November 2017 – Megan Baines UWS ITE ePDP

Integrated Arts- Final Week

This was our final week in the integrated arts module and unfortunately due to illness I wasn’t able to make it in.

However I though I would write a blog post on my thoughts and feelings about this module and the learning I have achieved.

Through participating in the Integrated Arts module my own confidence, self-esteem, respect and knowledge has increased for the expressive arts as a whole. Prior to this module I think I was quite close-minded towards the arts and never quite appreciated the importance and value of it in education. However, this module has completely changed my opinion of the Arts but in a positive way, it has shown me how the arts can allow children to express themselves in a creative and imaginative form. It has highlighted to me the various ways in which I could teach the arts in a classroom setting and has been an extremely useful asset so far in my placement and will continue to be in the new year.

I looked over some of the notes I missed from the final week. The class started with a lecture from Zara, dance specialist, who spoke about the importance of creative partnerships in education. This actually brought in ideas from our other module: Inter-Professional Working. It has further stressed to me how crucial inter-professional working is within education and plays a huge role for children being able to flourish in life and reach their full potential.

This module highlighted to me how much the arts is undervalued in education. From participating in this module it has shown me that as an aspiring teacher I want to open children’s minds and show them the value and importance of the arts on their learning experience. When teaching a subject like dance, music, drama or art you could bring in creative partnerships so that children can see the subject being taught by a specialist. This could help children gain and develop skills and knowledge that will help them in their life’s now and in the future.

In the workshop the sections got together to perform the dance routine we created the previous week. I was very disappointed that I wasn’t able to take part, but the video they recorded looked amazing and everyone seemed to have such a good time. Creating the dance was such an enjoyable experience and allowed me the opportunity to grow in confidence and develop and gain new skills and abilities in dance.

Prior to this module, I was very nervous and apprehensive as I have not always enjoyed the Arts. Reflecting on this, I think my negative view on Arts may be down to the negative school experience I had and being told that in art lessons my picture wasn’t of a good enough standard and not to pick the subject in the future. However, taking part in this module has shown me that creativity can be presented in so many different ways and forms and not one way is correct. I have thoroughly enjoyed this module and have had the opportunities to work within a team, embrace areas that are outwith my comfort zone and gain more knowledge and understanding of the subject as a whole.

I am going to finish this blog with a quote by Sir Ken Robinson (2006) which in my opinion sums up the whole point of why creativity and the expressive arts needs to be appreciated and valued more in education and it’s our job as future educators to make this change. “We are educating people out of their creative capacities…I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out of it”.

References:

Ted Talks, (2006). Do schools kill creativity? [Online] Available: https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity/up-next [Accessed: 30th November 2017]

Integrated Arts- Drama and Dance

This week we began with our dance class. It has been a good few weeks since we last took part in the dance class, so it was quite challenging to remember the routines we came up with. I tried to visualise the 10 movements that we had placed upon the wall to try and remember the steps that we created. We managed to remember some of them and then just came up with a few new ones. This time round we changed the music to Christmas songs which was a lot of fun and appropriate for the time of the year. As some of my group was off we joined up with another group and we all came up with new moves to fit with this piece of music.

The fun part of this class is being able to join everyone’s moves together to come up with a whole routine. It’s amazing to think that in less than 2 hours we had a whole routine created. I think this just highlights the fact that time is not always an issue when it comes to teaching the expressive arts as most of the time you can have a lesson stated and finished before playtime or lunch time. The most important thing is giving the children this opportunity, in my opinion expressive arts is of just as much value as literacy and mathematics and should be given the same amount of respect.

I believe dance is a way for children to express their thoughts and feelings through movement. It allows children to be imaginative, creative, physical and work with one another to create a movement piece that fits along with music. I used to participate in dance when I was younger and loved the feeling when a routine had been put together through everyone’s inputs, I loved the different shapes I could make with my body and being able to express myself through a piece of music. This class taught me that you don’t need to be a professional dancer to teach it to children as long as you know the 10 basic movements and some activities, that’s where the creativity will begin and the children will be able to use their own imagination to come up with a dance piece. I hope that in my placement this year I get the opportunity to witness a dance lesson and if not hopefully I could teach one to the children to show them how much fun they could have with dance.

