Integrated Arts in Education

During our final week in Integrated Arts we looked at presenting within music and art. This week allowed me to assess and reflect on how much I have learnt within the expressive arts and come to a conclusion on my overall feelings towards my developed confidence and ability.

I found dance this week challenging due to missing last weeks class and therefore had to catch up on the dance that had been created. I used my collaborative and communication skills in order to learn my group dance as it was being recorded. I feel that I used these skills effectively as I was able to successfully learn the dance routine and perform with my group without making a mistake.

https://vimeo.com/376244950

After we had recorded our dance we focused on evaluation and assessment of dance. We discussed that the benchmarks highlight that pupils must be able to respond to their dance experience by discussing ideas, feelings and thoughts. It also states that they must give and receive constructive criticism and comments on their own and other peoples work (Education Scotland, n.d.). We demonstrated this through the assessment of 3 stars and a wish, providing 3 positive comments for ourselves and then thinking of an area of improvement within our dance ability. I think that this is an important aspect for pupils to look at as it allows them to see areas in which they have achieved in and also allows them to highlight areas in which they can improve within, creating targets for themselves. As a future teacher, I think that 3 stars and a wish is a positive form of self assessment for pupils to undertake and can be used for evaluating work in other subject areas.

Music this week was a continuation of playing different instruments, however, we focused on learning chords on the ukulele, leading up for us to play ‘Last Christmas’. Personally I think that this was a very relevant lesson that a primary class would enjoy as it is coming into the festive season so interprets their excitement into their work, generating enthusiasm for the activity. This is definitely a lesson I would do with a class in school as I enjoyed it a lot so therefore think that young people would get a lot out of it, especially by making it relevant and using songs that they will know. However, when teaching an activity like this it is important to take into account time, space and resources required (Glover and Ward, 1998). This is a crucial thing to think about as some schools do not have the equipment or space to implement such lessons, however, if possible this is a lesson that I would like to teach as I think that by doing practical music lessons pupils would get a lot out of it. We discussed the fact that the ukuleles used cost around £10 each and allowed us access to a successful, hands-on lesson.

I really enjoyed this lesson, however, found it challenging at times due to having little experience with playing string instruments. By the end of the lesson I was able to play chords A minor, C, G, and D minor, allowing me to participate in a whole class performance of Last Christmas.

Overall, I have really enjoyed the Integrated Arts module and feel that my confidence and creative ability has increased dramatically. I am now aware of different resources, tools, pedagogies, and techniques to use when working with a class. After participating in all 4 expressive arts I feel much more able and enthusiastic about teaching the arts, and after observing them being taught on placement, this has given me insight and self-assurance that I will be able to teach all 4 areas and enjoy doing so.

References-

Education Scotland (n.d.) Curriculum for Excellence Expressive Arts Experiences and Outcomes. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed: 29 November 2019].

Glover, J. and Ward, S. (1998) Teaching Music in the Primary School. 2nd ed. London: Continuum.

I was absent this week and missed the lecture and workshops, however, in order to catch up I had a discussion with peers on what I missed, allowing me to use my communication skills. I was told that a main focus throughout the lecture and workshops was using creative thinking.

This week in music the workshop followed on from last weeks and involved playing the glockenspiel again. However, instead of reading music like last week they focused on improvisation using the pentatonic scale. Julie repeated a tune on the piano and everyone in the class had to improvise 16 bars to play. This was done by using a variety of notes on the scale. The ability to improvise within a group involves us to be attentive to each other and to listen carefully to see what others are doing (Heble and Laver, 2016). I think that improvisation in music can be a good activity to do with pupils as it allows for freedom and creativity, however, it can cause some pupils anxiety and stress due to not following a structured idea. According to Maisel (2011), often individuals have a fear of failure due to being afraid of letting ourselves down when work gets challenging. This can apply to pupils struggling with improvisation as it can be difficult to think on the spot of an idea, especially if you need to present it to the class, similar to what my peers did. Therefore, if I were to do a task like this with a class I would maybe put children in small groups instead of demonstrating their ideas to the full class as pupils are encouraged to learn from one another (Exley and Dennick, 2004). Working in smaller groups also makes it easier to support pupils who find large group interaction and demonstration daunting and stressful (Wasik, 2008).

It can be argued that dance is something that should be something to allow individuals to express their “dreams, fears, needs, and joys” (Cone, 2009). When teaching dance it is important to consider the SHANARRI wellbeing indicators, “safe, healthy, active, nurtured, respected, responsible, and independent” (Scottish Government, 2016). By looking at these wellbeing indicators, it is crucial to ensure that all pupils are all of the above factors during dance.

