wEEK 6

wEEK 7

REFERENCES

Cross curricular links e.g. clapping for syllables in English

Requires limited resources: Youtube video to follow, percussion instruments/ classroom items (e.g. tubs, buckets)/body parts

Choosing songs that students recognise and love elicits interest and increases engagement

Collaborative learning - small groups or whole class

Top image retrieved from: https://starofthesea.ie/drum-workshops/

Bottom image retrieved from: https://sightwords.com/phonemic-awareness/syllables/clapping-names/

This week in EDUP3008, we delved into another area of the creative arts – the artform of music. Whilst music is designated as a specific learning area and is guided in an overall sense by an official curriculum, like the other strands of the creative arts, music is often sidelined compared to other academic areas such as literacy and numeracy (Russell-Bowie, 2012). Research has found that the lack of confidence in many teachers to engage their students in musicking experiences plays a part in music’s limited presence in primary classrooms (Hennessey, 2012). During the tutorial, Nancy shared with us several ways all teachers (regardless of their background in music) can transform this reality and provide students with music experiences that are meaningful and enriching. The percussive play-a-longs were a particular favourite of mine as they were a simple yet fun way to build students’ understanding of beat, rhythm and timing. I cannot wait to add this activity to my teaching repertoire.

This week in EDUP3008, our aural skills were put to the test. It was our task to listen to 4 musical excerpts – The Swan from Carnival of the Animals; In the Hall of the Mountain King from the Peer Gynt Suite; The Ice Dance from Edward Scissor Hands; and Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter - and see how the music concepts of duration, structure, pitch, dynamics, and colour tone work together within each. While indeed, one could argue that the goal of this activity was to teach us about music, I would argue that this activity also showed us how teaching can occur through music (Locke, 2020). To be more specific, through identifying the various music concepts at play within each musical excerpt and providing a potential reason for its inclusion, we were recognising that music is far more than just a combination of sounds - music is also a vehicle for communicating meaning (Gibson & Ewing, 2020). In my future classroom, I hope to use music as a tool to help my students gain a better understanding of vocabulary or themes, as well as other English features such as pronunciation, intonation, and rhyme, rhythm, and stress, which all help to shape meaning (Verner, 2013).

Top image retrieved from: https://juliajooya.com/2022/04/18/simple-strategies-to-help-you-write-about-the-6-concepts-in-music/

Bottom image retrieved from: https://twinklestar.ro/using-songs-in-efl-classes-preliminaries/

Educational reformer John Dewey (1944), once said,

"If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow".

With this quote in mind, I believe, it is our job as preservice teachers to familiarise ourselves with the current technologies used by children so that we can incorporate them into our classroom. This week during the EDUP3008 tutorial, we did just that. Nancy gave us the opportunity to explore various apps and educational resources that can be used to teach and learn music. Among these were GarageBand, Audacity, Incredibox, and Musicscore 4. Despite playing with these technologies for a short amount of time, already I could see many positive implications for it in an educational setting. Firstly, such technology serves as extrinsic motivators for children and increases engagement, which research have found to be key ingredients for deep and meaningful learning (Bryson & Hand, 2007). Using technology additionally allows teachers to expose students to real world skills such as recording, composing, audio editing, and music production (Criswell, 2008 as cited in Char, 2008). Finally, using technology further extends the opportunities for music to be used across key learning areas (Locke, 2020). For example, students can work collaborative and use digital music technologies to create a soundtrack to accompany characters and stories written in English (NSW Education Standards Authority, 2006).

GarageBand is available on iPads and is easy to use

Top image retrieved from: https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/garageband-iphone/welcome/ios

Bottom image retrieved from: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/garageband/gbndff5345d9/mac

Engaging

Creative communication

Singing is a good starting point to teach music

Collaborative learning

Cross curricular opportunities

Top image retrieved from: https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/singing-with-children/

Bottom image retrieved from: https://www.spellingcity.com/blog/sing-a-song-to-reading/

Despite all the evidence that points to the benefits it provides student learning, reviews show that there continues to be a serious deficit in music (along with the other creative arts) in the primary school setting (Davies, 2008). Studies conducted by Hargreaves, Lamont, Marshall, and Tarrant (2003) found that lack of teacher confidence to teach music was a factor that contributed to this shortfall. Singing is arguably the best starting point for teachers without a musical background. According to Locke (2020), singing is not only an engaging and accessible way to achieve curriculum outcomes, but it also spurs students overall musical development. For this reason, the focus of this week’s EDUP3008 tutorial was to “find your voice”. During the lesson Nancy modelled and ultimately equipped us with several simple singing tasks to share with our future classrooms. These ranged from vocal warmups, rounds, and even whole class sing-a-longs. In her work, Heyning (2010) found that whether it be on a small scale to help students memorise certain cross curricular concepts, or on a large scale to participate in school/community events, incorporating singing into the classroom can not only influence and enhance student leaning but it can also help develop and boost teacher confidence.

