Media

Discussion and Reflection

I consider myself to be technologically illiterate. I am in no way tech savvy and was terrified of using the smart boards while on my placements within schools. However, my Colleague Teachers gently nudged me into using the smartboards and I found them a lot of fun.I was highly dissappointed that there was no face to face session for this area this week as I feel that I would have gained a lot. How do you fare with technology Catherine?  

I can get quite involved with technology.  My partner has been working with high school students developing robots for robot competitions and Goulburn Street Primary School has robotics for the upper primary levels. Interestingly the criteria within these competitions are starting to incorporate artistic elements and aesthetics, students are judged on these aspects.  I find that some students seem particularly drawn to technology (like robots) and it meets a strong intellectually and socially needs for these students.   (Catherine)

I have found while being on prac that a lot of teachers feel the same, but particularly with the smartboards once they knew how to us them, they were happy to use them all the time. As teachers we need to keep up to date with technology as students need to build their skills using these things. 

I aim to encourage students to embrace all types of media, and plan to incorporate daily activities such as reading newspapers to find out the latest news and figures for discussion, weekly activities such as television shows/documentaries to present information in different ways and larger projects such as filming a picture book or powerpoint skills. (Tanya)

Toolkit - for the classroom

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/Information-and-Communication-Technology-capability/Organising-elements/Organising-elements

Learning Presentations

Dance - We Are ALL Capable!

Inquiry for Dance: Creating a vocabulary of movements                                                              

"Big Body Playdough"  (Curtis & Carter, 2008) is an example of inviting children to use there whole body to play with the dough.  "Big Body Playdough" (Curtis & Carter, 2008) happened when teachers took away the restrictive seating  and children created different movements to work with the material, kinaesthetic learning.  These movements would make a wonderful      vocabulary for dance.                                                                                                                             
"Students will develop their movement vocabulary, with techniques from simple to advanced skills in locomotion, balance, coordination, alignment and expression" (ACARA, 2011).   

Discussion and Reflection

I love any tutorial where I learn to scaffold because I feel that this is my weakness in all aspects of not only my teaching, but my life as well. I'm highly organised but sometimes have to take a few steps back to re-organise my ideas into sequential steps and I've noticed that this has been the case with every tutorial within the arts unit. By following each step, we eventually created group dances sequences and a whole class dance sequence. I loved this! It definitely changed my perception of what you can do within a lesson.

I think that there can be links made with drama through storytelling, also by the end of the tutorial we were all exhausted so it definitely fits with H.P.E! I think the activity we partook in this week also has links to mathematics - we had to count and think about steps and grouping of numbers. I've been thinking about resources to integrate within the classroom so I'll do some research and edit this post down the track. (Tanya)

Great reflection, Tanya!  I was pretty excited about the learning process and later that night I attempted to teach some-one else a dance that has no dance background.  That was difficult, but fun. We ended up with a question/answer format with eight beats.  The theme was - "Jose the cat playing in the garden".  The first four beats was me pouncing like a cat and second four beats  was pause, pause, paw extension, pause - very abstract.

One of things that was highlighted, for me, was experiencing things from different points of view for example, when we were in the circle dance and we moved to the centre of the choreography that was a change in perspective as an audience.  I guess being in the audience always seems to mean sitting to the side seeing things in a very linear way. (Catherine) 

Toolkit - for the classroom

space, props e.g. hoola hoops, music, moveable wooden dolls, pictures of people in different body shapes, alphabet people, books about animal movements and other illustrations of movement

Book: "Josephine Wants To Dance" (2006) by Jackie French, illustrated by Bruce Whatley

Introduction to Dance for grades 3-4: http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/pe/pdfs/dancespace.pdf

Tasmanian curriculum: 
http://www.education.tas.gov.au/curriculum/standards/arts/syl-arts-all.pdf

Kinesthetic Learners
http://classroom-assessment-theory-into-practice.wikispaces.com/Assessment+for+Kinesthetic+Learners

References:
ACARA.  2011.  Retrieved from: http://www.acara.edu.au/arts.html

Curtis, D. & Carter, M.. 2008. Learning together with young children. MN: Redleaf Press

Healy, T., (2012) Dance: Space, in Primary Resources.co.uk, retrieved August 18, 2012, from: http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/pe/pe.htm 

Visual Art - Capturing the soul

Inquiry for Visual Arts

What skills do you specifically coach and when?  




Discussion and Reflection

Children are incredible creative and resourceful, I love the crab in the sky like a constellation.  This artwork is a combination of materials, formal element of composition and narrative.  It it really interesting to record words and actions a child may use to create a picture.  This will assist them to develop their language and communication.  As a teacher this language allows me to connect with the student and discover how they use and see language.  

