Dance – lecture

In the lecture today we spoke about the importance of delivering creative dances into our classrooms and the benefits it can bring. Providing children with an opportunity to create a dance which reflects their ideas can be a very powerful experience (Cone, 2009).  Cone also states that creative dance should be fun, safe, meaningful wand a child led activity (2009)

Participating in creative dance can help children to develop confidence, physical  and mental well being, communication skills and self esteem. Teachers should be embracing creative dance  as it allows children’s self esteem to be improved which can be useful when teaching other curricular activities .

We also spoke about the role of the teacher when teaching creative dance. Some of the things we discussed about was believing in children’s ideas and valuing the process taken to learn the creative dance.

Dance – workshop

The workshop involved us planning a dance lesson. Each group was given a different task to teach to the rest of the class. We were split into 5 different groups and each group had one of the following lesson to plan:

• Christmas games
• Warm- up (top-half)
• Warm-up (bottom-half)
• 10 step Christmas dance)
• Christmas Visual Stimulus

our group was involved in coming with with a warm-up lesson for the bottom half of the body and teaching it to the rest of the class. Doing this has helped me to build up my confidence.

I found this workshop very useful as it allowed me to see how a lesson within a classroom should be planned  and implemented.

Drama

The drama workshop involved 3 groups carrying out their micro-teaching task. Since my group presented our micro-teaching the previous week, I was able to look into how the other groups has planned their micro-teaching this week.

References:

Cone, P. (2009) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances, Journal of Dance Education, 9:3, pp.81-89 [Online] Available at: http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/109357/mod_resource/content/1/Purcell%20Cone%20%282011%29.pdf[Accessed 21 November 2017]

Visual Arts

In this week’s visual arts workshop, we focused on the arts practice we had seen during placement. Teaching arts in schools is important as “​The inspiration and power of the arts play a vital role in enabling our children and young people to enhance their creative talent and develop their artistic skills.” (Education Scotland, nd). In my placement, I had observed very few art lessons being taught. Although some of the students had observed some good arts practices whilst in their placement, it is clear that arts is not given the same amount of importance as literacy and numeracy.  It is the responsibility of the teacher to ensure that they are providing children with the experiences to become creative and this can be done by enabling them to take part in arts.  Creativity is “a process which generates ideas that have value to the individual. It involves looking at familiar things with a fresh eye, examining problems with an open mind, making connections, learning from mistakes and using imagination to explore new possibilities” (Scottish government, 2013, p3).

We also spoke about teachers having high tolerance for mess and noise as children often tend to get messy and noisy when they taking part in arts.

Music

In the music workshop, we looked at rhythm and beat. We used the drumsticks to tap the beat of the music. I found this activity very challenging  as we through the different levels,

References:

Scottish Government (2013) Creativity Across Learning https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/Creativity/CRE1_WhatAreCreativitySkills/Creativity3to18.pdf [ Accessed 10/12/2017]

Education Scotland (nd) https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/curriculum-areas/Expressive%20arts [ Accessed: 11/12/2017)

Drama – lecture

In today’s lecture,  Andrew spoke to us about the importance of being confident whilst teaching drama. Building our confidence can help us to teach drama effectively to the children as well as helping them build their confidence  Doing this is important as confidence is once of the four capacities in the curriculum for excellence document. In addition, It is  important that children enjoy what they are doing. if children enjoy their drama, they are more likely to participate.

We also watched a video which showed us an example of a drama lesson being carried out in a classroom.

https://youtu.be/qkaCtuJBD5A

A good drama lesson involves discovering the unknown, learning new things and creating meanings (Wilston, 1998). Classroom drama is all about children gaining experience rather than them performing  (Neelands, 1990).

Drama – workshop

In the drama workshop, i was involved in carrying out a micro-teaching task which involved planning and presenting a drama lesson based on a book. We were split in groups to carry out this task and my group chose the book “peter rabbit”. Taking part in this activity has helped me to develop my confidence when teaching drama. i have also gained knowledge about how the different conventions can be used within a classroom.

Music

For the music workshop, 30 students from Greenmill Primary School came to teach us about string instruments. It felt good to know how much children enjoyed being part of the string project. I learned some of the games that children played in school during their music lesson. I was also paired with one of the children who taught me how to play the cello. Being able to talk to children about their experience of music and how it benefited was good.

References:

Winston, J.(1998) Drama, Narrative and Moral Education. London:Falmer Press

(Neelands, J. (1990) Making Sense of Classroom Drama: A guide to classroom practice Heinemann Educational Books