This week in dance was a continuation from the last 2 weeks as the class worked on their group dances. Last week I was beginning to feel more comfortable dancing and preforming, however, still felt uncomfortable and awkward when presenting as it is not something I particularly enjoy. However, due to being absent this week and missing the follow up session, I am worried about the next dance session due to having missed practising. In order to catch up and hopefully become more confident I will watch a video of my groups dance and try to learn it for next week. Continuing on from last week, the whole class came together to develop the full class dance. This was done by preforming the full class routine then sectioning off to preform individual group routines and then joining back together to finish the performance.

Groups also had the opportunity this week to be involved with the teaching of dance by creating a dance inspired game, presenting the idea to the class and then getting the class to participate in the game. This involved collaborative work as groups had to come up with an idea that would be successful for everyone to participate in. I think that this is a good idea as it lets people see how they feel teaching a part of the lesson and recognising their feelings when doing so, especially before teaching it in front of a class of children.

Overall, my peers highlighted to me that personal creativity was present in all aspects of learning today, especially when improvising in music and when working on the dance routines. This is important as creativity develops skills of problem solving, open-mindedness, and expressing imaginative thoughts (Education Scotland, 2013). This allowed me to consider how important creative teaching and lessons are as it provokes and develops skills and attributes within pupils. I also have recognised how important it is to be creative within all aspects of learning, and not just when looking at expressive arts.

References-

Cone, T.P. (2009) Following their lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances. Journal of Dance Education. Vol9(3) pp81-89.

Education Scotland. (2013) Creativity Across Learning 3-18. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/cre39-impact-report.pdf [Accessed: 19 November 2019].

Heble, A. and Laver, M. (2016) Improvisation and Music Education: Beyond the Classroom. New York: Routledge.

Maisel, E. (2011) Mastering Creative Anxiety: 24 lessons for writers, painters, musicians & actors. California: New World Library.

Wasik, B. (2008) When Fewer is More: Small Groups In Early Childhood Classrooms Early Childhood Education Journal. Vol 25(6) pp515-520 Available: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15290824.2009.10387390 [Accessed: 19 November 2019].

This week we continued in dance and music. Both workshops this week were practical and involved us playing the pupil role. I found this beneficial as, similar to last week, it allowed us to see what sorts of activities we found effective before implementing them to a class.

Continuing on from last week, we returned back to looking at putting the 10 skills we learnt into creating a dance routine. This involved us collaborating as a group and using our presentation skills in order to preform our routine to the class. We also looked at different warm up routines to do with pupils, tying in with the Scottish theme we looked at last week. Everyone in the class seemed to enjoy this task, so considering Brookfields model of reflection, this makes me think that pupils will get just as much out of it as we did.

During the input we looked at ways we can connect dance other curricular areas, such as maths. As a class we went through numbers 0-9 and created a dance move for each number. After rehearsing these moves as a whole class, we then split off into groups and were given a maths sum sheet to complete. Instead of writing out the answers we had to use the dance moves to show what number was the answer. I believe that this is a good way to join together different learning areas, especially for pupils that struggle with maths in the classroom as this activity was a lot more active and hands on. I think that this task in particular is one that I would use with a class as I can see the benefits it could have.

Another task that I would like to teach to a class involved us looking at and analysing images, in this case continuing on with the Scottish theme, and creating a dance move that could be represented by that picture. This was done in groups and then presented to the whole class where all our moves were created into a short routine. By doing this task I worked on my creative and responsive skills as we had to respond to what we saw within the image with a dance move.

At the end of the lesson, it was explained to us how little physical contribution teachers need to do. To break it down, all we really need to know are the 10 skills, and then allow the pupils to do the rest. However, the role of the teacher must involve promoting opportunities for pupils to be creative, allowing them to express themselves. They also must motivate and praise them for doing so (Tan, 2007). I believe that by demonstrating, supporting and encouraging pupils then this can lead to their confidence and participation to increase.

Music this week involved us being practical with instruments. In pairs we got to play the glockenspiel by using figure note notation. Figure notes is an online resource that provides support for individuals, who possibly have an additional support need or who struggle to grasp the idea of music, in teaching them to play instruments. Figurenotes notation provides different colour stickers to represent the notes that are stuck on the keys, making it more clear for them to match note to sound. We practised using figurenotes by reading music, such as Super Trooper and Jingle Bells, and playing it on the glockenspiel. After practising in our pairs for around 45 minutes, we came together as a whole class and played together. Similar to dance, the involvement of the teacher here was limited due to the support of figurenotes. This task allowed me to improve my practical music skills as I have not played a glockenspiel since I was in school.