This illustration shows that young children are quite able to understand and learn cultural design practices. within design there is also elements of spatial arrangement and a relationship to a grid. 

  

These are photos of art and science in PE3, prep/grade 1.  There are two area of art integration within this project.  The first and most simple is the decoration on the box.  The students worked in groups and as a group they decorated the box and in this process they connected to each others stories, visual symbols and group understanding.  The second area is the visual process of putting the potted nasturtiums in the box with a circle shape removed from the box and seeing the plants move and grow towards the light.  This second area is a real merging of visual arts and science.

(Catherine)

Beautfiul images Catherine! I love the art and science ones from your placement, I have a few images from my placements to share as well. I also ran an art activity incorporated with science on my last one - maybe science and art seem to integrate well?


I came into the classroom when the students were undertaking a marine science unit so I ran a seperate science activity with them and two art activities. The first one was to introduce the skin, shell, scales and fur textures of marine animals (and to discuss why they had this particular outer coating) and then I cut four images of marine animals into six equal parts each. The students were given a square portion of the image and had to draw it to scale on a  bigger piece of paper. (I firstly had to give them a in drawing to scale!) Once the images were drawn we displayed them in the original order and had these fabulous abstract marine animals! 

I have added this lesson plan under the 'for the classroom' heading below.

This artwork looks amazing and this sounds like a great class integrating art, science and maths, with a definite maths mini lesson. What was the students reaction when they became empowered through this new knowledge about scale? It would be great to work develop some maths lessons about scale.  Did you undertake any drawing or rubbings of the marine animals and texture?


The students were terrified of drawing to scale, until they had a go at it! There weren't any rubbings done of the marine animals but the second activity incorporated rubbings, sketchings and a study of shells. I gave a mini lesson on what shells were, their purpose and where they came from, then the students created pieces of artwork with rubbings and sketchings of the shells.


As with the images we drew last week for the music tutorial, each time a piece of artwork is created, it captures to personality and soul of the creator. My Daughter has a very logical mind, her drawn images are made up of shapes, when using counters or even playdough there are even lines or patterns, it's very interesting to see from a three year old. I love it! (Tanya)

Toolkit - for the classroom

For a history lesson, I would like to incorporate drama and art to create role playing which tells historical tales within the classroom. The art component of this would be to research and look at the movements of the time, recreate some and display in the scene to set the mood. the students could also work in groups to cover the clothes of the time, furniture, climate, social events etc and could recreate history in a very visual way. I have a book detailing 50 major art ideas. (Hodge, 2011)

Marine Animals scale drawing lesson plan for grade six (Tanya)

Shells texture and pattern lesson plan for grade six (Tanya)

Resources:

Hodge, S., (2011) 50 art ideas you really need to know, London, Quercus Publishing Plc.

Maths curriculum. ACARA. 2011.  http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Mathematics/Content-structure

English curriculum. ACARA.  2011.  http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/English/Content-structure

Musica !

Inquiry for music 

The benefits of music and arts integration is extremely high but what are the challenges for the generalist teacher teaching music within the classroom?  Are these challenges within Australia or is there similar international concerns?

In a research article Russell-Bowie (2009), states that within Australia people from an Anglo Australian background generally tend to have less cultural appreciation of music and the arts in general while non-Anglo Australians are more likely to value the arts.  Russell-Bowie (2009) also reports on research in South Africa saying there is a wonderful music happening but tend to be outside the school. The school focus is on western music, singing and musical literacy this has dampened music appreciation. Namibia can be said to have an arts-rich tradition that "integrates dance, costume, ritual and stories"  (Mans cited in Russell-Bowie, 2009, p. 25) but also teaching practices have left little time for music appreciation and tuition.

In these findings it is clear that the culture of the students needs to be incorporated into the school curriculum.  This is one of the aims of the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2011) "Students will come to understand and engage with the multiple and culturally diverse practices of music, learning about Australian and international music — locally, nationally, and globally"

Discussion and Reflection

Thank you Catherine for talking about Rosa Parks last week, that was a great example of how characters can come to life just through a description. I was so inspired by the drama tutorial but I was highly apprehensive about the music one. 

Music really brings characters to life, I wander what music Rosa Parks listened to?  My musical story begins with my parents.  Neither of my parents were musically inclined although both enjoy music.  So actually my musical story begins with my mum's mum, my grandmother who was a musical prodigy.  She played violin and piano.  Because of her love of music I have had many wonderful musical experiences.  My aunty, my mum's sister, use to teach me piano when I was young.  We shared many great musical discussions about music and later visual arts as I studied visual arts.  Although I never become an accomplished musician I do love playing with sound and listening to music.  I also love to dance and more recently I have begun singing in choirs.  In the classroom I would like to begin each day with music.  (Catherine)

I would also like to begin each day with music in the classroom and also daily P.E so I'm looking for a resource to get the students signing and dancing and moving with maybe some meditation afterwards to begin the day.

