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This week in our Integrated arts module, we had another dance workshop with Zara. In this workshop, we explored deeper content to the teachers role in dance within the curriculum and what we should be delivering to the students. My aims as a teacher in practice when demonstrating dance to the classroom are… 

• Have basic knowledge of the 10 basic dance skills and how these can be performed. 
• Believe in the students creative process : ‘The vision for the dance belongs to the children. The article illuminates a reflective stance on teaching and observing children creating their own dances based on their ideas’ ( Cone, 2009, p. 81). 
• Valuing the creative process. 

• To create a supportive and safe dance environment in the classroom for students. 
• Assist students when faced with challenges such as a stimulous. 

We then explored methods of how to achieve these outcomes in a classroom. These were some responses from our breakout room discussion.  

• By providing students with visual stimulous,  this gives them an opportunity to dip into the creative process. Stimulous could be pictures, objects or clothing and this provides children with a starting point.  
• Regular performances of students work. This could be through them describing their creative process to the class, or through a dance performance which the students work towards. This gives students a sense of accomplishment and achievement through making something of their own through exploring their emotions and their inner selves (Cone, 2009, p.83).  

After this, we studied the positive impacts of dance. One of these impacts was that dance increases confidence and physical wellbeing within students. I can personally relate to these impacts as I have really enjoyed the online zoom dance classes with Zara. At the beginning, I did not have the confidence to turn my computer camera on zoom, however this week I did and I felt a sense of achievement as I felt comfortable. I also feel physically well after these workshops as recently my mental health has not been the strongest due to the lockdown and stress. However, the dance workshops have really enlightened my mood and I look forward to them each week.  

We then split into breakout rooms and had to create 3 Christmas warm up games. Our group chose the three following activities 

• Christmas characters: this activity requires children to run around, and when the teacher shouts a Christmas character such as Rudolph, Santa, snowman, they need to position themselves (or with a partner) which symbolises these characters. 
• Christmas Scenes: this activity is based on team work and really tests the students communication skills. Students would organise themselves into groups of 4-5. The teacher would then call out a Christmas scene, for example the birth of baby Jesus, and the students would be given 3 minutes to create a freeze frame related to the scene. Whatever team scores the highest wins. 

Our final task of the workshop was to get into our performance groups to rehearse our dance sequence. However, we had to add a dance convention. Our group decided to add repetition to our routine.

For visual arts, I completed video analysis on my painting:

 

This week was our final week of the integrated arts module. We had a dance workshop with Zara in which we performed our final christmas performance. We used the advantage of technology through learning how to cut music using audacity, this was very useful as it allowed us to create pauses, repeat verses of music in order to fit our dance, and allowed us to adjust the speed of the song in order for the dance to flow. Personally, I found this website very useful as I teach in my own dance school and the app I would usually use was much more difficult to navigate, so I will now use audacity for future. We also explored the use of technology through tools on zoom. For example, we set our backgrounds to stars when we were not on camera to create a christmas aesthetic and we also had set times to turn our cameras on and off depending on what part of the routine you were performing. At the start of these dance workshop, I personally did not think the zoom performance would work as I immediately think of the impact and atmosphere of a live performance, however I did really enjoy participating on the online performance. It really highlighted how many ways in which you can use technology in order to create a successful performance.

I also believe that the performance was really successful through Zaras passion for dance throughout this whole module. As a student, and a dancer myself, I could really feel her energy even through the screen and this really encouraged me to be enthusiastic about learning and the module as a whole. Zara had clear and consolidated instructions for our online performance which enhanced our confidence that made us believe the performance would work. ‘The outstanding feature of effective teaching is the ability to communicate effectively. Put another way, a great teacher is a good talker – one who exemplifies enthusiasm for his/her work’ (Tauber and Mester, 2007, p.5).

Later, we had a workshop about Scottish Art with Diarmuid. We looked into a project called ‘Room 13’ which is a pedagogical development from a primary school in the Highlands. Room 13 is a creative studio in which students of all ages can work with professional adult artists in order to develop inspirations, skills and ideas. ‘The result is an ongoing collaboration between adults and young people and a thriving culture of philosophical enquiry driven by a motivation to think and to learn’ (Gibb, 2012). However this freedom of arts is challenged by the curriculum, and many creative arts critics say that the curriculum is becoming increasingly based on strategy and formula approach which is constraining creative values when teaching arts (Gibb, 2012). Room 13 encourages children to discover their potential in their own unique way, and highlights that as a society, we need to escape the idea that knowledge does not lie within the passing of an exam, and that It should be mainly pupil focus in order for students to achieve. ‘Through Room 13 we get to see the whole personality of the child, not just the bit that performs academically’ (Crace, 2002).