From these lessons I think that an integrated arts lesson could be created, using dance, music, drama and art. This could be done by focusing on, for example, the topic of Scotland. Similar to the music lesson, Scottish songs, such as Highland Cathedral or Flower of Scotland, could be provided with figure notes notation in order to aid learning, allowing pupils access to playing instruments. This could then be tied into an art lesson, where pupils do a similar activity to the one we did in week 3. This involved receiving a list of instructions and painting what we imagined- in that case it was Scottish mountains. For example, pupils could paint their own tartan or Sottish landmarks. The paintings could then be used as visual aids in dance where pupils have to create dance moves around the images, similar to what we did this week. Drama could also be linked into this by focusing on a Scottish image or event and using drama conventions to convey emotions and feelings. Tasks like these allow pupils to develop their performance, creative, collaborative and observation skills (Goldberg, 2016).  By using all 4 art forms within the curriculum, this idea can be promoted as according to Education Scotland, the arts can play an important role in allowing your people to explore and work on their creativity and enhance their art ability.

References-

Education Scotland. (2019) Expressive Arts. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/education-scotland/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5/curriculum-areas/expressive-arts [Accessed: 13 November 2019].

Goldber, M. (2016) Arts Integration: Teaching Subject Matter through the Arts in Multicultural Setting. 5th ed. Oxon: Routledge.

Tan, A. (2007) Creativity A handbook for teachers.Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co.

This week in Integrated arts both workshops involved us taking up a child lead approach with the tasks. The idea of child lead learning is supported by the Curriculum for Excellence as it supports children to be; effective contributors, successful learners, confident individuals, and responsible citizens (Education Scotland, 2007). This can be supported by Penny et al (2002) as they encourage teachers to enhance opportunities for pupils to be imaginative and to use skills by adopting a child led approach.

I was apprehensive about beginning the dance section of the module due to dance being out-with my comfort zone. I have a little bit of prior dance experience from when I was younger, however it is not something that I carried on throughout recent years. To my surprise, after the first workshop I now feel a lot more positive about teaching dance and look forward to the future workshops.

Throughout the input we did many activities that I thought would be beneficial when teaching a lesson, for example, one task that stood out to me was ‘dance whispers’. The idea behind this was for the class to stand in a line and the person at the front chooses a dance move for the class to copy whilst moving around the room. When the song changed someone else would continue with a different dance move until everyone has had a turn. I thought that this was a good task to do as it loosened everybody up and brought us out of our comfort zone.  This task could be linked to experiences and outcomes within the Curriculum for Excellence as it supports “I have the opportunity and freedom to choose and explore ways that I can move rhythmically, expressively and playfully” and “Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can express my ideas, thoughts and feelings through creative work in dance” as the task involved different types of music, providing the chance to use your imagination in creating a dance move (Education Scotland, p10).

  

Another part of the lesson that I thought would be effective is tying in science/biology to dance by looking at different muscles and joints, and where they go in the body. My group drew an outline of my body in order to write what body parts go where within it. I found this part of the lesson to be a challenge as I have limited knowledge on the placement of muscles, joints and bones so was not much help to my group. However, I thought that the task was effective and if I were to teach it to a class I would ensure that they had a brief prior understanding of the anatomy. In agreement with Penny et al (2002)  I would learn more about it before teaching as educators owe it to their class to research in order to implement more effective lessons. I think that pupils would engage well with the practical side of this task as they could draw round each other and display their posters within the classroom, allowing their work to be shown off.

Towards the end of the lesson we got into groups and discussed the key skills needed in order to dance. We were instructed to look at 10 skills listed and create a move best suitable that skill, for example doing a forward roll under the skill of roll. I also think that this would be effective to do with pupils as it involves different skills to be worked on, such as collaborative, communication, listening and presentation.

This week during music we worked with primary 7 pupils from a local school who tried to teach us to learn different string instruments. It was explained to us that these pupils come from a less fortunate area, so music participation within the school has been encouraged over recent years. The pupils brought violins, violas and cellos and spent the workshop playing the role of the teacher and showing us how to play their instruments. I was partnered with a girl who has been playing violin for over 2 years. It was interesting to see and hear how much they have learnt and benefited from music and is definitely something that I would want to pursue and encourage when teaching. It was really nice to see how enthusiastic the pupils were about not only music, but teaching it to us and showing us their knowledge about music. This workshop allowed us to adopt the role of the pupil and observe what kind of activities were successful and what were not.

The cohort discussed how music could be linked into the curriculum, for example, counting beats in maths. It was also explained that music could be linked to learning areas such as science, spelling and PE. This would be effective as it allows a cross curricular approach and brings in different topic areas to their learning, creating a more relatable understanding. Education Scotland (2013) states that practitioners should understand that creativity can be explored within the classroom but can be done outside of obvious areas, such as the arts, therefore, as a future teacher I understand the importance of linking the arts to other learning.

