Following on from last week, we were now on the delivering end in front of everyone- leading a microteaching lesson. Our lesson was based on the renown childrens fairy-tale: ‘’Goldilocks and the three bears.’’ Through a trial and error process, we finally agreed on this one as a group due to the powerful message it portrays. As teachers, it is vital to always provide children with a purpose, they need to be informed why they are completing an activity and what is the relevance of it. This fable illustrates the idea of how your actions can affect others- through the concept of trespassing. If teaching a lesson on this in the classroom, it could involve the GIRFEC well-being indicators, as we have a duty of care to ensure all children are: safe, healthy, active, nurtured, achieving, respected, responsible and included which is recalled by the acronym: SHANARRI (Scottish Government, 2017.) This story effectively covers all areas of the GIRFEC well-being indicators to highlight the importance of this to students as they should be aware of this. It ensures every child is being provided with a fair chance to excel in all areas of the cfe framework.
We incorporated hot seating, improvisation and mime through a range of activities. Overall, our experience was relatively positive. As a next step, I would encourage all to mange our time more efficiently, as, there is not enough hours in the day to relentlessly run out of time in lessons. We have to set timers in our inputs and be consciously aware of the limitations due to time in the classroom environment.
This week we were introduced to music- before beginning I was not aware of the several cognitive benefits music has on a childs development as it develops the specific area of the brain while interacting within music. Music has been evolving all throughout history and will continue to elevate stress for some or pump up the spirits of others. Personally, music is my coping mechanism through challenging times and helps me concentrate whilst studying. Some of the benefits for our young learners include: improving fine motor skills through handling instruments, improves young peoples memory which includes remembering info for all academic areas; enhances thinking skills and encourages children to work well under pressure (Arts Education Partnership, 2011.) These skills are transferrable across the curriculum and could be useful in later life within the workplace. In todays lesson we listened to a track called: ”Shostakovich Piano Concerto No.2” as a stimulus for a piece of creative writing. We were then tasked in groups to congregate our ideas into one story- each group came up with a different story- which conveyed to me the power of our imagination! This would be an excellent exercise to use in the classroom as it would be interesting to see what the children could come up with.
In teaching, communication will continue to be vital for all professionals as well as students. When integrated arts can be utilised to make lessons more active and engaging,:we should take this on board. We must ensure all areas of the curriculum are being taught and remain focused on not forcing our likes and dislikes on children.
References:
Arts Education Partnership (2011) Music Matters [online] available: file:///C:/Users/derby/Downloads/Music%20Matters%20Final%20(3).pdf [Accessed: 25th October, 2019]
Scottish Government (2017) Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) [online] available: https://www.gov.scot/policies/girfec/wellbeing-indicators-shanarri/ [Accessed 25th October, 2019]