I believe Room 13 is a massive step in the right direction for creative arts in the curriculum. As a child and right now as a teacher in training, my strengths lie within the creative arts area rather than academic skill. Growing up, I did not feel as ‘smart’ or as achieveing as other students due to this, however the arts felt like an escape to this. I felt a sense of freedom to structure as each piece of work I produced in art, drama or dance was always individual and unique. I feel Room 13 should be a national project in all schools as it provides training that motivates individuals and develops their creativity in a way that often outstrips anything that school, or even art college, can currently offer.

References

Crace, J., 2002. Guardian Education Suppliment. The Guardian.

Gibb, C., 2012. Room 13: The Movement And International Network. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Tauber, R. and Mester, C., 2007. Acting Lessons For Teachers : Using Performance Skills In The Classroom [Electronic Book]. 2nd ed. Westport: Praeger.

Integrated Arts Week 9.

For our week eight session of integrated arts, we were introduced to primary dance. I was really looking forward to this part of the module as I have danced since the age of 3, and am still continuing to do so. On our first year placement, my teacher encouraged me to take up a PE lesson in dance for my primary 1 class which went really well, so I was looking forward to developing my knowledge on building upon dance in the classroom and the curriculum.

Firstly, we looked into how dance crosses over two areas in the curriculum; health and wellbeing, and expressive arts. .Dance allows children to actively express thoughts, feelings and ideas through use of movement. It has been heavily rejected over the years due to many reasons such as lack of teacher training knocking confidence to teach, limited resources for learning and lessons and lack of time due to the high demand of other subjects in the curriculum. However, over the recent years dance has been introduced due to teachers being more aware of what the subject brings to the classroom – freedom of creativity. ‘Dance educators need to support children’s ideas and trust the children’s creative process, especially when the educator may not agree with the meaningfulness of the dance content or structure’ (Cone, 2009) .

We then covered the main three areas which dance lessons should pin-point; Being safe, creating a safe environment for the students, and keeping your body safe through muscular awareness; Being meaningful, covering key skills such as exploration, problem solving and creative thinking; And being fun; dance is a great activity to explore different cultures and characters, and is all about active learning ( Cone, 2009)

After this, we then were shown examples of warm ups that we could carry out in a classroom. One warm up I thought was really effective was ‘follow the leader’. Children have to order themselves in height order smallest to tallest, the teacher then teaches the student at the end of the line an 8 count dance sequence, and the students have to carry this sequence on to the very last person. This really tests students memory skills. We then created a graphic mind-map of some muscles and body parts so we were more subconsciously aware of our body during warm-ups and the importance of them.

After this activity, Zara took us through her own personal warm up with us. We had to move to how each song made us feel through using a variety of different styles. I really enjoyed this part of the workshop as I felt more energetic and ready to focus afterwards. We then split into groups and focus on the 10 basic dance skills, Zara then gave us a specific order of these skills and we had to create a routine in our breakout rooms.

For our music workshop we revisited lesson planning. For this task, we had a look into BBC 10 Pieces website page. This website page is a fantastic resource to use offering lesson ideas, music pieces, group and individual tasks and many more great features. I explored the early years section. We were then placed into breakout rooms and were asked to discuss what are appropriate learning intentions and success criteria for each lesson plan. This was a really beneficial task for myself as I do struggle to identify the differences between the two. These lesson plan documents also gave warm up ideas and follow up lessons which I found very useful as each part linked to one another as well as revisiting and building upon learning. One activity I really liked was the sound detectives. Children had to

• Take the magnifying glass around the classroom space and look for sounds.
• Go outside with the magnifying glass and listen to the sounds you can hear.
• Using a picture of a house, bring it to the circle and ask questions about the sounds from each room.
• Using pictures from a story, identify if there any sounds that would be happening in the pictures.

I felt this was a really effective task as it allowed children to learn sounds as they move as well as exploring different environments. I think using the magnifying glass as a prop would really set the scene for children making them feel like sound detectives. I would like to use this task on placement and further develop this.