Overall, this week was a good input as it allowed us to act as the pupils and see what it would be like from their perspective. In dance this was interesting to see because as a teacher I will need to be mindful that not all pupils like dance or will be willing to participate. I also need to change my mindset that dancing within primary school is not only at Christmas time during social dancing when it could be used within the curriculum throughout the year. This could be done by linking it to different topics, for example Scotland and looking at and attempting highland dancing. There are also many youtube videos that could be of use when teaching dance. In regards to music, it was interesting to see how much pupils actually benefit from music. It highlighted to me that music within primary school should be more than singing and teachers should not shy away from instruments.

References-

Education Scotland (2007) A curriculum for excellence building the curriculum 2 active learning in the early years [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/btc2.pdf [Accessed: 8 November 2019].

Education Scotland. (2013) Creativity Across Learning 3-18.[Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/cre39-impact-report.pdf[Accessed: 3 December 2019].

Education Scotland (2017) Benchmarks Expressive Arts [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/documents/expressiveartsbenchmarkspdf.pdf [Accessed: 6 November 2019]

Penny et al. (2002) Teaching arts in primary schools. Learning Matters Ltd: Exeter

 

This weeks Integrated Arts lecture focused on creativity, allowing me to reflect back on my own creative initiative. I believe that after the short time I have studied different art forms I have allowed myself to use a set of skills that I have not used in a long time and become a lot more creative in not only expressive arts but in other subject areas like literacy and maths. This can be supported through Csikszentmihalyi (1997) as “creativity involves changing a way of doing or looking at things”, and by doing art regularly it has changed my opinion, thinking and the way I feel about it. This has benefited me as a future teacher as I am much more likely to do art lessons now than before I started this module.

This was our last week in Visual Arts which I was disappointed about because I can see myself becoming much more confident within an art class. This highlighted to me that I need to remember this feeling so when I go to teach art in later lessons I can reflect back on feelings of enjoyment that I now associate with art. This week we tied in visible thinking to art by using emotional learning cards. This allowed us to describe what we saw within the image and answer different questions based on things like the mood, process and content of the image. I found this a fascinating task to do, especially because we had a set of questions to work from and allowed us to be creative with our answers. I think that doing a task like this would be effective as it ties in different curricular links as this task allowed us to “make connections between different areas of learning” (Scottish Government, 2008, p21), such as literacy and art. This task would allow pupils to explore their language skills around art, explaining vocabulary and communicating their thoughts and feelings of the artwork (Koster, 2011). However, I would be mindful on what images and questions I used depending on the pupils ability.

Music this week allowed us access to another resource site called ‘Charanga’. Personally I think that this is a really beneficial tool to use when teaching music as it provides lesson plans, sheet music, lyrics and terminology, making it very convenient for teachers. Often teachers can feel anxious when teaching expressive arts, such as music, and are unsure about how to teach it (Harris, 2016). I think that if more teachers were aware of this tool they would feel differently about teaching music as all the resources are provided. After exploring the website and taking part in some activities, such as listening and appraising, and warm up games involving clapping a long to ABBA, I could really see this as being a tool that I would like to invest in when I get my own class. The resources on Charanga range from primary 1 to primary 7 making it accessible for all stages within a primary school, however, there are different levels of difficulty so it allows the pupils to be challenged. In order to be successful, I would like to explore the Charanga website again in my own time in order to fully get to grips with what the website offers.

     

I understand that the workshops all linked into the topic of creativity as both the visual thinking and use of musical technology allowed us to be creative and imaginative within both expressive arts. In reflection, I now feel much more confident when using my art skills so hope to witness an art lesson when on placement. As for music, I feel that the resource tool Charanga is one that I will take with me into my future career.

References-

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997) Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention London: Harper&Row.

Harris, A. (2016) Creativity in Education. London: Palgrave.

Koster, J (2011) Growing Artists: Teaching the Arts to Young Children. 5th ed. California:  Wadsworth Publishing

Scottish Government. (2008) Curriculum for excellence building the curriculum 3a framework for learning and teaching. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/btc3.pdf [Accessed: 2 November 2019].

This week in Integrated Arts we looked at Norwegian aesthetic, music composition and how we can incorporate outdoor learning with art. These inputs were practical and engaging which I enjoyed and got a lot out of.

In the lecture we were spoken to by 4 Norwegian education students. They explained the Norwegian education systems, discussed their student life and spoke about their experiences of expressive arts. It was interesting to hear how different their education system is, for example, children start school when they are 6 in Norway and outdoor and physical education are promoted much more there than they are here.

