Month: October 2019

The lecture this week was really special because it was taken by a group of Norwegian students who were over visiting our university and they spoke to us about their county and their university. It was really interesting to listen to because I didn’t have a lot of previous knowledge on the country, like how they speak two different depending on which part of the country you live in. They also told us lots about their degree and I was surprised to hear how different it is to ours, such as their course is a Masters degree and in their 3rd year placement, they partake in a school take over where the staff leave and the school is ran by the student teachers.

Our visual arts inputs looked at creating art outdoors, for example, sculptures. To begin, we looked at some well known outdoor artists and one that I really liked in particular was Andy Goldsworthy. I really liked the way he uses a variety of outdoor materials. We also learned that outdoor learning is big thing in Norway so they spoke about how they try to incorporate outdoor learning into everything(literacy, maths, etc). Our task this week was to create a piece using the materials outside without harming the environment. Our group decided to take inspiration from our guests and created a copy of the Norwegian flag using a leaf, some twigs and red berries. I found the outdoor learning really interesting and captivating. However, you would have to carefully plan out your lesson. It could be very distracting for some pupils because theres lots of different noises, environments, sights, etc.

Our music input this week looked at using apps and online resources to create music. We focused on the app GarageBand and used it to create an autumnal piece. The app had a wide variety of instruments available and the app was actually really straight forward to use. It was a really engaging input because we were all allowed to use our own creativity and explore and investigate different sounds and how they all worked together. This links really well with the Scottish Governments Experiences and Outcomes for First level which says “I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound, rhythm, pitch and dynamics”. One important thing to consider before trying something like this with a class would be to use headphones as it can be very distracting with everyone playing over each other and it could be hard to control.

The link that I found between the two sessions would be creating art using unconventional materials.

References

Education Scotland (2017) Curriculum For Excellence: Experiences and Outcomes [Online] Available:https://education.gov.scot/Documents/All-experiencesoutcomes18.pdf [Accessed: 23rd of October 2019]

This week, in our visual art input, we looked at the technique of printing. We briefly spoke about the history of printing and how it made books more accessible to everyone because previously, the only widely available book was the bible. We then looked at an artist called Bob and Roberta Smith who used printing to create powerful pieces about art and art education. This helped, for me, to highlight a link between visual arts and literacy. It showed that you can use literacy to create statements and then use different art techniques to create an eye-catching poster, card, display, etc. We then had a go at creating our own printed pieces, which was really fun. We firstly had to create a statement about an area that we feel very passionate about. I personally choose the topic of mental health and used the statement ‘ Love Yourself No Matter What’ We then had to draw it out and trace it onto polystyrene tiles. We then painted the tiles using brightly coloured paints and hoped that our print would work. Unfortunately, my print was unsuccessful but that’s okay in art. If something doesn’t work out the way you planned, you can try again maybe with different materials or using a different technique. You might not get the result you wanted but it might still be okay.

Our music input looked at rhythm and patterns this week. We began by talking about musical notation and what a variety of different notes stand for. However, we also talked about how it is okay if you don’t use conventional notations and instead use shapes, colours or figures. We used shapes to begin with and I found this easier and a lot more straight forward then trying to understand the music notes right from the start. We also learned about the difference between pulse and rhythm. Whilst a pulse is regular, like a heartbeat, a rhythm can be a mixture of long and short beats. Once we had went over the basics, we got a chance to have a go at playing some music. We all got a set of either drumsticks or beaters and we were to play along with the music on the screen. I found this really fun and thought that this was really engaging way to learn music. Music was never a subject that I enjoyed or thought that I was particularly good at but I actually really enjoyed this input and didn’t feel stressed out or anxious like I normally did during music lessons in school.

Our lecture this week introduced us to the subject of music and that music can have quite the impact in the primary class.  We looked at lots of academic studies that showed that music can actually help with other subjects, such as maths or English.  We  also learned that music can help with social skills because it’s not a solitary subject, for example, orchestras. The orchestra is made up of lots of smaller groups of instruments and they need to work together, within their section and within the whole orchestra. This was something I had never thought about. When I was in primary school, I used to play the cello but I never really saw music as a strong subject of mine. I viewed it in a similar way to art and that it was a subject that you were either good or bad at, it wasn’t something that you could improve on.