Today Gerrard inspired me to bring music into the classroom in a way which wasn't intrusive to me or the students and I left the class feeling empowered and interested. (I love how lecturers can have that effect on students!) I don't expect all of my students to want to play instruments or to want to sing, but I hope that they will engage with some of the activities we participated in today. 

When asked about music in our own primary education, many of us would remember trying to play instruments and singing in choir, some of the class found music rather pointless but as Gerard said there isn't a culture without some form of music. I was very interested in the idea of imitation and chanting to introduce young students to music rather than trying to throw them into instruments or singing. Songs that are modern or mean something to them would be better as learning tools rather than songs that don't make sense. Songs from different cultures could be studied if the class are currently studying that culture!

Toolkit - for the Classroom

I wanted to share a cross-curriculum resource.  The collection of cd's is a series called "Classical kIds: A symphony of stories for all ages".  One of my favourites is called "Beethoven Lives Upstairs".  In this story Beethoven moves in  to a rented upstairs apartment in Vienna.  The family who have just rented this apartment live downstairs and have recently  lost their husband and father.  The story is told through the eyes of a young boy in the family  who writes letters to his uncle who is studying music outside of Vienna.   The story interweaves music, narrative and facts.  Beethoven's story and life are quite sad and the boy in the story comes to appreciate Beethoven after the initial chaos.  It is amazing to think that a man who became deaf was able to create such beautiful and moving music.  Another great thing about the cd is that it clearly models through verbal description letter writing.  Another cd I like, though they are all good, is "Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery".  This cd is set in Venice in a girls orphanage.  At the orphanage Vivaldi teaches all the girls music.  This is true Vivaldi actually did teach at Venice's Pieta orphanage and the girls were named after the instruments they played for example, Katarina della Violino.  There is also many wonderful aspects to this cd that can be explored in class.  

Learning times tables to music! This is the sort of activity I think will help struggling learners! (Tanya) http://www.sheridanhouse.com.au/maths/maths.htm (Available off Amazon.com)


ACARA.  2011.  http://www.acara.edu.au/arts.html

References:
ACARA.  (2011).  Retrieved from: http://www.acara.edu.au/arts.html

Russell-Bowie, D.  (2009).  What me? Teach music to my primary class?Challenges to teaching music in primary schools in five countries. Music Education Research, 11:1, 23-36Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14613800802699549  

Drama - Not just for the Theatre!

Inquiry for dance

How can drama activities develop relevant discussions?  By listening to students and having time for reflection with drama processes and other learning areas we are able to hear and discuss the student's learning and understanding.  In the article "What Do the Children Say? Student speaking and reflection can identify learning from their involvement in specific drama activities (Innes, Moss & Smigiel, 2012).  These learning areas include drama, self awareness, relationships to others and world understandings (Innes, Moss & Smigiel, 2001). One student, on reflection of a drama process, realises an individual dream, "yeah so I want a large family and to live in the country not in the big cities and things" (cited in Innes, Moss & Smigiel, 2001, p 219). 

Discussion and Reflection

I thoroughly enjoyed the tutorial this week based on drama and incorporating it into the curriculum. I found the idea of working in two different worlds interesting and thinking back to my experience in the classroom, I would love to try this with students! I've found grade 6 students to enjoy freedom in their learning rather than more structured learning in the classroom and while I was in a grade 6 class for 3 weeks I did some role play with them.  

That sounds good.  I have been doing small role plays with students and I am intrigued by the process and the way students respond.  

I had the basic ideas of using drama in the classroom, I asked the students to work in groups to represent safe and non safe activities as part of behaviour education. The students enjoyed the activity and it was highly successful with them, but after this tutorial I think I was given a lot of extra tools to use in the classroom which I had no knowledge of before.  I particularly enjoyed process drama strategies, starting with a text and then going through the steps to work out what has happened and what comes next.

While on my first prac, I used a skeleton from the science lab and asked grade 8 students in the art classroom to imagine who this person was before they became a skeleton. They came up with some brilliant drawings! 

That would be quite scary to think about, what did the students say?  My dad, who is an orthodontist, had a skull at home I always remember it and asking him about it. I was always examining that skull. 