 

References

 Andrew, K. and Drever, L., 2020. No Place Like Home. [online] Bbc.co.uk. Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ten-pieces/classical-music-early-years/znvhrj6> [Accessed 30 November 2020].

 

Cone, P., 2011. Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances. Journal of Dance

Integrated Arts Blog

This week for our integrated arts module we explored our artistic strengths in which we were asked to purchase some water colour paints for this task. We were provided with a pre-recorded step-by-step guide to painting landscapes.

Paint in a classroom setting can be deemed as ungovernable, messy, and hard to control – hence why many teachers reject this form of art. However, painting gives children a sense of freedom to their ability and imagination. ‘In practice which fosters creativity by contrast our focus is mainly on ensuring that we encourage children’s ideas and possibilities, and that these are not suffocated’ (Craft, 2004).

We then were introduced to paint interventions which aimed to create more controlled management. We were informed about taking specific colours out of pallets such as blacks and greens, this is because if a class is painting a landscape, they will use a lot of green shades and the aim is to not have similar pallets as it limits creativity. It is important to encourage children to create their own colours to encourage risks, and their experimental skills. We then were asked to create a border around our pages in order to create boundaries and for note taking. Instead of being shown a picture of a landscape, Dermuid explained to us what he expected us to paint through spoken instructions which really developed the power of imagination and our artistic literacy skills. This would be a very useful technique to use in the classroom as it doesn’t set expectations and limits pressure for students artwork to look a specific way (Fleming,  2012). We were then asked to reconceptualise a paint brush. I used a pen and some cotton pads as I was aiming for a soft textured landscape. Dalmuir also encouraged us to take some pictures of our gradual progression of our landscapes.

For our music workshop, we focused on understanding the use of pitch. We covered the musical notations and linked them up with their sounds (e.g C – Do, D – Re etc). We were then informed that these musical notations are sometimes hard to consolidate for children, so Julie then introduced a useful accronym to remember the order of each notation; Every Good Boy Deserves Football.

We were then introduced to some classroom resources which could be used as starter tasks to understand pitch for different levels. Our group focused on early level. We explored a starter task which focused on length of rhythm. This was a circle time task in which a bean bag was passed around whilst singing a song as a whole class. Children then chose if they wanted to perform a long or short sound.

This was an effective starter task as it warms up vocals, encourages use of choice, and is a whole class starter task meaning everyone is involved and focused.

We were also introduced to Classical FM 100 Resources. Classical 100 is designed around 100 recordings of classical music pieces which teachers can draw upon in lessons

This learning resource was highly effective during the lockdown period. The collection of 100 recordings, all from Decca artists, are free primary learning resources with activities for each piece of music. It is a universal learning resource and focuses on musical aspects such as mood, tempo, instruments, and musical historical periods

https://www.classicfm.com/classical-100/abrsm-music-education-resource-free-lockdown/

 

References

 

42, R., 2020. ‘Classical 100’ Music Education Resource Made Free For Families In Lockdown. [online] Classic FM. Available at: <https://www.classicfm.com/classical-100/abrsm-music-education-resource-free-lockdown/> [Accessed 23 November 2020].

 Craft, A., 2020. Creativity And Possibility In The Early Years. [ebook] University of Exeter and The Open University, p.3. Available at: <https://my.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/82780/mod_resource/content/4/Creativity%20and%20Possibility%20in%20the%20Early%20Years.pdf> [Accessed 23 November 2020].

 Flemming, M., 2012. The Arts In Education; An Introduction To Aesthetics, Theory & Pedagogy.. London.

 

Integrated Arts Week 5

This week were introduced to the app Garage Band. I was not familiar with this app before hand as I did not further study music in upper education, so I did feel uneasy at the beginning. Julie then gave us a step by step tutorial on how to use garage band and how this app could be introduced in the classroom.

‘Learning using technologies enables children and young people to be informed, skilled, thoughtful, adaptable and enterprising students.’ Education Scotland., (2020). Technology can be used as a gift in musical education as we have universal access to apps such as YouTube, Spotify and many more. Technology is heavily advanced these days in that individuals can participate in online music instrumental classes which increased in popularity during lockdown.

