Month: November 2019

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].