Reflections

Reflection Class 1

Today was the first day of drama and I was definitely nervous to begin the class. I am an outgoing person but acting is not something I have enjoyed throughout my years of schooling. We started the class by using a position mapping activity where we could position our body to convey our thoughts about drama. My colleagues who felt comfortable with the idea of drama were positioned on a chair, which demonstrated their confidence about the topic. I was positioned between the chair and the door which demonstrated I am nervous to start drama but open to the idea of engaging with and teaching drama.

The theory we worked with in this class is called the learners theory (Dwyer, 1996). This theory discusses the way in which students learn. The most interesting aspect of this theory for me was students remember 90 percent of what they teach. This taught me that it is important for students to have the chance to take on the teacher role and teach concepts to their classmates. Also students remember 80 percent of what they experience. It is important that students are interacting with what they are learning rather than just sitting in a desk and listening. I will definitely teach by the learners theory in my teaching block and future teaching experiences.

We paired tableau with mathematics and I really liked this connection. My group got the book pattern fish and it had patterns throughout the picture book. As a group we were to demonstrate this math strategy of patterning in a tableau. We acted out the pattern on the page using our bodies in a tableau. I really liked the connection of these two strategies and definitely will use this in my classroom.

Another activity we did in today’s class was replicating a living Venn diagram. This was also a good activity that can be used in the classroom to incorporate drama into other subjects. This can be used to ask students questions and have them go to the part of the diagram that represents their answers. It also is a good way to get students out of their seats and involved in the activity.

Reflection Class 2

In todays class my group presented our drama strategies. We did this through integrating language and drama. We used a picture book called Scaredycrow to guide our presentation of the drama strategies. We used picture walk (tableau), caption making, re-play/ re-enact, flash forward, masks. We incorporated these five strategies with our picture book and used the learners theory to teach the theories. We taught small groups each theory and then had those groups teach the class the strategies. This was a great learning experience to prepare me for teaching drama to students.

I enjoyed the caption making strategy and feel this is something that you could use in future drama classes with all ages and ability levels. Students can create captions to accompany visual representations and usually takes the form of adding a description or tittle to a still image. These captions may include may include what a scene is about, what character is thinking or saying in the scene. This strategy pairs great with the language curriculum and can be used along side picture books. I think this will be a strategy I will use in the future to incorporate drama and language together.

Today we discussed the multiple intelligences theory, which is a theory I am familiar with through my undergrad at Brock. This is a theory that I plan to use all the time in my teaching. I think it is important to try and integrate many of the multiple intelligences into each lesson as every student learns differently. Through prior teaching experiences I have observed the diversity in students and the importance of teaching them in a way they understand. Even if I am not comfortable with a certain intelligence I am going to push myself as a teacher to incorporate them into my lessons.

Today we worked on the integration of drama and science using the multiple intelligence theory. I enjoyed the Boomwhackers activity using the book In The Tall Tall Grass. I really liked this activity and it incorporated many parts of the multiple intelligences theory. I think our students would enjoy working with Boomwhackers and it connects well to the music strand as well. I found the activity in class today fun so I am sure my students would thoroughly enjoy it as well.

Reflection Class 3

In todays class we focused on the connection between drama and physical education. Today’s lesson also did a great job of incorporating dance. I liked how today’s activity built in teaching children about bullying and how to be a good friend. This type of activity does a good job of incorporating bullying without explicitly telling students we are learning about bullying.

            I never thought I would feel like I had the ability to teach students dance but I really enjoyed on of the activities we did in today’s class. Today we did something called dance sequences. This is an activity where each student is given a drama action card and has the ability to play around with the different movements using criteria from the movement chart. You then put students into groups and have them create a dance by combining the actions to music. While doing this activity I did not feel like we were doing dance but we were covering many of the important dance expectations. I now feel confident that dance is something I can teach and continue to learn new activities much like this one.

            I am beginning to see that drama is something that can easily be done in the classroom and you do not have to be an actor yourself to teach it. One thing I would like to work on is being more outgoing in drama. I should not be worried about being judged when up in front of a class because drama is fun and something that kids will enjoy. Also, the more excited the teacher looks about an activity the more likely students will be to by into it. Throughout the short time we have in this class I want to try and come out of my shell and be outgoing when teaching drama.

Reflection Class 4

            This week we are working on the connection between drama and language.  I had so much fun participating in today’s sequence of activities that went along with the Perfect-ville activity. I thought it was so neat how all the small activities connected to the larger activity in the end. We started the class with reading Where the Wild Things Are and did a drama activity called pop-up story. This is an activity I could use with many story books and you have students to be a living pop-up story book and tableau the pictures on the page or that they have developed in their mind. When the class then took a turn to talking about what it was like to live in Perfect-ville using the teacher in role strategy I had no idea how the activities were connected. I thought it was so cool when the two strategies were brought back together and ended up being a big drama activity. I plan to try this activity with my grade two class during block if I am given the chance to teach drama while I am there.

            This activity also incorporated recount writing, where the students were to write a story based on what happened in Perfect-ville. As a student I think writing about something that you have actually done and experienced is meaningful for students.  Writing is such an important skill for students to have so incorporating writing into a drama activity is a great idea and can help students understand the writing process. We started off by brainstorming ideas from the activity, choosing important ideas to write about, wrote the ideas in sentence form and designed a concluding sentence. I liked this activity because it incorporated multiple curriculum expectations and included the multiple intelligences that we learned in an earlier class.

            I have been finding it interesting how many different activities you can do in drama that do not include acting. When I began this class I thought we would be acting or be centered out ding solo drama activities but as the weeks have gone on I have been thoroughly enjoying the activities. I have learned that drama is not about acting but about having fun while cooperating and doing activities with others. In class I do not even feel like we are doing drama because we are usually learning a subject area while being active and involved in our learning. I have become more open to teaching drama in the elementary and junior classroom.

Reflection Class 5

            Today was our last day of drama and our first day back to class after our first teaching block. We started of the class by creating a connections web to describe our experiences in the teaching block and compare them to the experiences of our classmates. I unfortunately did not have a lot of experience with drama in my teaching block. I incorporated some aspects of drama into activities I was doing but for the most part drama was not something my grade two class had much exposure to. The first teaching block was very overwhelming so I found it hard to incorporate everything we have learned into my lessons but it is definitely something I want to do in my second teaching block.

            My biggest goal for my next teaching block is to integrate drama into other subject areas. This class has done a great job of demonstrating how you can connect drama to the various subject areas in the elementary and junior curriculum using many different teaching theories. By using drama in multiple subject areas it can increase the engagement and participation of our students. I also do not remember doing a ton a drama when I was in school that I enjoyed. I want to teach children that drama is fun and does not have to be scary.

            I want to continue to learn more about drama in order to integrate into multiple subjects and grade levels. I have thoroughly enjoyed this class and plan to continue to develop as a drama teacher through practicing teaching drama and reaching out to professional development opportunities that are available in the drama field.