This week the class were learning about dance and music. This is the first week the class have had a dance input. I was absent during these inputs, but my peers filled me in on what happened in the sessions.
Workshop 1- Dance
In the first input of dance, we were making up a dance. We learned that firstly, to carry out dance, especially with children, we must first warm up. A warm up game/ strategy that we tried out was highland tig. The class then had to label the outline of a body that had been drawn around. With this simple strategy, we were then able to label different parts of the body and muscles which is crucial for children to know about in order to stay safe during a lesson or activity which includes dance or physical activity.
According to Cone (2009), “One of the most powerful experiences dance educators can offer children is the opportunity to create a dance that reflects their ideas”. It is also important for us as teachers to let children be creative in their own ways and devise their own dances. In order for them to do this, we must take a step back and allow them to create ideas for themselves which will allow them to build their own confidence and solutions to problems that may occur (Cone, 2009).
It is important for children to have independence through dance but it is also extremely important that children are safe, having fun and that their is meaning in all aspects of dance. It is the role of the educator to ensure that this is in place for the full lesson.
We then learned about the 10 key stages of dance that teachers should teach to children. These are as follows; twist, balance, turn, kick, jump, hop, gesture, slide, roll and reach. Before this input and information, I would never have been able to incorporate this into a lesson or make up a dance on my own. Whereas now, with this simple piece of information, I would feel comfortable, after a few more practices, to make up my own lesson to teach to a primary class.
This was then implemented into our own learning by making up our own dance in groups. These 10 key steps had to feature in our dance, but we could vary them however we wanted. This activity was then further elaborated by adding in another 6 concepts of dance moves. These were; jack hammer, wing, grand jets, shorty George, sponfebob and pressure turm. One of these moves was then incorporated into the dance.
I think that this is a great activity/ lesson for children to do because it encourages creativity in both child and student. It is also easier for the teacher to implement, especially if the teacher is not confident teaching dance to children. It is important for children to lead learning but to be safe also.
If this is followed then children will be presented with a mass of opportunities in the arts through creativity. Through the process of creativity in dance, children will be able to generate ideas that have value to them as well as having the capability of using imagination and analysing and correcting their own mistakes (Education Scotland, 2013).
Overall, I look forward to participating in the next dance session.
Workshop 2- Music
This week in the music class we were looking at the importance of music in other areas of education. The class read and analysed a document called ‘International Journal of Music Education’. The class was then split into small groups and each group were given a section to complete a mind map presentation on. Because I was absent, I never had the chance to carry out this activity, however, my peers shared and allowed me to document their findings for the purpose of this blog post. This group were given the task of finding out about the importance of music in numeracy, they found that there were very few links between this. Here is a few of the fact and findings that were presented. Where there is few links between music and numeracy, some links have been established.
Research into the impact of arts programmes found that children who participated in arts programmes performed better in mathematics than those who did not participate. Children who took part in the experiment for the longest had the highest scores out of the participants. Gardiner et al. (1996) in Hallam (2010).
Haley (2001) also found that those who had played an instrument before the 4th grade had higher results in mathematics than other children.
Overall, the evidence suggests that being actively engaged with music can improve performance in mathematics.
(permission from author to use in post)
The group then presented the findings to the class and then moved onto a lesson planning activity. Due to the lack of findings on the topic of numeracy, the group decided to turn their attention to the importance of music in literacy instead for the lesson planning activity. The group came up with the idea of using three short excerpts in the class and allowing the children to choose their favourite which inspires them to write a creative story.
It seems that both workshops relate to the theme of integration and importance within other areas of the curriculum. The integration of the expressive arts to other subjects in education is extremely important due to the transferral of skills and attributes such as motivation and ambition, confidence in validation of their own opinions, application of creative processes in other situations and teamwork (Education Scotland, 2013).
Although I was absent, I think that this input is particularly useful, mainly for us as student teachers because it allowed us to develop our skills in lesson planning and critical analysis which can only benefit our teaching practice.
References
Cone, T (2009) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances, Journal of Dance Education [Online] Vol.9(3), pp.81-89. Available: Taylor & Francis. [Accessed 17th December 2017]
Education Scotland (2013) Creativity Across Learning 3-18. [Online] Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/cre39-impact-report.pdf [Accessed 17th Decemebr 2017]
Hallam, S (2010) The power of music: It’s impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people, International Journal of Music Education [Online] pp.269-289. Available: http://ijm.sage.pub.com/content/28/3/269 [Accessed: 17 October 2017]