We then followed on with a drama session. As mentioned a few weeks ago we were all taking part in a micro teaching experience. My group had presented our teaching experience the previous week and it was our turn to take part in other people’s teaching experience. This was a very fun and enjoyable experience as we got to experience the teaching from a learners view opposed to the teaching view.

This was a very interesting task as every group came up with something different. I think all groups did exceptionally well, everyone was imaginative and provided a exciting learning experience for everyone involved. We got to experiment with different drama techniques alongside a context to work with. These varied from freeze frame, fast forward, voice in the head, mime and many others. I still feel that I lack confidence at times in areas such as performing but I do feel like this module has allowed me to grow in self-esteem and be more open-minded towards drama and the many positive effects it can have on a child’s learning. I was lucky enough to witness some of the drama techniques in action in my placement, it was amazing to watch all the children get involved, come up with their own ideas and most of all have fun!

I think that through this drama class people are starting to respect and understand drama a lot more, everyone is getting involved and understanding the importance of it in the expressive arts. As an aspiring teacher I have been able to see the value and need for drama in the curriculum and it’s important that we give children the opportunity to be expressive through the different art mediums. I have thoroughly enjoyed the drama section of the module and it has greatly increased my confidence and knowledge and understanding in a topic like this one and I know it will be a huge asset in my future career as a primary teacher.

This week I think both sessions fitted perfectly with one another. They both focused on the importance of being creative, using your imagination, team work and allowed some people to step out their comfort zone and get involved. Drama allowed us to create a scene or technique completely from scratch and use our imagination to think of an idea that would be fitting with the story. Similarly with dance we had to create our own dance moves focused around Christmas, allowing and challenging us to try and create moves that were different from those around us. Both of these classes highlighted to me that they could be integrated into other subjects in the curriculum in a fun and creative way.

Sustainable Development- Energy

The past two weeks lectures focused on energy. When i reflect on my time in primary school, I remember learning a little bit about energy but i definitely learned a lot more about it in high school. From studying and learning more about energy in this module it has opened my eyes to the variety of activities and lessons that i could create to teach this topic in the classroom in a fun and enjoyable way. I feel like from the inputs in lectures and workshops on this topic i have developed numerous skills such as communication, team working, research and creativity and now feel more confident about teaching this topic.

For the first input on energy, we got to take part in a debate. The debate was to focus on ‘Alternative Energy’. We worked in small groups to read academic texts focused on wind turbines to find out information to debate about. We then went into larger groups to share our ideas and research with one another in order to work together to come up with 5 key points to debate about. We had two large groups, one for wind turbines and one against, we then had to decide which members of the group would go up to debate. Through this input i learned a lot about the skills i already possess and new ones that i have developed. Through this my team working, communication and research skills came to light. However, i also realized that i do lack confidence skills and this is something i would like to develop throughout my years in university.

The second input on energy focused on an activities we could use in the classroom such as creating a model of a wind turbine. This was an activity that we could to try ourselves and then create a lesson plan based on this activity. When it came to creating the model, we had to ensure that we had the appropriate resources and that we read our instructions correctly in order for our model to work. I was really happy with my end result and it is definitely an activity that I would try in the classroom.

When it came to creating the lesson plan we worked in partners and it was very interesting and fun. I really enjoyed being able to understand how doing an activity like this would be created and written up in a lesson plan. It was a good experience to work cooperatively with someone else and see how they would write up a lesson plan opposed to how I would do it. We managed to finish our lesson plan and we were really happy with the finished result.