There are many advantages to using garage band, however just like any other form of technology, it takes time and persistence. Today I learned that garage band allows you to explore rhythm and tempo. By selecting a drum kit of choice, you can create rhythmic patterns which can be recorded, replayed, edited etc. This element to garage band is an effective teaching method as it allows students to create a greater understanding of musical terms.

Another advantage to using garage band is that it provides learning opportunities for students with additional support needs. This is because children with ASN can be given a sense of freedom with garage band by making their own music without a constant need of teacher assistance. It can also be a more personal method of musical practice as students can learn at their own pace and comfort instead of feeling left behind which creates anxiety. ‘It is essential that their education contributes to enhancing their quality of life, and that they receive a balance between independence and interdependence’ (Mitchel, 2014).

A challenge that may be faced by using garage band is limited availability of technology. Many schools struggle with funds for resources which means they may be unable to purchase the technology to download garage band. Garage band is downloaded mostly on Apple technologies such as iPads, MacBooks which are highly priced on the market.

Another barrier to garage band is being unfamiliar with the technology. As a teacher in training, we have had the advantage of growing up around digital technology, however many teachers who have been in education over a longer period of time tend to struggle with getting to grips with it. This means that teachers may tend to reject the use of garage band as it is technical and a more modern digital learning approach. However, in my opinion teachers of all ages should try their best to keep up to date with different digital learning technologies as current students are more familiar with it these days and it is an effective modern learning approach which many students prefer. ‘Teacher preparation programs must guide preservice teachers to develop strategies, abilities, and a presence of mind that transcends to a modern classroom’ ( Cavanagh & Koehler, 2020).

Overall, as a student teacher I feel really encouraged to bring garage band into music lessons as it provides students with many different opportunities to explore techniques into creating music. I feel students would pick up the working process of garage band as they are familiar with technology meaning they will be able to exceed expectations. Personally, I feel I will need to continue using garage band to become more confident, but this is a procedure I am looking forward too.

 

REFERENCES

Cavanagh, Robert, F. and Koehler, Matthew, J., 2020. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. International Society for Technology in Education, 46.

 Education Scotland, 2020. Technologies | Curriculum Areas | Curriculum For Excellence | Policy Drivers | Policy For Scottish Education | Scottish Education System | Education Scotland. [online] Education.gov.scot. Available at: <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/technologies/#> [Accessed 3 November 2020].

 Mitchel, D., 2014. What Really Works in Special and Inclusive Education, (2), London.

 

 

 

Integrated Arts Week 4

This weeks drama workshop was based upon learning with puppetry. Angela had asked us in the previous week to create our own shadow puppets.

Firstly we were given a background into why puppetry is defined as a freeing art and the advantages of this in a classroom. ‘Responsibility for what you say and how you say is handed over to the character in your hand’ (Ewart, 1998).

 

We split into breakout rooms to explore how you can spot creativity using puppetry. We analysed Qualifications Curriculum Authority (2005) which explained how children may creatively think in a classroom. For example, children reflect critically on ideas, actions and outcomes, especially in drama. We then thought about what aspects students would think about when creating their puppetry performance. One example was movement and position of persons in order to create smooth transitions of scenes.

We then watched a short clip on how a teacher combined puppetry with cross curricular learning involving science and drama. I found this video really interesting as at the start of this workshop I believed puppetry was only used in the early years classroom, however students in this video were upper years and it was a highly effective active learning tasks. I was really intrigued how they transformed science fiction into real life situations and how they explored the theme of relationships between the chemicals. The advantages to this task was it gave students the chance to find their own voices through their puppet, enhanced their process of memory and order, and developed their storytelling and vocabulary skills. Overall, this allowed students to engage in holistic creative context (Peck & Virkler 2006).

For our music workshop, we revisited components of last weeks learning. We looked back at how shapes can be incorporated for early years music lessons. We also explored how using words can represent syllables. I thought this was a really effective learning method as it can allow children to use their favourite foods, colours etc to create music. We were then given the ‘Mini Beast Word Mat’ to complete our own rhythms.

We were then introduced to figure notes. Figure notes were primarily designed to support learners with ASN as it limits barriers and symbols. It was introduced by Drake Music Scotland in 2000. ‘Familiar shapes and colours remove the fear and unnecessary confusion of learning notation for many learners. A common sense approach to rhythm and progression to standard notation means anyone can learn to play with Figurenotes’  Drakemusicscotland.org. 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQMno6o3od4

Finally, we were introduced to graphic scores which are visual prompts indicating what sound can be played. I personally felt as if graphic scores would be a preferred learning technique for myself as I am a very visual learner.

