My first
reflection is going to be on my initial reaction to our first Dance class.
I was nervous
as I walked into class on Monday morning, which was not only my first Dance
class but also the first class for my last semester in the Consecutive Teacher
Education Program at Brock University. As I walked in and class began, I felt a
really warm and welcoming atmosphere in the room.
We started with a warm-up/introduction strategy that was called Yes let’s! This activity was like a twist to the “follow the leader”
game where everyone introduces themselves and has a chance to lead the actions
of the group. We all stood in a circle, and the instructor initiated an action
by saying, “Let’s hop on one foot” and then the class replied by saying “yes
let’s” and everyone hoped on one foot. Then the next person standing beside the
instructor continued the game by saying “let’s…”and then saying an action that
the whole group would follow and do.Then we all replied by saying “yes let’s.”
This continued around the circle, and everyone had a turn to lead an action.
In the near future, when I get a job as a teacher, I
will be working as an occasional teacher at first and will need to create a respecting
and trustful atmosphere with students in various different classrooms. Hence, I think that this activity
will assist me to build an initial connection with the students and foster a
comfortable learning environment in the classroom.
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| Retrieved from: https://ariellecooper.wordpress.com/positive-learning-environment-plan/ |
Continuing on with the first class, the workshop that we
participated in on the first day was connected with Laban’s theory of movement
and with Mem Fox’s book titled, The Straight Line Wonder.
The inspiration book my Mem Fox, revolves around three
lines that are best friends and then one day one of the straight lines gets
tired of being straight all the time and decides to go twirling and looping and
zig-zagging. His friends are embarrassed at first but then the line that
decides to be different becomes “The Straight Line Wonder!” This book was
really interesting and I like how we can teach students social dimensions of
the classroom through the text and creative movements.
After reading the book, we then drew
different lines and created a line dictionary. We then distinguished which
drawings and words would fall under the leader line category and which ones
would fall under the follower line category. I liked how we distinguished the lines that we drew into
follower and leader lines and then expressed our own view of how the line could
be executed through dance. I liked how we used Laban’s four component parts
(weight, speed, flow and direction) of movement as a means to show how we
represent that various leader and follower lines that we created. Using weight,
speed, flow and direction to differentiate how to enact a leader line/adjective
word versus a follower line/adjective word was a lot of fun and fostered our
imagination and creativity in terms of expresses ourselves through movement. I
personally moved in a strong, forceful way when executing movements that
represented a leader word or line. In
addition, when executing a follower line adjective word I used more timid,
slow and curved body movements to represent my opinion of those lines and
words.
Through using this book and the
creative movement activities that connect with the book, I feel I would be able
to teach students to understand that we are all unique and special. This lesson
would really help students understand the importance of celebrating and
accepting our differences.
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| Image Reference: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/e6/5e/4a/e65e4a90347c87c43c47c60ed52502fd.jpg |
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