In art this week we focused on outdoor learning and land art, inspired by the works of Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long. This was enjoyable as it allowed us to get out of the art class and use materials that would not necessarily be found within a typical classroom. Koster (2011, p229) supports this idea by stating that “visual art can be made from almost any material possible”. My group decided to use pebbles, leaves and twigs in order to make the outline of a clock. We emphasised the idea of relating it to climate change, implying that we only have a short amount of time to change our actions before the damage is done and our actions are irreversible. This relates back to last weeks art lesson where I focused my print making on climate change and making links between art and social studies. We also agreed that the ‘clock’ we made could also be used to try and further children’s understanding of telling the time as it allows them to see a visual aid to support their learning. If I were to do this with a class I would bring pens to write the numbers on the pebbles in order to make it clear what stone represented each number of the clock. This lesson promoted the importance of outdoor learning, as these experiences are usually the ones that young people remember (Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2010), and emphasised that outdoor activity can “make learning fun, meaningful and relevant for children” (ibid). This is highlighted how crucial it is to allow pupils the opportunity to take their learning and creativity out with the classroom and into new, unusual environments and use materials that they do not have daily access to within their everyday class.

In relation to the lecture, the Norwegian students discussed ‘seasonal pedagogies’, an idea that I was unfamiliar with. I thought that this was a clever way to link learning and seasons/weather together, for example, allowing pupils to work in teams to make igloos in the winter. I think that this is a pedagogy I would like to research more on and take into account in my further teaching practise.

In addition to this, music was also a very practical workshop that involved us creating our own autumnal songs on the tool Garage Band. This links to the idea of the outdoors as we focused on a certain season and had to think of sounds associated with the season in order to put them into our music. I was fairly comfortable using Garage Band as I had used similar tools when studying music throughout school, however, I think that if I were to use the tool with young people it would require a lot of demonstration and support.

Within the piece of music I created I had to think about what sounds I associate with autumn, so I inserted clips of rain, wind and crunching leaves. I found this task to be interesting as it allowed us to play about with different sounds and instruments and layer them together to figure out what sounded good together and what did not. I feel that I worked on my creative thinking skills by using the keyboard on the app and creating a tune as well as layering sounds. I think that this would be an effective lesson to do with senior pupils as the app could be very fidgety and tricky to use, especially when trying to copy audio clips from online. However, I think if the task was well explained and you were doing it alongside the pupils then it is more likely to be successful. Initially I did not understand why we were using Garage Band as I have never seen these tools being used within a primary school but I understand that it allows pupils access to use their creative process. After participating in the lesson, I feel that it would be an effective resource to use, yet I would would need to be mindful of the different materials available before planning a lesson like this as not all schools have regular access to laptops and iPads.

This week in we participated in music and visual arts, both workshops that I thoroughly enjoyed. Both classes  were very practical and hands on which I appreciated as it allowed us to learn and experience the art forms through practice.

The music workshop focused on our learning of beats and rhythms by looking at note names and values. Due to having previously studied music before I was aware of the musical concepts discussed, however it was beneficial as they were referred to in a way that young people might pick up easier, such as referring to a crotchet as a ‘square’ and a quaver as a ‘circle’. This was done because the word square has 1 syllable and therefore we played 1 beat, whereas the word circle has 2 syllables so we played 2 beats. Although these may sound like simple ideas, they were ideas that I had not thought of before and therefore I found them useful to learn as they would be beneficial when putting music into practice with a class. We continued on to the practical side of the workshop by using beaters and drumsticks to sound out different rhythms by hitting them off the ground. If teaching this to a primary school class I would be mindful of giving out instructions before handing out instruments as the children may fidget with them and become distracted. I would also encourage them to participate by marching, clapping the rhythm and then using the instrument, this way they understand what the rhythm is supposed to sound like before getting a hold of beaters. Before handing out instruments I would also do a ‘fist of five’ to ensure that all learners are ready to move on to the next stage of learning.

Art this week was also very practical as it involved print making. We were given the task of coming up with a poster on a world issue and base the design on the works of Bob and Roberta Smith. I focused my poster on climate change as this is a current issue that I feel strongly about. In order to create the poster, we had to write out our phrase out onto an a4 piece of paper and then carve it into a piece of polystyrene, choose ink and coloured paper that contrast each other and then roll the ink on the polystyrene to allow it to print. I think that by doing a task similar to this one would be a really effective lesson to do within a class, especially with middle or upper school levels as part of the task could be fiddly and younger pupils might struggle with the literacy side of it. However, it is important to acknowledge what age and stage pupils are at when adapting lessons to their capabilities (Penny et al, 2002). Therefore, in order to adapt this task to a younger audience, it could involve drawings rather than writing but may require help from teachers, assistants or older pupils when it comes to the carving. The task also required a lot of space and had the potential to become very messy so this would be important to take into consideration. In relation to Room 13, this task was very personal and creative, therefore if implementing it in a class I would encourage child led learning and creativity by letting the pupils research an issue, design their poster, pick the colours they want to use and allow them to print it themselves. This could be done over a number of lessons.

undertake a task at a level appropriate to their capabilities

   

I have identified that the two workshops connect through the use of literacy, for example, in music we used syllables when learning notes and values, and in art we used our literacy skills to write out slogans for our posters. It could also be argued that maths and social issues were also explored in these lessons as we counted beats and understood note values in music and looked at current global issues in art. Therefore, it could be argued that both lessons incorporated a range of subjects into the work, which is supported by the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). The CfE ensures that “connections between all aspects of learning” should be maintained and supported (Scottish Government, 2008). Therefore this was shown through the overlaps of topics within different learning areas, such as art, literacy and social studies.

