This week I started back university and stepped into Second year with an open mind, more than ready to learn all about our first module which was Integrated Arts. We were given a brief introduction to the module and talked through assessment details but we were also given some vital advice on how to best deal with the module, such as developing a tolerance for ambiguity and messiness.
The two aspects that we focussed on this week was Drama and Visual arts. In drama, we looked at Improvisation and different ways of using it within the classroom, such as Thought tunnel. Some of the methods were teacher lead, such as Hot Seating or Teacher in Role, whilst others where more group lead, like Freeze Frame.
In Visual arts, we first looked at ‘Teaching Art and Design 3-11’, were we discovered that children’s development with art and design happen in stages but children work shouldn’t be exclusively held to these stages as they are influenced by different sources, such as culture and rate of development. We also looked at different children’s work that’s been collected over several decades and I noted that the younger children’s work was more creative and filled with colour and imagination whist the work of the older children was less expressive and looked like they were working to certain requirements rather than their own free choice.
I believe that Drama and the Visual arts are similar in the way that they allow children to express how they’re feeling without actually having to use words. They can use a variety of mediums to express emotions in so many different ways but it doesn’t
have to make sense to anyone but themselves.
