November 2016 – Integrated Arts in Education

Interdisciplinary Learning – 04/10/16

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“One of the most powerful experiences dance educators can offer children is the opportunity to create a dance that reflects their ideas.”

To my knowledge with engaged research with the Curriculum for Excellence document, ‘interdisciplinary learning is an important element within Curriculum for Excellence.’ It constitutes one of the four contexts for learning in Building the Curriculum 3.

Life and ethos of the school as a community
Curriculum areas and subjects
Interdisciplinary learning
Opportunities for personal achievement

In today’s workshop, we focused on linked dance with different contexts of topics and how we adapt the dance lesson depending on what current topic we are studying. This is an excellent way to interlink dance with other curricular areas. For example, if it during the season of Halloween and the other curricular areas are focused on this aspect, then our dance routine can be linked via scary music and popular halloween dance moves (thriller and time warp).

As Halloween is fast approaching, the aim of today was to create dance moves that represent an aspect from Halloween. This method is useful as it provides relevance for children. One activity which we participated in was that we were split into 5 or 6 groups and were each provided with a piece of paper where several picture with objects related to Halloween were on it and had to come up with a 4 beat rhythm dance move.

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It is important that when teaching children dance, the lesson remains positive and fun at all times. Children tend to lose engagement when they are simply copying the teacher or have no involvement in the process. Today’s session has illustrated to us, that with very little guidance the teacher can still produce an engaging and effective lesson.

By Zara giving us a stimulus and allowing us to create our own dance moves which fit the theme of Halloween, this kept us interested and made us engage more in the process. This is a great idea to take into the classroom. Another key aspect of learning is that it involves communication between peers which is essential in a child’s learning.

Below is a picture of some of the moves from ‘Time Warp’, this is one of the dances that we practice in today’s session.

References

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/images/InterdisciplinaryLearning_tcm4-620626.pdf
http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/arts/framework/40

Drama Association – 04/10/16

Today was the first input from the drama aspect of this module. Growing up at school, drama was a subject which you either really enjoyed or hated with a passion, but for me it was a pleasant experience. In my primary years I found drama fun and enjoyable. I was not embarrassed or had a fear of doing something wrong. This I think, was due to my amazing teacher who made all of the children feel comfortable and that there was only 10 children in my primary class therefore, we were all friends.

However, from discussing with other students during this input I have concluded that not everyones drama experience was a pleasant one. Many of my fellow students simply hated drama at primary school or did not receive many drama inputs. Is that not bad?

There is a massive stigma in schools surrounding drama, as many professionals view this curricular area as unimportant and unnecessary. However, it is essential that we use drama to build children’s confidence, make it enjoyable for them to engage them in important topics for example bullying and to help the children who do not like to participate or take part to ensure that they are involved to a small degree.

“There is value in teachers experiencing drama as participants in order to better understand it as learners and teachers.” (Baldwin, P 2009)

In today’s session, we discussed the book ‘The Dragon Who Couldn’t Help Breathing Fire’ by Denis Bond. Andrew explained to us the concept of teacher in role. This is where is teacher puts on a piece of clothing for example a scarf to let the children know that the drama exercise has started. This concept is particularly easy for children to grasp as the “let’s pretend” is part of childhood experience. Children naturally slip in and out of roles of their own imaging, taking on new identities and putting themselves into imagined situations, where they devise and drive outcomes.

We had to slip into groups and describe our situation with the dragon and then act out the situation. This task showed how everyones creative imagination is different, as some group portrayed the dragon as evil and others portrayed the dragon as a friendly dragon who was misunderstood. You will find this especially with children as they tend to have more creative ideas than an adult would and this can make for an interesting drama lesson. One minor consequence which I witnessed was that when individuals become embarrassed they tended to laugh while acting their scene. You may find this with children but must explain to them that when we are acting we fully immerse ourselves into the situation, this may take some time for children to grasp this concept.

The key aspect of learning in today’s session was to understand the importance of participation and involvement and to know that you do not have to be an amazing actor/actress to do drama. Although some say drama has no limits, it is essential to only provide a few minutes for each task otherwise the children will get carried away and will keep asking for more time.

This video below shows a workshop with Cecily O’Neil where she is taking a drama lesson on the book above with a group of children.

References

Baldwin, P (2009) School Improvement Through Drama A Creative Whole Class, Whole School Approach Network Continuum.

Ten Basic Skills – 27/09/16

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The 10 Basic Skills Required to Enable a Successful Dance Session

This was the first workshop in dance today and it was led by Zara. The main aspect of this workshop was to identify the top 10 key skills that everyone needs to be able to carry out/ teach an effective dance class. These skills are;

Jump
Hop
Slide
Gesture
Twist
Balance
Turn
Kick
Reach
Roll

After Zara had explained to the class what each skill was, we were then split into groups (around 5-6 people) where we had to create our own move to each specific skill. This activity is a great way of engaging children and getting them to express their own creativity. It engages the children as it enables them to interact and produce their own version of the skill which means them feel involved in the process of their learning.

Throughout the session, Zara had us participate in several games which all incorporated the key dance elements. For example, we played a game titled ‘Bean rig’, and the aim of the game was to act out the type of bean shouted. Therefore, if it was a chilli bean then you would have to rub our arms and legs as though we were cold and so on… This is a great game for children as it improves their memory capability by having to remember the different actions and also it is fun and engaging.

As some of the students within the workshop were more apprehensive than others, Zara ensured that we all went through some ice breakers activities to put all the students at ease and get to know everyone. This can be done by sitting in a circle and each individual comes into the middle of the circle and performs a simple dance move while saying their name. This is a particularly good activity when you have a new class and do not quite know everyones names yet. This is a feat way of getting to know all of the children and begin to create a bond between the children to create a pleasant classroom vibe.

This first insight into the dance aspect of ‘Integrated Arts in Education’ has provided me with many activities to support children and develop their dance ability as well as many other skills and qualities that dance enables.

Below is a short clip of a young dancer aged 13. This clip illustrates that teaching a child the basic dance skills from an early age enables them to be successful in dance when they are older.