 

References

Drakemusicscotland.org. 2020. Figurenotes – Drake Music Scotland. [online] Available at: <https://drakemusicscotland.org/figurenotes/> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

Ewart, F., 1998. Let the Shadows Speak ; developing children’s language through shadow puppetry. Trentham books,.

 Peck, S. and Virkler, J., 2006. Reading In The Shadows; Extending Literacy Skills Through Shadow Puppet Theatre. International Readers Association, pp.Vol 59, pp. 786 – 795.

Qualifications Curriculum Authority (2005) Creativity: find it, promote it. QCA Publications.

 

Integrated Arts Week 3

This was our third learning week and I could really start to see my confidence grow within particular areas of the arts, especially in music.

We began with a music work shop titled ‘Why Music is Important.’ We covered many areas such as where children can discover musical experiences such as in classes through music lessons, and in the community through live music etc. We then continued on to how children can participate in music. This could be from learning to play an instrument, to learning to listen to music in your free time. As a practitioner, growing up I did feel like you were only ‘musical’ if you played an instrument, so learning that simple skills such as listening contribute to musical participation was comforting to hear. We also then defined a definition of the word repertoire and what key words we related to this. We came up with examples such as playing, listening, and understanding music from other cultures. For our final part of the workshop, we reflected on the power of music. It has been evident that growing up around music and being musically involved from a young age can enhance skills in literacy and numeracy. This is due to reading music explores skills of problem solving and sequencing. This is supported by Hallam (2010) who states: ‘Research on Western classical musicians has shown that long years of active engagement with particular musical activities are associated with an increase in neuronal representation specific for the processing of the tones of the musical scale, the largest cortical representations found in musicians playing instruments for the longest periods of time’ (Pantev et al., 2003). Julie also informed us on music schemes that councils have introduced to encourage musical participation. I further researched into my home authority and found this twitter page called ‘East Renfrewshire Instrumental Music Services’ which gives you daily updates of information on music classes in the community, music opportunities and what is going on in different classrooms involving music. This was very encouraging to see that East Renfrewshire are creating an emphasis on the importance of music in the classroom.

Later we had another music lecture based upon rhythm patterns. We looked at the experience and outcomes from early to second level as we were building our own knowledge of rhythm patterns. First of all we identified key words such as pulse. To make this clearer to what pulse meant musically we were given shape patterns and asked how many syllables were in each shape. For example the square represented one syllable and a circle represented two. We then clapped the rhythms with our hands and were shown how this could be interpreted in an early level lesson. I have the freedom to use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound and rhythm. EXA 0-17a

We then developed further and introduced musical notes. These were then replaced with the shapes. We can clearly see the transition from early years to first level. We used drumsticks to control the rhythm with background music. I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound, rhythm, pitch and dynamics. EXA 1-17a

After we had identified the simple musical terms we then advanced into more depth about the beats. For example, how many beats in a bar, adding crotchet rests and minims. It was really clear the jump from first to second level as you had to define the differences in the notes as well as playing them on the correct beat.

Overall, I really enjoyed this workshop. It did take me back to feeling like I was doing a primary music lesson which made it memorable. I really developed my music terminology, sense of rhythm

 

 

We then explored drama across the curriculum focusing on freeze frames. We completed a ‘jump in, jump out’ warm up which got our brains active and then reflected on last weeks session. We then discussed how status can be shown in freeze frames through body stance and language. Angela asked us to demonstrate how we would portray a higher status knight, a middle class knight and a poor, troubled knight. We then identified the differences in our body language going from very large open posture making us look confident and intimidating to very crouched and small creating a timid effect. ‘body language is a communication by movement or position, particularly facial expression, gesture and the relatives positions of the speaker and listener’ ( BBCBitesize, 2020).

We then moved on to processed drama which is when teachers and students are working in and out of role. ‘Processing drama is not about creating a ‘product’, i.e it does not have the end result of a play or a performance, the process is a product within itself’ (Bowell & Heap, 2013). Processed drama encourages improvisation in which children can explore their own creativity and imagination without being controlled by a script. They can take the character in role in their own direction and chose how they want to portray the emotion and personality of the character.

