Today’s workshops were based around creative partnerships. Working in partnerships enhance learning for children as they get the opportunity to work with specialists, making the lesson more real for them. We as teachers should think outside the box when collaborating with people inside and outside school to make learning more enjoyable and relatable. By pulling together all their skills they will be able to create better lessons. (Oskin, 2009) For example, bringing in parents who specialise in certain subjects such as art or music. Teachers can also attend ‘Creative Learning Networks’ to upskill in the arts subjects so we can integrate better lessons into the classroom and feel confident in doing so. We can also get ideas from one another. Organisations like these also offer funding opportunities so that you can take your classes on trips to enhance their learning and give them a real-life experience. Specialised artists can also be brought into school to work with children, passing on skills to the teachers and children. “When individuals find their creative strengths, it can have an enormous impact on self-esteem and on overall achievement.” (http://sirkenrobinson.com/pdf/allourfutures.pdf, p.6) Expressive arts can really improve a child’s mental health and wellbeing, for example, the Parkour programme seemed to be an enjoyable experience that these children will never forget. It gave them a reason to come to school which would be my main goal as a future teacher, that my children want to come to school and enjoy what they are doing.
We continued the Scottish theme in our dance workshop this week adding in some Scottish music from the Red-Hot Chilli Pipers.
We started with a cardio warm up and stretch incorporating some Scottish dance moves such as the highland fling. We played some more warm up games which we could use in school such as the Splat Game, Bean Game and People to People Game. The People to People Game allows children to communicate through touch, building their confidence to be comfortable with one another so they can dance more freely and not feel embarrassed in front of their peers. This will give them the chance to share in the experiences of creating and learning together. (Cone and Cone, 2005) We returned to our groups from last week to finalise our ten basic dance moves and perform to the class. Although we were all given the same instructions, everyone’s routines were entirely different, highlighting the uniqueness of individuals. The teachers only role is to show the ten basic dance skills and leave the creation of choreography to the children. We played another game where we made up a dance move for numbers 0-9, we then incorporated maths where two answers to equations we completed were added to our routine.
This could help to bring number to life for those who may struggle with maths making it more inclusive and links to the lecture of bringing together creative partnerships of maths and dance. After that we were given two pictures taken from around Scotland and made up a dance move based on the picture and put them all together to create the start of our routine.
You would follow these same steps with your class and end up with a full routine which has been entirely made up by your children. They work in partnerships in their group to come up with ideas and decide which is best. Everyone’s ideas are being incorporated and valued which means no one is being left out, so building their confidence and self-esteem.
In today’s music workshop we were introduced to Figure Notes, which is a visual learning tool for playing music. It breaks the learning down into different stages and everyone can be learning at their own pace and stage at the same time. It does not use conventional notation as this is not a musical requirement until you are in fifth year. Research has found that autistic learners struggle to read notation and find it confusing, so figure notes helps to make music learning more inclusive by allowing everyone to play together, regardless of their stage of reading. (https://www.figurenotes.org/asnsend/) Figure Notes also makes reading music easier as the bars are the same length.
It also uses coloured stickers which you can match on the notes of your instrument which will make it easier than learning conventional notation. We were given the opportunity to experiment with the program and I did find it a lot easier using the stickers instead of the notes.
We practiced it ourselves and then played along with the teacher, which would be a good incentive for children to learn and participate if they know they are going to be heard.
References
Cone, T.P. and Cone, S.L. (2005) Teaching Children Dance Human Kinetics Publishers.
Oskin, B (2009) reported the work of Professor Scott Page in The New Statesman Bringing it all together.
National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (1999) All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education [online] Available: http://sirkenrobinson.com/pdf/allourfutures.pdf [Accessed on: 10th December 2019].
Red Hot Chilli Pipers (2014) Wake Me Up [online] Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOwJJb2l2bw [Accessed on: 18th December 2019].
Figure Notes (n.d.) ASN/SEND [online] Available: https://www.figurenotes.org/asnsend/ [Accessed on: 18th December 2019].
