Drama

“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 seminar we were participating in micro-teaching. This was beneficial as it built on our skills and confidence. It is important for us as future teachers to understand how learners may feel when we teach a lesson. If we feel anxious while teaching or paricipating in drama experiences then how night the children we teach feel.
Drama can be a wonderful tool within the classroom however we must be careful that we don’t push children too far outwith their confort zones.

My group created a story about trolls and elves:

The story
A long time ago in the East of Halloween town a large area of land lay empty. This land was then claimed to be found by a group of trolls however it was also claimed to be found by a group of elves. These two groups could not live harmoniously together and began to create havoc for one another. The head troll and king elf had had enough and had to find out a way that they could live side by side.

 

After reading the story to the class we then asked the class to create a ‘freeze frame’ in their groups based on the story and at the end to step out and tell us what message their freeze frame was portraying. We also asked them to create a ‘flash forward’ scene and within this scene they had to tell the audience if the trolls and elves had worked out a way to live together or if they were continuing to create havoc.

I feel our micro-teaching experience went well and it encouraged me to work with people I would not always work with. I developed my confidence as I had to speak in front of the class and also my communication skills as I had to project my voice so everyone could hear it. When it was my turn to be come the pupil it made me think of how pupils in my future classroom may feel. There was time when I couldn’t hear the other group that was teaching and this made me realise how easy a child could loose focus.

Music

During our music seminar a class of children from a local Ayrshire school came in to teach us how to play a string instrument. The children take part in a project called the ‘String Project’ from primary 4 through to primary 7. this was a valuable learning opportunity as it taught me that children can also be the teachers. It is impossible for us to know everything and by allowing children to teach adults it shows children that we are all learners. It also puts us adults in the same position us as future teachers place children in. Learning a new skill can be time consuming and frustrating when you don’t always get it right however the children that came to teach us were extremely patient and did not rush when discussing anything with us.

Cross-curricular

It is important that we give children the opportunity to take part in different experiences and that we encourage children to try new things. I think it is also beneficial to give the children the opportunity to teach their peers and the peer learning should be encourage. We can constantly learn and develop new skills no matter what area of the curriculum it is in.

References:

Baldwin, P (2009). School Improvement Through Drama- a creative, whole class, whole school approach.  Network Continuum Education