Receiving Feeback

I had my last classes this week before I begin Pantomime rehearsals.  I have worked really hard on my lesson plans this term taking in everything I have read in literature and I am so happy the hard work has paid off.  Below is some feedback I received from parents.

Musical babies make social kids

Interview process

I have now completed my interviews and have to say I really enjoyed being able to talk professionally to people in a similar job as me.   In all of my interviews the questions were really just a skeleton of what I wanted to ask and most interviews I asked more questions off what they said.  It was great to hear from people who have more experience than me and can definitely say I will be taking all of their ideas into my classes.  I noticed that there is two types of Early Years Dance Teachers:

1. Teachers that teach creatively and there main aim is to allow self expression and have fun.
2. Teachers that teach exam classes and there main aim is to pass dance exams and pass on technique.

I find that there is benefits to both practices, however, for me I would like to go down the first route of teaching with a more creative approach.

I have now started drafting my inquiry as in two weeks I will be starting Pantomime rehearsals which I know will leave me with limited time up until the New Year.  It is a slight worry but I cannot wait to get into rehearsals again.  I will be playing 'Tommy the Cat' in Dick Whittington and feel it will tie in nicely with my professional inquiry as a lot of my audience is going to be young children.  It will be interesting to see what the children find funny and what they enjoyed the most about the show.

Fostering Pre School Childrens social development - Why I will be adding songs to my classes

One of my inquiry questions asks how I can foster social and creative development in my classes.  I found this study through the Starcatchers blog which has encouraged me to include songs and singing in my dance classes.

The full article can be found here.

Over a month, 39 babies attended 12, 15 minute sessions in a lab with their parents. In groups of 2/3 babies sat with their parents. 20 children were assigned to the 'music group' where childrens tunes were played while they tapped out a waltz rhythm.  19 babies attended a session without music.

Both groups experienced active involvement and included body movements.  The key difference was whether the babies were moving to learn a musical rhythm.

After a week, the babies were placed in a brain scanner and the rhythms were played to them with disruptions in the music.

Results:  The babies in the music group has stronger brain responses to the disruption of the music and speech.

“Schools across our nation are decreasing music experiences for our children, saying they are too expensive,” Kuhl says. “This research reminds us that the effects of engaging in music go beyond music itself. Music experience has the potential to boost broader cognitive skills that enhance children’s abilities to detect, expect and react quickly to patterns in the world, which is highly relevant in today’s complex world.”

This study has encouraged me to use songs and rhythm exercises in my classes.

Laban Movement Theory

Whilst reading for my inquiry I came across this theory from 'Developmental Movement for Children' by Veronica Sherborne and found it may be useful to teachers and in particular will help me with my inquiry question 'How can I foster social and creative skills in my classes.'

Laban characterized movement into four parts

• Direction 
• Weight
• Speed
• Flow

With Direction, Laban describes 6 movements:

• High/Low
• Side to Side
• Backwards/Forwards

As a teacher, you can encourage children to move in ways that are normally neglected and thus enrich their awareness of the space.  I am going to try this in my classes and note down in my journal how the children react.  I already include a lot of High and Low movement in my classes so it will be interesting to see how the children react to more side to side movements and backwards movement and if I will see an improvement in these directions over the term.

The book states:

'If children have not developed awareness of their bodies, movement into space becomes meaningless and empty.  With the development of some body awareness, the spatial directions begin to have greater significance.'

Movement Qualities

There are eight movement qualities:

1. Strong
2. Light
3. Bound Flow
4. Free Flow
5. Direct
6. Flexible 
7. Fast 
8. Slow

When teaching or observing young children, 'we are mainly aware of one or perhaps two of these qualities.  It is rare to see as many as four at once.' 

As an Early Years teacher, this will help me with my classes as I can look for qualities that the children are less familiar with and try and try and develop these qualities with them. It will be hard at first but with the help of my journal I think this will help me to become a better teacher.

Article I found interesting

The article is called 'Why Preschool Shouldn't be like School' and below is a link to the full article:

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/03/why_preschool_shouldnt_be_like_school.html

It talks about 'direct teaching' vs 'the playful approach'  and describes a controlled experiment to measure the two.

In one experiement, they gave two groups of 4 year olds a toy with four different tubes coming out of it.  Each tube did something different.  The only variable in each group was the way that the adults taught the children in the group about the toy.  In one group, the experimenter pretended she had just found the toy acted surprised at what the toy could do.  In the other group the experimenter acted more like a teacher and said things like 'Im going to show you how my toy works.'  They then left the children alone with the toy.

The children from the first group discovered more about the toys hidden features than those in the second group.

So, I put this into my own practice and thought about the way I teach young children.  I try and use props of different colours and base my class around a theme to make it fun.  However, I do enjoy structure to my class and a bit of direction.  For example, I was employed to teach in a nursery today and feel that if my class did not involve a bit of directed teaching then the other teachers observing the class may have questioned what I was doing and it may have looked like I was not in control of the class by letting them play on their own for too long.

I have decided to include this is a question in my interviews to other practitioners as I am interested to know what the best way of teaching is to ensure young children are learning as creatively as possible in my classes.

Starcatchers workshop

Throughout Summer I have been trying to find opportunities to learn more about Early Years Education. I took part in a free workshop with Starcatchers, an Early Years organisation based in Scotland that specialise in creativity and performances for children aged 0-5. This was a perfect chance for me to network with other professionals who are interested in enriching the lives of Early Years children. 

Everyone came from different backgrounds and this was great. Some were singing teachers, some studying like me and some were just genuinely interested in the subject. 

It started with a discussion based workshop about why the Arts and Creativity are so important in the Early Years. We were told that 90% of synapses are developed in the brain in the first three years.  This statistic made me feel excited that I have chosen to look at social development in Early Years Dance classes and it is clearly the most crucial age in development. It is also makes me think as teachers we are responsible for nurturing a child's development. 

We also looked at Article 31 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the child that Scotland has signed up to: 

“That every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

That member governments shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.”

It is hugely relevant right now that we make sure all children are having positive arts experiences. 

In the afternoon, we were shown various techniques, games, songs that we could use in our classes to encourage creative development. I find this hugely useful as a teacher and gave me lots of new inspiration for my classes. I have been asked to do two workshops for a nursery this week and will be using a mixture of my ideas with ideas I learnt from the workshop. In the past I have jus taught dance to the the Early Years students however, after taking part in the workshop I am going to add singing to the movement as I think this this will capture their attention and encourage a positive social and creative development. 

This workshop helped me a lot and gave me great resources to research.