The students loved the activity and had some fantastic drawings of a farmer, businessman etc as they had named the skeleton 'Fred.' I can see how this opens up the door to writing activities, role play and even visual art activities. I used objects in my grade six classroom to inspire the students to write stories (the students had to include each object somewhere) but I am now thinking that a quick drama processing lesson could have helped inspire them and develop their ideas further. I've included my narrative and drama lesson plans from these lessons under the 'for the classroom' section. 

Sounds like lots of fun learning.

While exploring a theme or subject, science activities could even be incorporated. Drama as an artform creates connections in learning, I hadn't seen how drama could do this until now so I'm feeling empowered about using it within the classroom.

(Tanya)

When Maureen introduced the story of Rosa Parks in such a dramatic way I was immediately   captured.  The use of follow up questions for example, what made Rosa in 1959 not stand up on the bus? Through her actions on that day Rosa created a chain of events that would create world change.  Why did she pick that day? My imagination was activated from this introduction and questions and I began to think about what sought of person was Rosa Parks? What happened to her that day?  And was it different from any other day?  Maureen suggested having some objects that could be the personal belongings of Rosa Park, or another character, like rosary beads or a hat.  Suddenly, I could get  glimpses of this character and  I began to weave images and stories.  It is great to get inside the world of these characters that we talk about and start viewing the world from another point of view.  I would like to share this experience with the students.  (Catherine)

If this story of Rosa Parks inspired so many people within our group, imagine where we could take it within the classroom!

Toolkit - for the classroom

"The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" by Chris Van Allsburg

'Play Safe, Be Safe' role playing lesson plan for grade six.  (Tanya)

 'Literacy Narrative' lesson plan using objects to provoke creative thinking. I plan to incorporate drama the next time I use this plan as inspired by this week's lesson. (Tanya)

Website:
ACARA.  (2011).  http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/English/Aims

Books:

Bev Deriwanker - 'How Texts Work'.

Phillip Taylor - 'Red Coats and Patriots'.

Beginning Drama 4-11 and 11-14

John O'Toole and Julie Dunn - 'Pretending to Learn'.

Cecily O'Neill - 'Drama Worlds'

Activities:

*Process drama - starting with a text, looking at events/ideas pre and post text and explore where to next.

*Thought tracking - see what each student is thinking while in character or in thought.

*Metaxis - working within a real and fictional world alternatively

*Game- Handshakes

*Game- Build a machine

*Marking the moment (where you were when you had an interesting thought or idea)

References:

Innes, M.,  Moss, T. & Smigiel, H.  (2001). What Do the Children Say? The Importance of Student Voice, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 6:2, 207-221
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569780120070740 

Integrating The Arts in Generalist Areas

How can teachers develop inquiry questions that leads to arts integration?

Allowing students to process subject matter through role play, drawing, creating, dancing and music leads to deeper questioning, thought and communication.  The outcomes of these integrative practices is fresh and surprising. One way I can build and improve on some of these processes is by developing inquiry questions, as discussed today, that draw out exciting learning for teachers and students. 

Discussion and Reflection

Arts and creativity appear in many classroom settings and I have been told my colleague teachers that they find this approach more effective when teaching as students lose interest quickly with knowledge delivery without meaning or experience.I always had this idea with my own learning as I have a strong visual background and today it was fantastic to watch a presentation on how to integrate the arts into generalist learning areas.

Tanya, what did you think about the lesson today?  It is great to work with someone who has a strong interest in art.  You also come from a high school 'art' subject teaching.  To me the above practices that Arnold discussed are very artistic processes. Some-one said to me today when I was discussing integrative art - "but, that is not really art", it sounded so limiting and I guess some people have very fixed ideas of what art is and can be.  What do you think?  What would you say if a colleague teacher said that to you? (Catherine)

I would be shocked if a colleague teacher told me that it wasn't really art!  My colleague teachers insisted that the art lessons I ran included art skills, experimentation and also new knowledge of the marine science unit they were studying. I was so happy to make connections between Arnold's presentation and things I had seen in the classroom a week before. (I felt proud of my colleague teachers!) One of the teachers was teaching a dance to the students, this teacher also used a lot of multimedia for presentation and encouraged the students to also use multimedia daily. (Tanya)

Toolkit - for the classroom

Class-room Space game

Students are standing up in an open space.  They are asked to move into an empty space and then another. Speed of this can be changed by assigning 1 as the slowest (calm walking) and 10 as the fastest (slow run)The person calls out the numbers, counting up and down. A variation of this game includes sequences and building shapes within groups.

Arnold Aprill

website: http://www.capeweb.org/who-we-are/staff

blog: http://www.capeconslts.org/arnies-blog

Subject Agreement

Both Tanya Kean and Catherine Brown agree to each commit 50% to this Blog project and that we will generate the same score for  assessment 1 in EMT694.