dance – Louise MacDonald UWS ITE ePDP

November 29, 2017December 20, 2017

Integrated Arts Week 12 – 28th November 2017

Today we finalised our section dance. Due to low attendance, both sections were asked to come together to create a dance to be filmed. This meant that students from both sections had to learn the various steps of each other’s dance; this was an effective way to build our tolerance for ambiguity. Once recorded, we watched the video back and using a ‘three stars and a wish’ method, we evaluated our own individual performances, and one other student’s performance. This is an important part of teaching dance, as not only is it one of the three strands of dance as suggested by Smith-Autard (2002), it is also stated that learners should be given opportunities to develop “their capacity to enjoy dance through evaluating performances and commenting on their work and the work of others.” (Scottish Government, n.d.)

The afternoon’s final music input was to be self-directed due to staff illness, and with technicians needing access to the room to deal with faulty lighting, we were restricted in the amount of time we had to spend working through the material on Moodle. However, as only four of us turned up, we could help and support each other well. We used the material provided in advance by the lecturer, to try out some of the instruments, including the ukulele, guitar and piano. I found this extremely beneficial, as I was able to utilise the knowledge and expertise of my peers to improve my own skills and abilities with these instruments, and increase my knowledge and understanding of music terminology and notation, using the constructive feedback received from my colleagues.

Playing Wham’s “Last Christmas” on the ukelele

The element of peer evaluation and feedback in each of today’s inputs was an effective way to round off the Integrated Arts module. As prospective teachers, it is important that we become familiar with and indeed welcome constructive feedback from our peers and colleagues to inform our own development; the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) require both student and qualified teachers to “evaluate their classroom practice, taking account of feedback from others, in order to enhance teaching and learning” (GTCS, 2012).

REFERENCES

General Teaching Council for Scotland, (2012) The Standards for Registration: Mandatory Requirements for Registration with the General Teaching Council for Scotland [Online] Available: www.gtcs.org.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.aspx?lID=3029&sID=7417 [Accessed: 15 August 2017]

Scottish Government (n.d.) Curriculum for Excellence Edinburgh: Scottish Executive

Smith-Autard, J. (2002) The Art of Dance Education London: A & C Black

November 22, 2017December 20, 2017

Integrated Arts Week 11 – 21st November 2017

This week began with the continuation of the microteaching tasks in drama. Having presented with my group the previous week, this gave me a chance to participate as part of the audience for other groups, without the pressure of presenting. Each of the lessons were enjoyable, however the final group decided to aim their lesson at CfE fourth level students, tackling the issue of misogyny and violence towards women. I found this to be highly engaging and motivating, and at times it was difficult to remember that my fellow students were just playing a part, as they played their roles so well. They used techniques that we had learned about earlier in the module but no other group had used, such as throwing a scrunched-up piece of paper at a life-sized outline of a character whilst verbally expressing our feelings toward that character. This was a very effective way to engross the pupils as active participants in the drama, and get them engaged with the theme of the drama. It is also a good way to allow pupils to convey their feelings and thoughts, which is one of the drama experiences and outcomes for the expressive arts in Curriculum for Excellence (Scottish Government, n.d. p.65):

Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through drama.

EXA 0-13a / EXA 1-13a / EXA 2-13a

It was really useful to see drama used to tackle social justice issues, and gave me a good insight into how I can use drama to explore controversial issues within the classroom, by adapting the lesson to suit the age and maturity levels of my pupils. In this way, drama can also be used to help children develop strategies to use in situations where they are faced with difficult choices, preparing them to be responsible citizens and confident individuals, two of the capacities that Curriculum for Excellence aims to develop in our children and young people.

Within the dance lecture, we looked at the Midway Model for dance in schools (Smith-Autard, 2002). This model proposes that both the process and the product of creative dance are equally valuable, emphasising the importance of the aesthetic aspect of the arts as well as the creative. We also watched a video of a Parkour project undertaken with high school pupils from the local authority, which can be viewed here. This was an appealing project, as it moved the focus for the young boys involved away from traditional competitive sports, whilst giving them the opportunity to develop physical and creative skills, compose a routine and perform on stage, in much the same way as pupils would create a dance performance. Although there were considerable costs involved in funding a qualified instructor, this is something that I think would be highly beneficial to consider implementing, particularly with upper primary children who may not engage with dance as well as hoped.