In reflection, I think that this week has been my favourite input of the module so far. I enjoyed that both workshops were so practical and could see the tasks we were doing succeeding in a class, therefore it helped with ideas on how I would implement a similar lesson. In relation to art, I can feel myself becoming more confident and open minded to the subject as I have never enjoyed art lessons previously yet I am beginning to enjoy participating. As for music, I enjoy the subject  and feel confident when participating in the class, however, the language used this week highlighted to me how important terminology and can be and how simplified language may be easier for pupils to use to adapt to music. In order to improve, I need to try and remember the new terminology and relate it to a level that younger pupils can effectively understand. It also emphasised the idea that noise within a classroom is not always a negative, especially when focusing on music, and in this case a noisy classroom can be seen as a productive classroom (Daubney, 2017).

 

References-

Daubney, A. (2017) Teaching Primary Music. California: Sage Publications Ltd.

Penny et al. (2002) Teaching arts in primary schools. Learning Matters Ltd: Exeter.

Scottish Government. (2008) Curriculum for excellence building the curriculum a framework for learning and teaching. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/btc3.pdf [Accessed: 15 October 2019.]

This week we started the music section of the module and discussed why music education matters. Through this we reflected on our own musical participation, and looked at different ways of getting pupils involved with music. Being involved with music has many benefits, for example, playing an instrument can stimulate the brain and enhance memory function, which are crucial for developing maths and science abilities (Classic FM,2018). In addition to this, Baker’s (2011) study shows that pupils who participated in music outperformed peers in maths and literacy. Music also has the ability to boost confidence levels, relieve stress and heighten creativity (Classic FM, 2018). Therefore there are many positive reasons why pupils should be encouraged to be involved with music in some way.

I have always enjoyed music and studied Higher music in school so I was excited about starting the musical section of this module. During our workshop we listened to different pieces of music and thought about how they made us feel. This links to experiences and outcomes within the Curriculum for Excellence as it states “I can respond to music by describing my thoughts and feelings about my own and others’ work” (Education Scotland, n.d.).  After listening to all 5 pieces, we rated the songs from 1-5 of enjoyment and explained why we felt like that. I think this would be a good form of assessment for pupils to do as it allows them to reflect on their emotions and thoughts of different genres of music. This was an interesting task as everyone had different reactions and feelings towards certain songs, especially the classical pieces.

We were tasked to get into groups to create a storyboard on what we could visualise when listening to a piece of music. Some members within my group struggled with this task as it involved listening to  unfamiliar music in order to create a story. This task was interesting as some of my peers had similar ideas as to what they could imagine when listening to the song, whereas others were completely clueless. Personally, because the music was unknown to me, it was more difficult to imagine a story whereas if it was a well known piece it might have been easier to think of associations. This highlighted the importance of child led creativity, linking back to the idea of Room 13, as without the opportunity to be creative, everything would be bland and the same (Hickman, 2008). I feel that the tasks we worked on were challenging for many people within the cohort and therefore some primary aged children may struggle doing this task, however, I think if an appropriate, short song was chosen then it could be successful.

 

Drama this week was a continuation from last week by looking at different groups micro teaching lessons. This links to the Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes as we experiences being a part of an audience for other groups (Education Scotland, n.d.). I found all the lessons to be well presented and engaging, especially the group who focused on the movie ‘Inside Out’. Personally I think it was a good idea focusing on a relevant movie as children will be aware of it and the majority will have seen it. It would allow an opportunity to focus on the movie in other subject areas, such as health and wellbeing by discussing emotions, art to create paintings or models of the characters, and music by looking at pieces within the movie. This allows pupils the opportunity to work around a storyline that they are familiar with, allowing ideas and feelings to be shared. As previously stated, it was interesting to watch how different groups interpreted the task and instructions as everyone had different ideas when presenting.

To finish the lesson off we briefly looked at the drama convention ‘roll on the wall’. As a class we read the book ‘The Tunnel’ and were given the task to get inside the minds of one of the characters and write their feelings about the other character, and then how the other character perceives themselves. Having read the book I think that this would be an engaging task to do with a middle school class as it involves the process of reading the story, acting out different conventions and then reflecting on different characters feelings and discussing why they feel the way they do. This is a task I think I would feel comfortable teaching as I fully understood the aims and instructions of the lesson.

