Blog 9- 5th November 2019

We had a lovely visit from pupils from a local primary school at University. The pupils came in to teach us about music and their thoughts on it. This was opportunity for our activity be pupil led as they were teaching us what we were to do in the class. Using pupil led activities allows pupils to feel a sense of worth and confidence, as they are taking resposibilty for their own learning (Jeffrey and Craft, 2010).

When talking about music with the pupils, it was amazing to hear so much positivity about their passions for music. They had told us that they all wanted to continue with their music learning in class as they were really enjoying it. They are able to gain knowledge on  things such as the different sounds instruments make and the different orchestral families (Chau and Rifgoriate, 2010). It is a great opportunity for pupils to develop their knowledge for their future if they are planning on continuing with their music.

As a student teacher, it was amazing to see the variety of ways you could use music to help teach other curricular areas such as math. By using music in math you could allow pupils to do things such as adding a minim and a crochet together for example and asking them to identify how many beats there are all together. Music opens a wide variety of cross curricular links that allow teachers to use music in any curricular area to benefit pupils learning (Watts et al, 2007).

By using dance to introduce pupils to learning allows them to be more engaged and confident in the work they produce (Fegley, 2010). In today’s session of dance we looked at how teachers can introduce pupils to dance through learning in subjects such as maths and topic for example.

Introducing dance with topic work, allows pupils to gain an understanding of different world cultures and it also ties in nicely with music as pupils are able to hear the variety of music from all over the world. Dance is also beneficial for maths, as it can be used a strategy to engage those students who may not get on the best at maths. For example, we had played a maths game where we had to come up with a dance move for every number from 0-10 and then once we had created them someone would just shout a random number between 0-10 and we would have to relay the dance move.

That activity allows pupils to be involved in their learning and be engaged in the lesson. It also opens up another strategy to use with pupils who aren’t very good at engaging with the class as pupils are able to work together and come up with great ideas and gain self-confidence from being able to participate in creating dance moves.

During today’s session we were taught about the ten basic dance skills pupils need to know in order to create any routine. These basic steps were roll, twist, slide, hop, jump,turn, gesture,kick, balance and reach. As a group, we used these 10 basic steps to create a routine to a Scottish song. We focussed on the topic of Scotland.

I really enjoyed this activity as we were able to work together as a group which developed collaboration skills and we brought together a little routine that we were happy with using our 10 basic skills.

Overall, I have gained knowledge on how it is important for teachers to allow their pupils to be involved in their own learning by doing things such as child led lessons. This allows pupils to feel like they have contributed to their learning and will be engaged in their learning if they are in control of it from time to time.

 

REFERENCES

Chau, C and Rifgoriate, T. (2010) The Influence of Music in the Development of Children. [Online] Available: http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=psycdsp.  [Accessed: 5th November 2019].

Fegley, L.E. (2010) The Impact of Dance in Student Learning: Within the Classroom and Across the Curriculum. [Online] Available: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/718b/18945b4cbfdf1c94bc001e5238cf3535f04f.pdf.  [Accessed: 5th November 2019].

Watts, R. Cox, S. McAuliffe, D. Heme, S. (2007) Teaching Art and Design 3-11. (Reaching the Standards). London: Continuum International Publishing.

 

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