In the workshop, the lecturer handed over leadership of the learning to us students. Giving each group a different task, we worked collaboratively to create a stretching routine, a warm up, and ten basic dance moves, all around a Christmas theme. Each group then ‘taught’ their activity to the rest of the section. This reinforces the role of the teacher as facilitator, providing the structure and framework for pupils to choreograph their own creative dance, developing problem solving skills, working cooperatively and taking responsibility and ownership of their learning.

This passing control of the content to pupils tied in with the microteaching activities in the drama workshop – giving us the opportunity to practice our teaching skills in each area, and also to put ourselves in the shoes of the learner.

REFERENCES

Scottish Government (n.d.) Curriculum for Excellence Edinburgh: Scottish Executive

Smith-Autard, J. (2002) The Art of Dance Education London: A & C Black

October 25, 2017December 19, 2017

Integrated Arts Week 7 – 24th October 2017

Looking at another children’s story, based around a single event involving a brother and sister who didn’t get on, we were introduced to a further five drama conventions: Role on the wall, VoxPop, Mime, Thought tracking and Voice in head. This topic felt much more prescribed, and restrictive, compared to the previous drama input based on the Dragon tale. By using a book as a stimulus, albeit a digital version of the book, there was a different atmosphere and I felt after the freedom of previous session, this method was more rigid. However, I can see how taking a more structured approach to drama can aid the teacher in leading the children to a deliberate learning outcome, which is sometimes necessary to ensure the children are getting something from the lesson.

The second input this week was our second dance session. The focus today was on consolidating the skills and steps developed in the last session, through refining our group routine and adding in some steps to create a whole class performance.

To warm up, we formed a large circle and agreed upon 10 different dance moves, each assigned a number from 0-9. These moves were all Halloween related, given that this is the week leading up to Halloween. We had various moves, from a swooping Dracula twirl, to the zap of a fairy wand. We were then given a sheet of maths questions, and in our smaller groups we had to work out the answers (funnily enough, all corresponding to the dance moves) and perform the correlating dance moves in that order. This was a fantastic example of how dance can be integrated into other curricular areas, and develop skills that can be used across all areas of a child’s life, using team work, initiative, cooperation and taking responsibility for their part. It also develops memory and retention.

We then moved on to another task, in which each group was given a different printed image. All of the images were again Halloween related, although this task could easily be adapted to any topic by using images related to the chosen topic. In this way, this would be an ideal way to integrate dance into an IDL topic in the classroom. Our group was given an image of a haunted house, and we came up with a dance move that we felt represented that image. We then came back together as a section, and each group demonstrated their move for the other groups to imitate. Lastly, we put all the moves together in a choreographed, timed structure and rehearsed this a number of times. This would be the beginning of our whole section dance, which will incorporate our group dances in turn. We also developed an opening sequence, similar to a Mexican wave, and created entrance and exit dances for each group, finishing up with a finale step. Our dance will be filmed in a couple of weeks.

Two key points I have taken from today’s inputs, are the importance of giving learners time to think, and the use of structure within the arts. In order to extract the creativity from learners, giving them adequate time to formulate their thoughts and ideas, whether through creating dance moves, or planning a short drama scene, is essential (Eisner, 2004). Rushing learners to come up with an answer can impact on their confidence if they do not feel they have been able to get their idea across accurately.

Providing structure to a lesson, giving the children a framework to use to come up with their ideas can be a useful way to introduce a topic within the arts to children. It is an essential skill of a teacher to be able to judge how much structure, and time, to provide learners. A careful balance is needed to allow creativity to flourish. Cone (2009) stresses the importance of allowing children to develop their learning, with the teacher being able to step back and refrain from interferring with the creative process.