According to Ewing (2020), children are largely kinaesthetic learners and need to be actively moving to learn effectively. Therefore, embodied learning techniques are arguably the best way to provide primary school students with an education that is deeper and more meaningful. While the creative arts area of dance is a widely recognised as a performative practice, I would go on to argue that it is also a powerful embodied learning tool teachers can implement in their classrooms to enrich their students’ leaning experiences. In this week’s workshop, Iris introduced and ultimately equipped us with several simple ways dance can be incorporated into the primary classroom. Warmups were one way dance could embed itself into the classroom routine. Warmups such body stretches, and simple action prompts arguably not only gets children’s bodies moving, but it also readies their minds to become more receptive to the content of the lesson to come (Ratey, 2008). Improvisations were another way dance could be incorporated into classroom. Improvisations (such as the dance sequence activity we took part in in class) provides students with a safe space to critically and creatively think how they can communicate their thoughts and feelings without words (Anttila, 2018).

Image retrieved from https://teachingdanceblog.wordpress.com/

https://www.boptillyoudrop.com.au/home-perth/school-programs-perth/school-dance-programs-perth-2/

Top image retrieved from: https://www.movedancelearn.com/what-are-dynamics-in-dance-the-six-different-qualities-of-movement/

Bottom image retrieved from: https://beyondthebarreusa.com/blogs/dance-skills-techniques/top-advice-on-managing-inter-personal-relationships-for-dancers

This week in EDUP3008 we took a closer look at one of the elements of the dance – the element of dynamics. Put simply, dynamics refers to how a dancer moves. According to Iris, there are six dynamic qualities in dance - sustained, percussive, swinging, suspended, collapsed, and vibratory. During this lesson, we explored how each of these qualities can be performed individually, and how a meticulous culmination of all of them can be used to create meaning (Ewing, 2020). I look forward to bringing this lesson into my future classroom, as not only does it teach students about dance, but it also presents great cross curriculum opportunities. For example, a potential task could see students allocated a certain topic from another KLA - e.g., relationships from personal development and health. In small groups students could then work collaboratively to consolidate and communicate their understanding of the topic through a 16-count creative movement. Arguably, such a task would also push students to critically view themselves and the world around them (Anttila, 2018).

This week we took a closer look at one of the elements of dance: SPACE. Put simply space is concerned with WHERE the body can go. During the dance workshop, Iris shared with us a number of spatial learning experiences that I believe would be valuable additions to any teacher’s teaching toolkit. Follow the leader was a particular standout activity for me for several reasons. Firstly, follow the leader required us to get active and move around the classroom space. According to Ratey (2008), physical activity has a significant impact on an individual’s cognitive abilities - getting the muscles moving produces proteins that travel through the bloodstream and into the brain where they play fundamental roles in the mechanisms that facilitate high thought processes. Secondly, follow the leader tasked us with creating actions for our assigned small group to imitate. Actions could be anything we desired so long as it incorporated an element of space, for example, levels (up/down), directions (forward/backward) and pathways (curve/straight). According to Evans and Boucher (2015), giving students a parameter to work within (like the one above) allows students to exercise autonomy whilst still helps them to achieve the required academic outcomes. It is for the reasons above that I am excited to add follow the leader to my pedagogical repertoire.

Images taken from: https://higheredgeblog.com/2014/10/08/follow-the-leader/

For our final EDUP3008 workshop, we explored how the creative arts (particularly the artform of dance) can be powerful tools for teaching across the curriculum. In his work Russell-Bowie (2012), expounds that the arts have long been devalued and sidelined in primary and secondary curricula compared to other subjects on the grounds that it is not an ‘academic’ discipline. This is not the case. In fact, through engaging in a microteaching task, which required us to design a lesson that incorporated dance into another subject and stage of our choosing, we uncovered that dance provides many benefits for learning. Firstly, dance helps children to develop skills that are identified as necessary for learning – creativity, communication, critical thinking, and collaboration (Partnership for 21st Century, 2011 as cited in Becker, 2013). Furthermore, according to Hannaford (2005), dance creates a sense of ‘play’ whilst learning which has been found to increase children’s retention of information. Finally, Gilbert (1992), asserted that dance increases self-esteem, which arguably is a prime facilitator for deep and meaningful learning. For these reasons, I believe dance is indeed a valuable pedagogical tool that I can’t wait to integrate into my future classroom.

Image retrieved from: https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.sydney.edu.au/doi/full/10.1080/07303084.2013.763665

Collaboration:

Students work together to create a movement sequence to show the effects of earthquake e.g. buildings falling, people running, etc.

Critical Thinking:

Students are challenged to apply their knowledge of earthquakes and their effects to create their own representative movement as well as analyse and appreciate the interpretations of others.

Communication:

Students physically use their bodies to communicate and present their understanding of earthquakes and their effects to their teacher and classmates.

Creativity:

Students use their imagination to create bodily movements to represent earthquakes and their effects: shaking, vibrating, falling, etc.

Children learning the mathematical concept of geometry through dance.

Image retrieved from: https://www.news-herald.com/2022/09/08/teaching-artist-uses-dance-to-teach-math-throughout-northeast-ohio/