In our music workshop, we looked at how moods and how music can affect and create our moods. We listened to some different pieces of music and then had to write about how it made us feel. There was such a wide variety of answers given, even within my small peer group, which highlighted the fact that music can make everyone feel something different because of things like your background, life experiences, etc. We also discussed how even if you don’t personally feel confident teaching music, you can’t deny your pupils the opportunity. You may not feel confident teaching maths or English but you still need to teach it so why should you treat music like an option. Music can also be used to inspire creativity within the classroom. We done this by listening to a piece of music and taking notes of what we think might be happening during the music. We then had to come up with a story as a group and draw out a story board illustrating it. We then all presented our stories to the rest of the class and noticed that although there were some differences, such as characters or settings, everyones stories followed a similar storyline. It started off with a happy beginning but then because elements of the music, such as the tempo, volume and pitch, changed and sounded more aggressive, everyones story experienced a dangerous twist.

This week was our turn to do our drama micro-teaching exercise. We decided to focus ours on the book ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. We started our lesson my reading part of the book to the class and then doing a whole class warm up of acting out walking through the different environments mentioned in the book. We then read the rest the book up until they find the bear in the cave and used the conventions freeze frame and thought tunnel. In the freeze frame, the groups had to show their reaction to seeing the bear for the fist time and in the thought tunnels, everyone had to say a word that they felt described the bear. We then finally finished the story and this was when we done our final convention which was teacher in role. Once I put on my jacket, I took on the role of the bear and the rest of the class asked me questions, including why I chased the family and how I was feeling. From asking the questions, the class worked out that the bear was actually just lonely and only chased the family because he wanted some company.  We then finished the lesson by saying that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover because we all thought the bear was scary but in reality, it was misunderstood.

I really enjoyed doing my micro-teaching because it was my first real experience teaching and personally, I thought that it went really well. Drama is something I’ve really enjoyed doing both in and out of uni so for that to be one of the first subjects that I teach was a very important personal moment for me. It also made me really look forward to going out on placement and further teaching and exploring different subjects.

This weeks Visual Arts input opened with looking at “adult” colouring sheets. We discussed how the colouring sheets provide you with a problem that you have to solve and that every art lesson should work like this, children should be solving a problem using their own creativity and imagination. I thought that this was a really useful to remember for future practice because it shows that art lessons should still be making children think critically like they would in literacy or maths lessons.  We then moved on to look back at our Scottish Highland paintings from last week. We were going to spend some time reworking our paintings using chalks and coloured pencils. By using dry materials on top of the paint meant we could enhance the image and add definition that couldn’t be done by wet paint. We then combined text and image together by writing over the painting with either memories or feelings that we had about the highlands. I’ve never visited the Highlands so I didn’t have any personal experiences to draw upon so I used a poem about the highlands instead. The poem was very descriptive and had a lot of feelings and emotions so I thought that it would be very fitting for the exercise. We also were not allowed to write in a straight line, we were to follow the curves of the painting and be creative with our words. I found this input very interesting as it showed direct links between art and literacy and how it can so easily be implemented into the classroom. This could also be used for a creative writing exercise as a stimulus to start a story or as a way to illustrate a story already written.

Our drama input was a micro teaching session. This was where small groups thought the whole class different drama conventions and focussed it around a theme. In particular, I really liked the group that centred their session around a storybook because they managed to create strong links between the story and the drama conventions. An example of this was where they used the main character of the story as the role for ‘Teacher in role’. Our micro teaching isn’t until the next week so we were only watching and participating this time. Teaching drama is something I’m really looking forward to as drama has been a passion of mine for years so to be combining it with teaching will be a quality personal learning experience. Also, this will be one of my times being the teacher and leading the class. I’ve had experience working with children one-to-one but never taking a full class for a lesson. However, I don’t feel nervous or anxious about it because it’s only in front of our peers which makes it a more relaxed experience. It also means that you can enjoy yourself more because it’s more on the informal side.