Differentiating Your Drama Lessons

     I believe that one of the best aspects of Drama for teachers is that it is easily accessible to all students, yet can be made challenging enough to improve their learning. During my Drama education class I have witnessed strategies like Tableau, Hot-seating, Improvisation, Storytelling, and so many more. Some activities focused solely on building these strategies specifically, while others gave us the opportunity to select which strategy works best. For instance, in class we were asked to get into small groups and reenact the first contact between the European settlers and Canadian First Nations. The activity was left open for us as we were allowed to select any method that we felt would best portray this scenario. My group chose to create a scene where we would act as certain characters while other groups used tableaux or choral reading.

     From this activity I learned that Drama can be easily accessible to all students if you create an activity open enough for all students to participate. As a teacher, if you have students operating at a variety of different grade levels you could create activities where students can choose which method to use to create their performance. This leaves it open for them to make it as easy or as challenging as they choose. Often students at a high grade level will make the performance complex while students who have exceptionalities will create their own ways to create. Either way, students get the chance to create and express themselves. In addition, collaborative activities aid all students with understanding other curriculum content as students help each other to understand the content in order to complete the activity. With so many classrooms having a diverse range of abilities in one room Drama can be used for all students to learn all subjects while getting the chance to create performances using Drama strategies to guide them.

Dance and Math?

     In every school board in Ontario Mathematics is an integral part of their educational foundation and their overall program. In my experiences I have seen just how important Mathematics is to education in Ontario creating a multitude of opportunities for professional development in Mathematical pedagogy. Throughout my own education as a teacher candidate I have had multiple courses that taught me how to teach Mathematics in various ways, but in my recent Dance education class I learned something new. If I am honest with myself I would have never pictured Math and Dance working well together to create meaningful learning, but I have seen that this can happen. During class we were asked to create symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes with our bodies accompanied by music and fabric scarfs. Here students not only get the chance to move around creatively, but also must think about the knowledge they have of shapes. As we moved from doing this individually, to partners, and then in small groups this became increasingly challenging as we created symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes using movement. To add on to this we also talked about the properties of shapes and how that should be included in the dance. I believe that a teacher could provide even more to this lesson by asking students to create certain shapes and display the characteristics that makes that shape unique.

     In another activity we used dance part of learning probability where we rolled dice and the number we received represented an action that we must perform. Additionally, we then had to find a creative way as a group to represent the numbers we rolled. Here students are learning about the probability of rolling certain numbers as the teacher leads the discussion and then must think collaboratively with a group about how they would represent this. Students must make predictions, communicate with their bodies, and work with their classmates in order to complete the activity.

     One lesson I saw during my placement was a teacher getting the students to demonstrate their knowledge of geometric transformations through Dance. For this activity their dance had to include rotations, reflections, and translations using the movement of their bodies. I believe this is a unique way to teach these concepts and a great way for students to consolidate their knowledge or to be introduced to what each of these motions are.

    Overall, I have learned that Dance can be used as a creative way to teach Mathematics where instead of students showing their learning on paper, they must use movement to display what they know. For this, students must apply the creative and mathematical processes in order to complete the tasks developing the child as a whole. Below is a resource I found with a plethora of ways that Dance (and other Arts) can be used in order to make Math come alive.

https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/matharts/#.WtkQQy7wbIU

Making Learning Meaningful with Drama

     As I participate in some of the final classes in my Drama education I feel it would be important to reflect on how Drama can be used to enrich the learning of other subject areas. I discussed in one of my earlier posts how I saw Drama being used to teach subjects like Language Arts or Social Studies, but most do not think about how it can be used for subjects like Science. Often teachers use this course to improve their students' logical thinking and reasoning, but it can also be a chance to creatively express themselves. Here I will discuss some of the activities we did in class that demonstrates this and some of the resources I have found for great ideas.

     One activity that we did in class that could help students in Science was when we were given an organ that is part of the digestive system and create actions to match that organ. For instance, I got the Gallbladder as part of the digestive system and I had to think about how I could create an action and sound that would symbolize the role that organ has in the system. In order to so I had to think about what role that organ plays in the system, showing me the meaningful learning that can happen in this activity for students learning about the human body. Also, with my classmates I had to determine where I would be in terms of the order of the organ system where students would have to think about how all the organs work together to break down food in our bodies.

     In order to find out more about how Science can be learned through Drama I began searching for resources with lists of Drama activities that can make Science come alive. Below are some links to resources which show how Drama can illustrate scientific concepts where students have to draw on what they know and then act it out. Or students have to use actions to demonstrate models or things we observe through Science. These resources have been integral in showing me how Drama can enrich a Science program giving students to the chance to think deeply about what they are learning while expressing themselves creatively.

http://thescienceteacher.co.uk/teaching-science-through-drama/

file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/PSR84Sept-Oct2004p14.pdf

     

Dance and Creative Thinking

Dance education is still a subject that is very new to me, as I am sure is the case with many students in our classrooms today. Often many people do not see the importance of Dance in the classroom because they see it as recreation rather than an academic form of expression. In order to further familiarize myself with the importance of Dance so I can show that to my students I searched for some resources that would help me. The video shown below is a TED Talk from a Dance educator who speaks about the importance of Dance in educating the child as a whole. She clearly illustrates how Dance gets students to use the creative process in order to solve problems and builds on skills they can use in a variety of subject areas.



Below are some videos by Sir Ken Robinson, a well known advocate for bringing back creativity into schools that have inspired me to foster creativity in my own instruction. They helped me to realize the disservice we are providing to students by focusing solely on Mathematics and Language Arts, and not on creative thinking. In these videos Sir Ken Robinson provides some incredible arguments as to why we need to foster creativity in our students to prepare them for life.

