated our indented plates with fuchsia pink ink and flipped it onto a contrasting coloured piece of paper so we went with yellow and when you peel the paper off the ink transferred and created a bold and eye catching poster. The brighter and bolder the poster is then the more eye catching it is and the more likely people will be to stop and read it which is the whole point in creating it. I have attached several picture bellow of the different stages we went through to get our final product.

The second workshop we had today was our first dance input. In the curriculum dance sits in between the expressive arts and physical education as the children are expressing themselves while exercising. Dance can allow children to express themselves in ways the other subjects restrict them in doing so. In the workshop we started by doing one warm up exercise as this is a practice you should get into a habit of doing. Then we did an activity in groups where the rest of the group drew around me on lining paper and then there were lists of bones muscles and organs and we were to label them all on the body. Our group did really well we only got one of the bones in the arm instead of the leg. Then we did an activity that you could do with children especially if they have no dance background, we were given a sheet with several headings on it and we were to come up with one dance move to represent each heading and in the weeks to come we will use these to create a dance. This experience and outcome is directly related to the sheet of heading we used and can be completed by the children coming up with a move for each section, “I enjoy creating short dance sequences, using travel, turn, jump, gesture, pause and fall, within safe practice. EXA 1-08a.” I have done dancing since I was three, so I am excited to see what we do through this module and get ideas of how to teach children it in schools. I currently teach dance at my dance school so I know from experience the way dance can impact on a child. Cone (2011) explains clearly how this is “When children create dances using their ideas, they are empowered to explore their thoughts, feelings, and perspectives.” I have attached bellow a picture of the sheet of heading we had to follow and a picture of the labelling task bellow.

Overall, the main link between visual arts and dance is line and the expressive nature of the craft. The lines created in art are permanent and physically can be seen whereas the lines in dance are not permanent and are made physically with the persons body. In art the lines can either be hard line straight sharps lines or they can be soft like cures and lightly drawn on, just like in dance the lines can be sharp and fast for only a split second or they can be soft and fluid and last a few seconds. Either way art or dance, sharp of soft, they can both make a significant impact depending on the feel of the piece. The other link being the expressive tone can link to the line because depending on the message the person wants to tell the will set the tone of the piece of art work or the dance and this can be done by the choice of line.

 

References

• Cone, T. (2009) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances. Journal of Dance Education. [Online] Vol.9(3), pp.81-89. Available: Taylor & Francis. [Accessed: 2nd October 2018].
• Education Scotland (2004) – Curriculum for Excellence; Experiences and Outcomes [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/Experiences%20and%20outcomes [Accessed: 7th October 2018]
• McAuliffe, D (2007) Foundation and Primary Settings. In Teaching Art and Design 3-11 (Edited by Sue Cox, Robert Watts, Judy Grahame, Steven Herne and Diarmuid McAuliffe) London: Continuum.