REFERENCES

Cone, Theresa Purcell. (2009) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas For Creating Dances Journal Of Dance Education [Online] Vol.9(3), pp.81-89. Available: EBSCOhost. [Accessed: 17 October 2017]

Eisner, E. (2004) What Can Education Learn from the Arts about the Practice of Education? International Journal of Education & the Arts Vol.5(4) pp.1-13

October 17, 2017December 18, 2017

Integrated Arts Week 6 – 17th October 2017

Dance

This week, we experienced the first of the dance inputs in the module. We began with some fun, engaging activities that would be an ideal way to introduce the topic of dance in the classroom: an adaptation of Chinese whispers, using a sequence of dance moves which were passed along a chain of participants, or a follow-the-leader style conga line allows the children to develop confidence in dance by using a format they are already familiar with. These activities can develop skills that are transferrable to other areas – memory retention, following instructions and team work. Other activities, such as the teacher/lecturer directing students to move around the space in a certain way, e.g. skipping, jumping etc, with the aim of getting themselves into a group of whichever number they heard called out and performing a dance move or forming a specific shape, can be integrated into various parts of the curriculum, for example a warm up for a gym class, or outside in the playground for an outdoor health and wellbeing lesson.

The next activity urged us to think about the importance of warming up before dance. By drawing around one student from the group, then labelling the body outline with the various muscles and bones. This highlights the vast range of body parts that are used to create any movement, and is a great cross-curricular activity to do with pupils as it incorporates biology, expands vocabulary, increases spatial awareness and develops knowledge of how the body works. This follows on to a stretching activity which gives children some skills to use to warm up in other areas of physical activity.

The final stage in this input was to develop our own dance routine, based on the 10 principle steps of dance: twist, reach, roll, slide, gesture, hop, jump, kick, turn, and balance. This method of teaching dance gives participants a structure to use, which can be essential to encourage the most rhythmically challenged to participate, whilst still allowing for use of creativity and imagination. Children can use their own interpretation of the steps to develop a meaningful piece of dance, which is an important outlet for them to explore their creativity and express their own thoughts and ideas (Cone, 2009). The 10-step basis for dance is also a key tool for teachers who lack confidence in their own dance skills and knowledge, as the simple structure is easy to apply and demonstrate, lending itself well to child-led learning.

Music

Today’s music session centred around the importance of music in education. We considered why music matters in the lecture, and this was followed up by a look at some of the academic research and theory underpinning the teaching of music. The importance of participation, whether through performing, composing, playing, singing or just listening and evaluating music, was stressed. Music is a valuable instrument (no pun intended) for social development in children – it develops a sense of identity and increases self-esteem, whilst allowing expression of feelings, ideas and memories which aid in developing emotional resilience (Hallam, 2010). Music can also have physical benefits; pain reduction, a drop in stress levels and decreased fatigue are all elements that Jensen (2008) attributes to music.

Music also has a significant impact on other areas of development: experience with music enables learners to develop the ability to discriminate pitch, which is a valuable asset to phonological awareness necessary for learning to read. Learning to read musical notation requires mathematical skills, develops visual and rhythmic skills and encourages print awareness. Music increases memory retention, critical thinking and creativity skills which are then easily transferred to other areas. Overall, students who regularly participate in musical education yielded higher grades than their non-musical counterparts, and, perhaps most notably, there was no discernible damage to pupils’ attainment due to less time in the classroom whilst receiving music tuition (Hallam, 2010). This is a notable finding, as the possible detriment of grades and attainment is one of the issues that teachers face in delivering the arts in education today.

The overarching theme within both inputs today is without a doubt the importance of the arts in other areas of the curriculum. Both music and dance can allow children to develop skills that will be essential in literacy, numeracy and physical development.

REFERENCES

Hallam, S. (2010) The power of music: Its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people International Journal of Music Education [Online] Vol.28(3) pp.269-289. Available: Sage. [Accessed: 17 October 2017]

Jensen, E. (2008) Brain-based Learning: the new paradigm of teaching California: Corwin