We then began to create cross curriculur links with drama in the classroom. For example, when using techniques such as teacher in role, this could then be carried into a literacy lesson, writing in role. This would then develop descriptive language, creative and literacy skills.

We then watched a few short clips about how teachers have demonstrated teacher in role in the classroom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD_3zlYUL7w&feature=youtu.be

In these videos, it really stood out to me the use of props in teacher and role. Once teachers used a prop or put on a piece of clothing this really immersed the children into the changing of character. The teacher chose to be a lower status character. This then encouraged children to make decisions for themselves and enables them to explore their own responsibility and creativity.

REFERENCES

BBC Bitesize. 2020. A Definition Of Body Language – Describing Body Language – GCSE Drama Revision – BBC Bitesize. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zg8tgk7/revision/1>

Bowell,P.,Heap, B,S. (2013) Planning and Processing Drama Routledge

Education.gov.scot. 2020. [online] Available at: <https://education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf> [Accessed 21 October 2020].

Hallam, S., 2010. International Journal Of Music Educatiom. SAGE.

 

integrated Arts Blog week 2

This weeks visual arts workshop was focused on killing creativity. This workshop was presented at a very coincidental time due to actions taken place by the government released this week. This was the image released…

Due to the current pandemic, the performing arts sector has been harshly effected due to the lack of career opportunities (e.g. no theatre shows, concerts etc.). In this image, the government suggests individuals who work within the performing arts rethink career choices. Personally, as a dancer myself this image made frustrated as they expect individuals to leave careers they love and have worked hard for years. This image damaged the performing arts society and really degraded many people.

https://youtu.be/yiy7ZRSHauE

Creativity in the classroom is not a consolidated structure, it provides opportunity for children to create a sense of freedom to their imagination. There are many ways to encourage creativity in a classroom such as borrowing ideas instead of owning ideas. It is about taking a piece of inspiration, making it an idea of your own by deconstructing, materializing and improving on it so it is your own personal idea. This could be applied in the classroom through avoiding the showing of art work examples and instead provide students with a stimulus to evoke ideas, and this makes their learning more individual to them. ‘Compliance to a set of ‘past practices’ and ‘orthodoxies’ (Atkinson, Hickman, 2005) that privileges technical skills and teacher-led pedagogies at the expense of creativity and more pupil-led pedagogy which privileges free expressive modes of thinking and making’ (McAuliffe, 2014).  Another way to encourage creativity in the classroom would be to encourage experimentation and challenge. This could be through allowing students to chose their own colour pallets, their own theme focus’, their own materials etc. Allowing children to experiment with different artistic features allows them to become more comfortable with unfamiliar territory, and they are more likely to step outside their comfort zone. The most important standards should be thinking and working habits that in the end will produce self learning. This is helped by including self challenge, self learning choices, and enough difficulty to practice in the persistence for better answers and stronger artwork (Harris, 2014).

 

For our drama workshop we covered enthusiastic teaching behaviours through using body language. ‘Interactions are positive and build up self-esteem; lots of praise and constructive feedback; enthusiasm and good humour’ (Kyriacouc, 2009). As an individual who is very fond of drama, I can see the difference in engagement from the students by using body language with them. For our first year assessment for sit-comm , we had to tell a story without a script with use of body language. I seen the more enthusiastic I became about the story through gestures, eye contact, volume change, the more engaged the students became. It made me more confident as a student teacher knowing that the class wanted to listen to my story and that they were intrigued to know what happened next. We then focused on drama strategies. Drama strategies evoke imagination and creativity within a drama classroom. These skills help to build students as a whole within themselves, their performed characters and their story ( Farmer, 2020). We learned about different strategies such as freeze frame and thought tunnel. I believe that drama strategies really focus on the main purpose of a drama, the key moments and the characters. We focused on the thought tunnel, we were provided with a stimulus (Jack and the Bean Stalk) which was a small scene from this play. We were then asked what character we would personally like to focus on. I focused on Jacks mum and my group had to come up with character related questions in order to discover deeper meaning into her story and emotions. I really think this task is beneficial within a classroom as it encourages students to think outside the box and step into someone else’s’ shoes. This is also an important narrative to take in every day life, that in situations you do have to think in the mind of someone else in order to consider their emotions and how they feel, which is an important message to teach children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

David Farmer (2020) Drama Resource. Available at: https://dramaresource.com/drama-strategies/ (Accessed: 3 October 2020)

Harris, A., 2016. Creativity And Education. Melbourne: Springer.