Comparing Lessons

     During one of my days away from class during the week I like to spend it volunteering at the schools I have previously taught in. On this particular day I volunteered in a grade 4/5 classroom that I was put in for my second practicum placement. As part of my learning I asked my previous associate teacher if I could teach the lesson my group created for dance since it corresponded with the science unit they were in. Here I had the chance to see how this lesson would work with an actual group of grade 4/5 students and get more experience in teaching dance, a subject area that I could use some improvement in. What I learned from this experience is the difference between simulating a lesson in class with my peers and the reality of teaching dance. In this post I will discuss the main differences between the two that I saw and what I have learned from them.

     The first difference that I noticed was that children are a lot more expressive and open to being vulnerable than we are as adults. I really enjoyed watching them dance with the music and using their bodies as a form of communicating the animal or ecosystem I gave them. I was not sure how these students would react to this lesson in terms of being open enough to participate in it fully, but for the most part they were receptive. I learned that I needed to focus less on getting them started like I would with my peers and more on keeping them on task or directing them to the right way.

The second main difference that I saw is one that I believe everyone faces when being introduced to dance, understanding what it truly it. Like many other classrooms this class believed that dance was following to the steps of Just Dance or a routine created by someone else. While these are not necessarily negative activities, it does not teach students about how dance is a series of movements used to express or convey a message. For instance, during this lesson the students began by acting out the animals, but by the end they were moving in a way that expresses that animal. Students were able to realize at the end that dance is just another way to show their knowledge and they created wonderful performances about their ecosystem and the animals within it.

     Finally, I noticed during this lesson that there is a substantial amount of classroom management involved as the students work through the activities. In the beginning of the lesson it was challenging to get the students to focus on the dancing and not be silly with it, but by the end they were able to see the point. In particular I had a student with ADHD who needed multiple prompts to stay on task, but I believe this lesson was to his benefit because he was able to get up and move around. It also helped a student I had who was below grade level in terms of reading and writing, so this gave the student a chance to show the knowledge he has about animals and their habitats.

     Overall teaching lesson in class with my peers and with a group of grade 4/5 students has been an enlightening experience for me. Though both provide their own unique challenges it has shown me how I can alter my lessons to make sure all students participate and learn about dance as a language.

Reflecting on My Dance Lesson

     Hello to my readers! Thank you for once again joining me on my journey in my dance education as I describe my learning in this process. This week I had the opportunity to teach my classmates using a lesson plan that my group created. Our lesson sought to use dance strategies and curriculum expectations to instruct students on various Habitats and Communities from the grade four science curriculum. Here I will talk about how the lesson went, what I learned from it, and some of the challenges we faced.

     One of the greatest difficulties that my group faced when trying to create a dance lesson was the blurry line between dance and drama. It was a challenge to think of ways that students could represent an idea or demonstrate their knowledge without simply just acting it out. As a group we had to think of ways students would perform the activities using dance as a method of communication or expression rather than just imitate them. Another difficulty we had was trying to envision how the lesson would go as a group. It is easy to visualize ideas that you personally create, but it was not as easy to describe these ideas to my group members. As with any collaborative activity, communication is key to ensuring all members are working together successfully. The final obstacle that was faced was making sure that there was meaningful learning in both subject areas going on. As a group, we wanted to ensure that we were not shallowly including curriculum expectations, but providing a deep learning experience. If I were to teach this lesson to a group of students I would ensure that the students understand dance as a form of communication and connect that to their knowledge of science.

     As I was teaching the lesson with my group and observed my classmates participate in the lesson I thought about how it would work in a classroom with students of differing abilities. For these students I believe there are a number of ways you could differentiate the lesson to meet the needs of each student. For students below grade level due to a learning disability you could have them focus solely on the animal they were given and how they would act. Here the students would just think about where that animal lives, how it interacts with other animals, and how this can be shown with their bodies. For students who have physical disabilities that impair them you could select which animal or plant they get so they have one with limited movement. It is these two factors which I believe makes this lesson so effective because it is one that can be easily altered to make it more challenging or easier with minor changes.

Introduction to Dance Education

     Welcome to my readers! Normally this blog has dealt with subjects like Language Arts or Mathematics, but this section of the blog will focus on a portion of the curriculum most teachers are not comfortable with, Dance. I must admit that this is a subject that I have little experience in, but in my class I am not only learning about the importance of dance, but how it is applied to other curriculum areas. This post is my reflection on what I have learned in my second dance class and how it will enhance my teaching practice.

     In the first dance class we had many of my classmates shared a similar feeling that I had which was how dance was taught, especially to students who are fairly new to it. During this session we used action cards to demonstrate how we move our bodies to portray certain actions and convey ideas. The second class built upon this method, then used it to teach Mathematics curriculum expectations on timelines. My classmates and I were split into small groups with an era of music associated with that group where we had to create a performance that resembles that era. Below are some pictures of my classmates performing their routine.

     It was during this time that I realized how engaging dance can be, especially for students in the junior grades. It gives students to get up and begin to move, a chance they do not get for the majority of their school careers. Using these engaging dance strategies there can be significant learning in other curriculum areas. In the case of the lesson presented by my classmates we got to learn about different periods in history and how timelines work. I believe that the most learning in students happens when they are engaged, so finding unique ways, such as using dance, to get the students excited about learning is always better. I also learned about how dance is another method for students to express themselves and communicate their ideas. It teaches students about the different ways that humans can communicate with each other and creates another outlet for students to be artistic.

It is early in my dance education experience and I am already learning a great deal about how dance is used to enhance student learning in multiple areas. It helps students to be well-rounded by being able to express their ideas in various ways. I am excited to learn more about dance education and the strategies I can employ in my own practice to better serve my students.