PE Forum post: 3

Wow, the week goes by so fast I can hardly believe it’s Friday already.  Anyways, about our reading for this week:

As many of you have already stated, using the framework of a story, whether it be a fable, a nursery rhyme, a TV show a personal experience, historical event or a book, seems to create an exciting connection between Dance and real life.  It gives children something familiar to grasp onto when they think about Dance.  As we know (from our Psychology class too), children have very inquisitive minds and really enjoy exploring through creativity and acting out scenarios.  What a great aspect of development we have aiding us in the implementation of curriculum dance IPR’s (and Drama, and Art and… well all subjects really).  I don’t imagine students in the higher grades would be as accepting without more encouragement.

I think simply by the label Creative Dance many teachers or teachers-to-be take this as a cue for either pure mayhem (as a result of their exposure to dance) about to erupt, or a time to let the children do what they want, having no structure to base any assessment with.  Stephanie commented on the 4 movement concepts from the reading and their importance to us as teachers.  We can see the emphasis of these 4 concepts in the sample lesson plan outline we’ve been given to complete our four lessons with at Frank Hobbs.  By planning Creative Dance with these four concepts in mind, we’ll have a better framework for gauging progress and assessment.

Now, in regards to the language and vocabulary presented in the reading; to me this really isn’t an issue as with most new subjects we find an array of different descriptors and phrases used to describe new concepts.  With more exposure and
explicit use these too will become apart of our teaching vocabulary.  This isn’t to say that I didn’t need to go to the dictionary as Kayla stated she needed to (wow do I have to do that for Psychology and History).  This is a good point.  In order to be confident in teaching Dance I think it is important that we take the time to understand the vocabulary and the true meanings.

Complexity Theory:  I think it’s funny how the title to this article has “Complexity Theory” in it, however, no-one has mentioned it in their write up except for Kayla.  I wonder if this is due to confusion around its meaning.  I wasn’t so comfy with its meaning, but Kayla you lined it up perfectly saying it is “the notion that each student is a unique and complex individual, but part of a greater ‘learning system’”.  To go a step further I would say that complexity theory takes us from a smooth linear progression and forces us to step outside of that path into a world of discontinuous and sudden transformations.  Both of these descriptions form my interpretation of Complexity Theory.  I wouldn’t say I’m comfortable with it as a concept yet though.

Maggie, I too really enjoyed our trip this week to Frank Hobbs.  Being able to see the different developmental differences between each class/grade was very valuable.  I can say without a doubt this visit was by far the most valuable to me.  Not only did the dance teacher share her enthusiasm for dance with her students, it rubbed of on me too.

Sorry for the long post.  I was at work and it’s kind of “busy” as you can tell.

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