From both these inputs my knowledge and skills in energy have definitely increased and improved. It was a topic that I didn’t think I would be interested in but now experiencing it in a different way I would love to teach this in the classroom. There are lots of resrouces and activities out there to help with teaching a topic like this that would be fun and enjoyable for the children. There are activities such as creating energy circuits, making a wind turbine, creating animals that use energy and many more. Energy is such a relevant topic and is important to teach as it is something that surrounds us in everyday life.

Integrated Arts- Everyone’s Experience

This week’s class began with listening and learning about everyone in my section’s experience of what arts they have witnessed in their school placement so far. It was very interesting and surprising to find out that the majority of people had seen very little if not any arts lessons within their school. I found that it was very intriguing to realize that in most schools arts is taken a back seat prior to literacy and mathematics. I think its sad to see that the arts isn’t given priority as it can provide children with a variety of skills in order to help them learn and grow into young individuals. It provides children with the opportunity to develop their creativity, confidence, motor skills, academic performance, visual learning, decision making, perseverance and focus (Learning Lift Off, 2017).

When we discussed as a class our experiences it was clear to see that arts was given a back seat due to a number of barriers. These barriers included aspects such as: time, funding, lack of confidence in teachers, lack of creative thinking, to much focus on academic results and lack of resources. I think this module has enabled us as student teachers to realize the importance of the arts and that it is important that we ensure that we try and overcome these barriers to the arts and give our pupils the opportunity to experience and express themselves through the arts. I think one way to overcome the most common barrier to teaching the arts, which is time, is to try and incorporate it into different areas of the curriculum. You could do this by having a literacy lesson based on a book that the class have read and been learning about, but deliver it through a drama lesson with the children.

Reflecting on my experience in placement, I have witnessed a wide range of visual arts displayed around the classroom I am placed in as well as around the whole school. I think it is extremely important to display pupil’s work as it shows them that we as teachers appreciate their work and value their hard work and creativity.

Displays of the children’s work in the classroom.

The class charter displayed visually in the classroom.

The boats the children made based on the titanic.

Art work displayed throughout the school.

As well as being able to witness the visual arts. I have also been lucky enough to witness a music lesson. I have inquired about being able to see a drama or dance lesson, which the teacher said will not be a problem when I am at my placement from a Monday-Friday. I think the main problem for everyone who is on placement right now is that because we are only there a day a week, their arts lesson isn’t always scheduled for a Thursday therefore I believe when we are there for more days we will be able to see more of the arts in action and make a better evaluation of how much attention the arts is given in schools.

From doing this module, it has highlighted to me the importance of the arts and that when i become a teacher i want to try my hardest to ensure that i give children the opportunity to express and develop themselves through the arts.

References:

Teaching and Learning, (2015). Creativity in Education. [Online] [Available: http://c21teachingandlearning.global2.vic.edu.au/2015/02/20/barriers-to-creativity-in-the-classroom/] [Accessed: 17th November 2017]

Learning Lift Off, (2016). 10 reasons arts in education is important. [Online] [Available: http://www.learningliftoff.com/10-reasons-arts-in-education-important-kids/#.WhNFNUpl_IU] [Accessed: 17th November 2017]

Integrated Arts- Micro Teaching

In this weeks music seminar we were given a fantastic opportunity to learn how to play a string instrument. A group of pupils from a school in Ayrshire came to teach us all how to play a string instrument. These pupils were part of a string project, the only school in Scotland, where they are given the chance to learn a string instrument from primary 4 to primary 7. They are given the opportunity to take part in a 45 minute music session in school every week where they learn how to use their string instrument and how to progress with it. A project like this helps children to develop so many skills such as team working, confidence, self-esteem, creativity and many more. This ties in with the Curriculum for Excellence in aiding children to become a successful learner, confident individual, responsible citizen and an effective contributor (Curriculum for Excellence, 2004).

During the lesson, we were shown the correct way to hold a string instrument, how to hold the bow, learning notes and the two different ways of playing: pizzicato and spiccato. We were all told to partner up with a pupil and their instrument and so I was given the violin. I have never played the violin before so i was slightly nervous before the class began. I think the violin looks like such a beautiful instrument and after playing it i realized it also had such an incredible, soft sound to it.