 

 Jordan, D., 2020. Downing Street Joins Criticism Of ‘Crass’ Job Ad. [online] BBC News. Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54505841> [Accessed 28 December 2020].

Kyriacou, C. (2009) Effective Teaching in Schools: Theory and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press

McAuliffe, Diarmuid (2018) ‘Art and Design Education’. In T. Bryce and W. Humes (et al eds.) Scottish Education (5th Ed): Referendum, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

 

 

 

I was really looking forward to starting this module as I take a great interest in performing arts, especially art and drama. However, I was nervous about the musical part of the module as I had not visited this side of the arts since my first few years in high school. Nonetheless, I was satisfied by the reassurance of the lecturers who highlighted that this module is about turning our weakness’ into strengths and about stepping out of our comfort zone.
Our first workshop of this module was an introduction to drama strategies. We covered the importance of enthusiastic teaching behaviours through body language which one of the key components to drama. For example in the classroom if the teacher is passionate and enthusiastic about the lesson through use of body language, facial expression and speech, you can clearly see the engagement of the children through eyes mirroring the excitement of the teacher. This also enhances confidence, interest and enjoyment in the classroom (Kyriacou, 2009). We then developed our knowledge of drama strategies. ‘Drama strategies encourage negotiation, understanding and creativity and can enhance performance skills such as character development’ (Farmer, 2020). We explored strategies such as teacher in role, freeze frame and many more. We then moved on to the Jack And The Beanstalk task in which we demonstrated some of these techniques. For freeze frames, we were asked questions such as ‘how would jacks mothers facial expression look when he came home with the beans?’ We then had to decide on a suitable facial expression, and freeze for 5 seconds. For teacher in role, we had to explain the scenario to one another as to why Daisy the cow needed to be sold, and my partner had to respond as Jack, and we then discussed which decision was best for Jack to take. Each task encouraged children to think creatively through critical thinking and problem solving in which these skills can be transferred to all areas of the curriculum (Farmer, 2020).
For our music workshop, we were introduced to key words which are used for music in the classroom such as melody, timbre, and dynamics which were not familiar phrases to me. We then explored the importance of the link between music and feeling. We listened to 5 clips and wrote down an emotion to how each piece of music made us feel. We then discussed our answers then moved on to why we think listening is important. There was a lot of discussion on how listening develops other factors such as reading. Speech and music share the same processing systems which means music can enhance process and can impact on the perception of language which in turn has a positive impact on reading (Hallam, 2010). Our main activity was we had to listen to a five minute orchestra clip and create a story board on what we imagined was happening during this audio clip. This is an example of what my groups story board looked like…

We also made cross curricular links to arts and science also known as STEM to STEAM. Pleasurable sensations motivate us to create music, dance and objects of pleasure that both rely on both memory and expectation. We then discussed the importance of our sense of touch and the use of our hands within these areas. I really developed my knowledge on how the brain uses the hand to construct into symbol systems such as numbers which we recreate the connection in science to representing through talk, sketches and building models. (Fleming, Brestler & O’Tool, N.D).
In education, expressive arts is deemed to be ‘less important’ than literacy and numeracy. I always remember growing up I never felt as smart as my classmates who excelled in literacy and numeracy as my strengths lay in expressive arts. However, I do believe this stereotype is slowly shifting as music, art, drama and dance are not just there to represent creativity; they are tools to access creativity and for growing in confidence as a learner. I strongly believe if I never participated in dance and drama growing up, I would never be the confident individual I am today and personally don’t think I could have chosen this career path either without them. I really hope that councils heavily invest in expressive arts in the curriculum as it helps to develop confidence and perseverance, helps to develop cognitive skills and allows children to truly express themselves, (Irish National Teaching Organisation, 2009).

REFERNCES
Kyriacou, C., 2009. Effective Teaching In Schools ; Theory Of Practise. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.chapter 6.
Flemming, M., Brestler, L. and O’Tool, J., n.d. Creativity and the Work of Science and Art. A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective,.
Hallam, S., 2010. International Journal Of Music Educatiom. SAGE.
Farmer, D., 2020. Learning Through Drama In Primary Years. https://dramaresournce.com/drama-strategies/.
Irish National Teacher Organisation., 2009. Creativity and the Arts in Primary School. Dublin.