To conclude, both drama and music shared the common theme of individual creativity as in both workshops everyone had different ideas over the information given, for example, the music, instructions and story. I found music very engaging and feel that I would be able to adapt the activities we did in the workshop to suit a primary class. Over the course of the 6 weeks I have spent in drama, I feel that my confidence levels have increasingly improved. When I first started the drama section of the module I was unsure and felt very awkward and uncomfortable about presenting in front of my peers, never mind teaching it. However, after looking at different lessons, conventions and activities,  I now feel much more able to teach a drama lesson and am hoping to observe one when on placement.

 

References-

Baker, R.A. (2011) The Relationship between Music and Visual Arts Formal Study and Academic Achievement on the Eighth-Grade Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University.

Classic FM. (2018) 10 reasons you should take up a musical instrument.[Online] Available: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/reasons-to-play-a-musical-instrument/ [Accessed: 10 October 2019].

Education Scotland. (n.d.) Curriculum for Excellence: Expressive Arts Experiences and Outcomes. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed: 10 October 2019].

Hickman, R. (2008) Research in Art & Design Education: Issues and Exemplars. Bristol: Intellect Books.

This week we focused on bringing the arts ‘to life’. This was done through personifying our art work, and creating dramas around different books.

In art we continued with our artwork from last week and brought our work to life by adding thoughts, feelings, poetry and lyrics to it, allowing it to stand out and be personified. I focused on adding song lyrics and Scottish poetry as I found it easier to relate back to my work. When doing this I found lyrics and poems to do with each part of my artwork and wrote it around that area, for example, I wrote lyrics from the song Loch Lomond around the water section of my painting. This links to the expressive arts ‘experiences and outcomes’ as it states “Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through activities within art and design” (Education Scotland, n.d, p4). This was done through using imagination, interpretation and literacy skills to display words, thoughts, and associated ideas within the painting, bringing it to life.

I found this task to be more challenging than last weeks as it involved being creative with words, thoughts and feelings and relating them back to what we saw within the artwork. I did not fully understand the purpose of this lesson and found it to be difficult to think on the spot, however, I found that by referring to poetry and song lyrics that I found online, this was made easier instead of using my own thoughts.

After we had completed our artwork, every picture from both sections were displayed around the room. This reinforced to me how crucial it is to display children’s work as it allows them a feeling of self achievement and development. This is something that I aim to promote when doing art and visual work as it promotes the child’s learning.

In drama we focused on micro teaching this week. Each group was given the task to create a drama lesson and implement it to the class. My group focused on bringing the book ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ to life. We based our lesson on early/first level pupils and found learning intentions and success criteria to support the lesson. Within our lesson we focused on 3 drama conventions- flashback, freeze frame and monologue, and used these to get everyone to act out different parts of the book. If I was to do this activity within a primary school, I would read the book with the whole class so everyone was familiar with the story. I think that doing a follow up lesson, possibly focusing on art, could be effective. This could be done by using different materials to create the settings within the book, for example, using charcoal to enhance the darkness of the cave.

DramaPresentation

I found this task to be challenging as the lesson was aimed at young people whereas our audience were people our own age and therefore I felt awkward at times as we did not want to be patronising with what we were saying. However, I think that the book we focused on would be an appropriate story to look at with young people as there can be a lot of interactive tasks and activities you could do before and after the lesson. Graigner (2003) suggested the idea that learning through stories can enhance our ability to develop ideas, make links and connections to our feelings, as well as using our creative abilities. This backs up the idea that by focusing the lesson on a well known storybook, children may respond well to it as they can be more creative and use their understanding of the story to reflect on their thoughts and feelings. This task highlighted me how different it is to stand up and teach a lesson on drama than it is to sit and participate and reaffirmed to me how much more I enjoyed teaching the lesson over participating. Although it was challenging doing a task aimed at children with adults, I felt a lot more confident presenting a lesson than I do when participating.

The planning of this lesson gave me a taster into what it could be like organising lessons. It involved collaboration and communication skills to be put to use due to working with a group of 5 other people to implement the lesson. It allowed me to become more familiar with benchmarks, experiences and outcomes, as well as creating our own learning intentions and success criteria. One thing I would do differently if I were to do this again would be to include some form of assessment, possibly 2 stars and a wish or writing any questions or queries on post it notes, to allow feedback and offer individuals self evaluation.