We also got to play a range of games to help with the technique of holding the bow in the correct position. These games were a lot of fun and is a great way of teaching beginners all about the bow and the balance you need whilst holding it.

Overall, this input was so much fun and a great learning experience. It was so interesting and enjoyable having pupils in to teach us instead of the other way about. It was an excellent opportunity to be able to be taught the basics of learning how to play the violin and i thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the string project should be introduced into many more schools around Scotland, as i think its a brilliant initiative that many children would benefit from as they are able learn and develop a range of skills in order for them to flourish into young individuals.

This weeks drama workshop focused on micro teaching. Prior to this lesson, we had to get into groups and create our own lesson plan focusing on a story that involved the drama conventions we had been learning and then teach this to the class. Our lesson should be around 15-20 minutes long and everyone in the class had to get involved. This task was quite challenging especially in the time aspect. It was hard for our team to all work together when we all have different schedules and the time we had to do create the lesson wasn’t very long. However, we managed to make it work by each team member taking a different convention and fitting it into the story in a way in which we can teach and explain to the class. From creating the lesson i developed a range of skills such as: time management, team working, organisational skills, creativity and research skills.

I was very nervous for when it came to teaching the lesson and found the thought of it all quite daunting. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t come across as patronizing as they weren’t a primary class, they were a class of students similar ages to me, if not older. In the end, it wasn’t as bad as i thought it would be it was actually a lot of fun. Each member of the team took a part to say and presented it very well. We got some great feedback mainly about how it was really good that we came up with our own story instead of taking an original storybook. We were all very happy with this feedback as this was something that we were originally worried about as we were unsure about how people would take to a made up story. Although in the end it was very effective and it meant that each group had their own idea of where the story could go and how it could end.

We also had to take part in the other students micro teaching task. I think I am starting to become a little bit more confident in performing, however I still get very shy and nervous but I am trying to overcome this fear as I want to have fun and be able to implement enjoyable lessons like this into the classroom.

I think this micro teaching lesson was so interesting and was a very effective, fun task for us all to take part in. It was a great opportunity to see how we can implement these conventions into a lesson plan and how we would carry them out in the classroom. From doing a task like this, you develop a range of skills and learn a lot from the people around you. This can be an important lesson for children as they can learn a lot from working with other children and can develop a variety of skills that might not always develop when being taught by a teacher.

References:

Education Scotland, (2017). What is Curriculum for Excellence. [Online] [Available: https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/What%20is%20Curriculum%20for%20Excellence?] [Accessed: 13th November 2017]

Integrated Arts- The importance of Voice

This weeks lecture and seminar focused on the importance of your voice in teaching. As a teacher, one of your most effective tools is your voice so it is therefore important to learn exactly how to use it in order for it to be a useful resource in teaching and communicating. Therefore, this weeks seminar focused on tips and tricks that we could use to help protect our voice and ways to use it to the best of our ability. One tip that I found very interesting and useful was that there is no need to shout in a classroom. Sometimes as a teacher, you forget that shouting to get the children’s attention isn’t always the best approach as its not always effective and can hurt our voice in the process. I think some teachers find this a good way of controlling behavior management but in my past experiences of being on placement in schools and nurseries i found that shouting didn’t ever really get anywhere with the pupils. A better technique I think would be to change the tone of your voice, use facial expressions or even sometimes clapping a rhythm to the pupils for them to clap back can be an extremely effective tool to use in the classroom.

I researched the importance of our voice as teachers and how being expressive with our voice by using different facial expressions. true emotion and our tone of voice when speaking can help the children learn to be expressive as well (School of Educators, 2011). I also learned that using the whisper technique can be extremely effective with young children as it seems to “signal intrigue, mystery, secrets and more”. These techniques are definitely going to be ones that i try whilst on placement and in my future career as a teacher.

