I had previously emailed June to advise her that I would not be in-class today as I had signed up for one of the writing workshops the Library was offering. When I heard that this was the same day we’d be visiting Frank Hobbs I decided the workshop could wait as it surely would happen again some other time.
Today’s PE class was a school visit to Frank Hobbs Elementary.
Last class we signed up into groups of four. These are the groups that we will be teaching at Frank Hobbs with. We chose a Grade Three class. We arrived today at 1220 to meet with the teacher of the class that we will be teaching. She was really nice. I can’t remember her name right now but she gave us complete control in what we wanted to teach. It seems that these students have Dance experience already which was great to hear. What was even better to hear was the fact that they all seem to enjoy it too, with the exception of one boy. In the break we had between our first class this morning (Drama) and our meeting at Frank Hobbs with the teacher, we had a group meeting in one of the computer labs to quickly review the IPR’s for Dance. At this time we formulated a few questions that we wanted to have answered and we set a schedule. Natasha made a great point of “planning ahead” and so we picked two different date combinations. We ended up having to use our backup plan as one of the dates that we had planned for, there was an event happening that day in the gym. Our four lessons will take place over the following days: February 1, 8, 29 and March 7th.
June had emailed us last night to tell us that the teacher of the class that we were to observe would not be there today and had arranged for a TOC to come in. She also advised us that we were now going to take part in the lesson as well. We would be working in pairs and using some key action words would work with one or two students together.
Maggie and I worked together with a young boy. He was a little shy, however a few times we got him smiling. I think that would be kind of awkward for some, to have two strange “giants” suddenly working with you. We went over spins, we did some actions that involved balancing and using the space behind him that he couldn’t see. The idea of dancing didn’t seem to bother him the slightest, but he did seem a little unsure of himself. June mentioned afterwards that a lot of us were using the old model of follow after me, demonstrating what we wanted the student to do. It is a great point to bring up considering we are trying to get students to think on their own and interpret scenarios differently. In class June would “celebrate” our differences and by simply asking students to follow-after-me we strip that opportunity. We put a ceiling on their learning leaving no room to go beyond.
Being thrown into this situation with very little warning I think for some was a little nerving, however, I do think that it’s good for us. A lot can happen, and by a lot, I mean a lot of learning can happen. I’m sure most of us will be on a TOC list or two someday, so being able to adapt to the situation quickly will be of benefit.
Last class (Monday Jan 23) we were to have a presentation by someone about something, I obviously didn’t pay that close of attention as I also ended up arriving to class in my PE strip, everyone else was not. In the end though, it worked out as the presentation was cancelled so we continued with a regular lesson. Half of the lesson was used in discussion with June. She gave us a Creative Dance resource booklet to use as a resource when planning our classes at Frank Hobbs.
In our discussion it came up that others had commented in their blogs about a connection they saw between Creative dance and Drama. I too see a very close connection. This hit me while we were in drama for some reason, as opposed to while we were in PE.
A good point June made was how we have to be prepared to adapt. There is really no reason in creating all four lessons right away especially having never worked with these children before. We have to plan lightly with a vivid goal in mind, but realize that once we complete our first lesson we’ll have more substance to work and plan with. As June puts it we have to be able to “respond to the students”.
One of the requirements for this teaching experience is that we first peer teach our lesson. As we have arranged for our school visit to be relatively soon, we have to peer-teach this coming Monday, therefore today Natasha, Maggie and Myself met to plan. Unfortunately Katelyn P. was sick. When I saw that she was sick I immediately thought that we should use a google document to create our lesson. This enabled us to all work on the same document at the same time and allow to Katelyn to take part too.
For the rest of class, we were given action words on cue cards. We were each to pick one that we knew we could act out. Along with each action word was also the movement group that it belonged to. After a bit of personal exploration of our words, some of us demonstrated their interpretations. We then formed groups of three. We were to come up with a story that incorporated all three action words. We then, two groups at once, displayed our stories to the class. This was ours: Creep(travelling), Lift(rising), Wobble(vibratory): There once was a CREEPER, who WOBBLED all day, the wind was so strong, it LIFTED him away.
What a great activity. As dancing is definitely NOT my forte, especially in front of people, this group work activity really worked for me. I can see how children, specifically boys, will benefit from this activities framework.