Overall, I got a lot out of this drama class as it allowed me to work within a group and create a lesson that we then had to implement in front of an audience. I found this to be a beneficial task to do as it gave me the experience of working within a group to collaboratively decide on what we wanted to focus our lesson on, decide what drama conventions we felt were appropriate to use and when, and actually present the lesson. It gave me the experience of planning and implementing a lesson within a group before I start placement, so I now feel more confident in creating and teaching a drama lesson. Personally, once I had done some research into songs and poetry I could use to describe my artwork the task became much easier. However, the resources of iPads and computers may not be as readily available if doing this with a class and I think that this would have to be taken into consideration if doing a similar activity. If I were to do this same art lesson with a class I would print off different Scottish poems and song lyrics that pupils could either use or get inspiration from as I think that this would help get started with the task as teachers have the role of “providing resources, images, helpful tips and encouragement” (Penny et al, 2002).

References-

Education Scotland. (n.d.) Curriculum for Excellence: Expressive Arts Experiences and Outcomes. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed: 15 October 2019].

This week in Integrated Arts, we focused on Room 13. Room 13 is “an independent art studio project, which the pupils run entirely themselves” (Education Scotland, 2018). Room 13 emphasises the idea of child led learning as the idea involves pupils having a ‘safe space’ where they can be as creative as inventive as they want. I think that schools having a ‘room 13’ is an effective idea as it provides pupils with a creative outlet where they can get as imaginative and messy as they want, however, I understand that they are cost effective and would require funding, space and adult supervision which may be unavailable.

During our art workshop this week we used different materials to create out own ‘paintbrush’ and used this to paint a picture. My paint brush was made from cut down sticks and tied together by a piece of string on top of a larger, thicker stick. This was an interesting task to do as everybody had different views of how they wanted their brush to look and therefore, everyone had different results. I think that pupils would enjoy this task as it involved being inventive and using their own ideas as to how to design their paintbrush. I found this task to be a challenge as I was unsure how to put my creativity into making something I was already familiar with. I struggled trying to distance myself from creating a typical looking paintbrush so tried to use materials that I would not have necessarily thought of as being tools to paint, such as twigs.

        

When it came to painting, we were given a list of descriptions of what the picture was to look like. I imagined the picture to involve a blue sky with green hills and a loch between them, however, this was fascinating as everybody took these descriptions and imagined something different, so similar to the brushes, no two pictures looked the same. Due to everyone having different painting tool, this created different brush strokes on the page, as some people had used wool, sticks and paper. We were only provided with primary colours to paint with so in order to create the colours we wanted we had to mix them. I believe that this would be an effective lesson to do with an older primary class, especially creating the paintbrush as it allows them to use their thinking skills in order to decide what they want their brush to look like, what materials they are going to use to create it and how they are actually going to do it. I found this part of the task quite fiddly and therefore might be a more appropriate activity to do with an older class. I also think that giving a description of a painting would be an interesting task to do with a class as the results would all be different and personal. In terms of assessment, I think pupils could use ‘think, pair, share’ to discuss their list of instructions to ensure that they are not missing anything significant  from the descriptions of the painting.

To begin with, I struggled to understand the purpose of this task, however, it was later made clear when we used it to paint as everyones pictures were different due to interpretation of the picture, the texture, colours and layout. In order to improve I now recognise that I need to stop overthinking everything I do and stop comparing it to the work of people around me, especially in art. I need to let myself use my own creativity, even if the result is different to others.

   

The drama workshop this week involved looking at historical and controversial issues, such as World War 2, refugees and the ‘Me Too’ movement. These could be important topics to discuss with older pupils, especially through drama as it allows them to get into the mindset of different kinds of people in different situations. However, I think these issues would need to be approached with care, respect and seriousness as they are touchy subjects for many. Similarly to art, it was fascinating to see how groups interpreted the topics into drama as as “drama means different things for different people” (Kitson and Spiby, 1997). It was clear that when discussing World War 2, some groups had similar ideas over the topic but no 2 groups dramas were completely identical.

This week we practised voices in head, mime, monologue and slow motion. These are all techniques that I think would be effective when practising drama within a classroom, however, I think when looking at such serious issues, a prior lesson on what these issues are could be implemented in order to give them more of an understanding as to what is happening and how they might feel.

I feel that both workshops could be modified and effectively used within a classroom. I think that the tasks could be very ‘child led’, rather than teacher lead by allowing them to use their own initiative, thoughts and feelings around the work they were doing.  This idea is supported by Kear and Callaway (2000) as they encourage teachers to take a step back and enhance children to take lead of their learning, ultimately empowering pupils to take ownership of their work. Therefore, I understand the importance of allowing pupils to take the lead of their own learning when appropriate.

 

References

Education Scotland. (2018)  Room 13. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/Room%2013 [Accessed: 25 September 2019].

Kear, M. and Callaway, G. (2000) Improving teaching and learning in the arts.London: Falmer Press.

Kitson, N. and Spiby, I. (1997) Drama 7-11: Developing Primary Teaching Skills. London: Routledge.