We were also told that the General Teaching Council have a whole document outlining the importance of our voice and what to do if we feel like our voice has been effected. I think this is an excellent tool as it gives you lots of advice and information on how to use your voice effectively in a classroom but also what to do and different techniques to use if your voice gets damaged. Its a very useful resource to have whilst on placement and in years to come when we have our own class to teach.

Moving on from this, we looked at how we use our voice through music and how important singing is in a classroom setting. We were shown a resource called Choon Baboon that we can use with the children. This website is a brilliant, new and modern way to get children singing. There is a variety of songs available on YouTube with backing tracks and lyrics to help teach the children. It is a fantastic, fun resource to help build not only the children’s self esteem, confidence and expression but also the teachers. This is definetly a resource I would use as I lack a lot of confidence in teaching music and this tool would be a huge help in my development.

We also looked at a technique called Graphic Scores which is a visual tool that makes reading music a lot easier. It is created with boxes, along the side you have that sounds that have to be used and along the bottom is the time frame. We got split into groups, our group of 6 created a graphic score focusing on Christmas using a variety of instruments.

Our Graphic Score for our Christmas Song

Video (2)

Overall, this seminar was very fun, interesting and informative. I learned a lot of different techniques of how to manage my voice in teaching as well as fantastic resources to help teach singing in the classroom. I feel a lot more confident about teaching music after seeing some of the tools out there to help.

After this seminar, we had our drama workshop. We were following on from last week’s class where we were looking at different drama techniques that we can explore and use in the classroom. This week we focused on four particular conventions varying from flash forward, flash back, narration and slow motion. My favorite convention was the flash forward scene as it allows your group to be creative and create your own ending for the story. This week’s story was based on a haunted house which was very relevant as it was coming Halloween. It was a very fun and creative idea as because the story was quite vague it allowed for each group to have their own individual idea. For flash forward scenes, we had to create what was happening after the present situation and flash back was the opposite that involved showing what happened before the present situation. As a group, we decided to make our flash back scene from centuries ago and it was very different and enjoyable to create. For, slow motion we returned to the present where we were entering the haunted house to see what it was all about. We also got to create a scene were we used narration which was when someone in the group would describe what was happening in the scene.

From taking part in a seminar like this, it highlighted for me the importance of using a story that children don’ know what happens so that when they are creating the scene the children are able to be creative and use their imagination to create a different story from another group.

References:

School of Educators, (2011). How to use your voice as an effective teaching tool. [Online] [Available: http://schoolofeducators.com/2011/07/teacher-tips-how-to-use-your-voice-as-an-effective-teaching-tool/] [Accessed: 3rd November 2017]

Choon Baboon, (2017) Choon Baboon. [Online] [Available: http://choonbaboon.com/] [Accessed: 3rd November 2017]

Sustainable Development- Natural Disasters

This week was our time to present our natural disaster presentations to the rest of the class. Previous to this, we were split into groups and each group were given a natural disaster to research and then present to the class.

Our group was given earthquakes. We wanted to make our presentation classroom friendly and one that supplied enough information and facts for our peers but could be used as a lesson plan. From taking part in a task like this I feel like I have developed numerous skills such as: communication, team working, time management, organisation, research as well as listening and computer skills.

Some parts of this task I did find challenging as I feel like time played a major problem for the group. This was because it was a struggle trying to find a time where every member in the group was free to rehearse, especially as we were only given a week to carry out the task. However, we did manage to pull it all together and deliver a good, well researched presentation to the rest of the class. I particularly liked that from watching everyone’s presentations we were able to get different information on the natural disasters as well as different ideas on how we can present and teach these disasters to children.

Additionally, from the previous weeks workshop on natural disasters, I gained some knowledge on the type of activities we could carry out in the classroom e.g. fossil making, tornado in a jar and a baking soda and vinegar volcano. I found this lesson fun and interesting as it gave me some ideas in implementing natural disasters in the classroom.

The skills and information that I have been able to gain from this lesson and topic can and will be a crucial role into my development as a teacher.

Below I have attached a copy of the presentation we created.

Earthquakes-update