• Musical Theatre creates and opportunity to combine dance, singing, and drama.
• Not only is musical theatre enjoyable, but it is also an excellent form of physical activity. Furthermore, musical theatre is a tool to confidence (Speert, n.d.).
• Musical theatre provides several authentic links to other Key Learning Areas:
  • History: Some musicals can be used to explore the past such as “Oliver!”, “Grease” and “Hairspray”.
  • English: Musical Theatre lyrics includes elements such as themes, hyperbole, (Gibson and Ewing, 2011) simile, rhyme, story structure and verbs.
  • PDHPE: Musical theatre provides opportunity to meet a range of PDHPE objectives, including “demonstrate an understanding of movement skills, concepts and strategies to respond confidently, competently and creatively in a variety of physical activity contexts” (NSW Education Standards Authority, 2018, p. 13).

 Gibson, R., & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the arts (1st ed.). South Yarra, Vic: Palgrave Macmillan.

NSW Education Standards Authority. (2018). Personal Development, Health and Physical Education K-10 Syllabus. Retrieved from https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/pdhpe/pdhpe-k-10-2018

Speert, E. (n.d.) Benefits of Musical Theatre: Education. Retrieved from https://tamswitmark.com/blog_items/benefits-of-musical-theatre-education/

The concept of using a stimulus to inspire creativity is a resource that I will use as a teacher. Furthermore, I particularly found interesting the idea of exploring the types of response a stimulus can generate. By using a stimulus, dance is effectively and efficiently interwoven with the other key learning areas of the syllabus. As a teacher, I believe an integrated curriculum is important as it created a meaningful context for learning (Gibson & Ewing, 2011, p.19). 

Furthermore, using a stimulus for dance is appealing to me as it guides my thinking when it comes to developing lesson plans. When faced with the open-ended task of teaching dance, I feel slightly lost as to where to start. Finding a quality stimulus guides not only the students, but myself as a teacher. Studies have shown that the key elements for generalist teachers to be able to teach dance is “confidence, experience and resources to be able to introduce their children to dance and to be able to integrate this with other subjects” (Russell-Bowie, 2013, p.228). The idea of using a stimulus fulfils these criteria for me, and builds my confidence to be able to teach dance.

 Gibson, R., & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the arts (1st ed.). South Yarra, Vic: Palgrave Macmillan.

  Russell-Bowie, D. (2013). What? Me? Teach dance? Background and confidence of primary preservice teachers in dance education across five countries. Research in Dance Education, 14(3), 216–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2012.722614

This week, while studying the strand of “space”, I was particularly interested by the way I can use collaboration as a tool to help students learn. The first Australian professional standard for teaching is to “know students and how they learn” (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), 2014). This week, in response to the task cards, my group preposed that our hypothetical stage 3 students must work together to explore and learn about space in dance.  My group and I decided to use our task cards in a way that would encourage students to develop collaboration skills. Fostering collaboration skills is an important practice within my pedagogy. Studies show that collaboration, when compared with “competitive and individualistic efforts, has numerous benefits and typically results in higher achievement and greater productivity, more caring, supportive, and committed relationships; and greater psychological health, social competence, and self esteem” (Laal & Ghodsi, 2012, p. 489). Furthermore, as teachers we must best prepare our students for their adult life. According to Linked In data, the top three skills employers need most in 2019 are creativity, persuasion, and the ability to collaborate (Petrone, 2019).

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). (2014). Australian          professional standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professionalstandards-for-teachers

Laal, M., & Ghodsi, S. M. (2012). Benefits of collaborative learning. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 31, 486-490.

Petrone, P. (2019, January 1).  The skills companies need most in 2019- and how to learn them. Retrieved from https://learning.linkedin.com/blog/top-skills/the-skills-companies-need-most-in-2019–and-how-to-learn-them

This week’s workshop demonstrated to me the valuable use of language to teach dance. Using Laban’s words as a stimulus, we as students had to think creatively about how to interpret the language and then represent with our bodies. Macdonald (1999) discusses how dance is more than physical, it is a connection between a child’s inner world, their thoughts, feelings and beliefs and their outer world, their movements and behaviours (p. 435). Additionally, activities concerning Laban’s principles can be used in the key learning area of English, as an observational assessment of understanding of parts of language, such as adjectives and verbs. For example, towards the end on a unit of work using Laban’s movements, with a stage 1 classroom, I would split the class into group of four, and give each group a set of the words. These students will then create 16 counts to demonstrate their understanding of the language. Depending on the classroom, students could also perform their choreography for their peers, and their peers have to guess the language that is being performed. Studies have shown that activities such as these improve imaginative writing as well as build confidence and skill in creative movement (Gibson & Ewing, 2011, p.43)

Colla J. Mac Donald. (1991). Creative Dance in Elementary Schools: A Theoretical and Practical Justification. Canadian Journal of Education / Revue Canadienne De L’éducation, 16(4), 434-441. doi:10.2307/1495255

 Gibson, R., & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the arts (1st ed.). South Yarra, Vic: Palgrave Macmillan.

This week’s workshop reinforced the importance of feedback in my professional practice. Firstly, hearing the feedback of the group’s performance before mine altered what I had planned to do, such as ensuring that my voice was projecting well. Hearing my feedback gave me opportunity to develop and reflect on my skill set. Reflecting on this, I understand that students must firstly be open to accepting the feedback. It is important to me to be able to build a classroom culture that welcomes feedback, and does not view constructive feedback in a negative way.

The workshop this week made me reflect on the type of feedback I give. I am trying to improve the feedback I provide, as I find in the past I tend give empty feedback such as “that’s great” or “good job”. This feedback is not useful, and I am trying to be more conscious of giving good critical feedback. Good feedback address both cognitive and motivational factors at the same time (Brookhart, 2008, p.2). In my professional practice, I will try and focus on feedback that addresses the quality of work, process, and strategies used, rather than personal comments that do not draw attention to the student’s learning (Brookhart, 2008, p.4).

Brookhart, S. (2008). How to give effective feedback to your students . Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

• Percussion instruments provide many opportunities in the classroom to explore improvisation. Students can be guided in their improvisation tasks, such as concluding the piece of music with 4 counts of improvisation. Exploring sound via improvisation builds confidence, generate novel ideas, allow for sharing and learning from others (Burnard & Murphy, 2017, p. 28)
• Percussion instruments offer an excellent opportunity to explore world music. Instruments such as the Guiro, Maracas, Bongos and Djembe drum can all be used to explore culture around the world. As stated by Gibson and Ewing, “learning about the artistic practices of other cultures including their music fosters acceptance and empathy” (2011, p.126).

Burnard, P., & Murphy, R. (2017). Teaching music creatively (Second edition.). Abingdon, Oxon ;: Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group.

 Gibson, R., & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the arts (1st ed.). South Yarra, Vic: Palgrave Macmillan.

This week’s lesson inspired thought on how I can use singing to develop an understanding of multiculturalism in the classroom. Intercultural understanding is a general capability that is vital for students to develop (NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), n.d.). In particular, singing is a useful tool to develop this understanding. Singing is particularly well-suited to introduce cultural diversity by showcasing other languages while at the same time improving the child’s tonal and rhythmic abilities (Vuckovic, 2006, p.45). Furthermore, within the multicultural classroom, using songs from student’s cultural can be greatly beneficial. As Vuckovic postulates “when children can identify with the classroom content, they are able to achieve greater progress individually, which in turn can boost the progress of the whole class” (p.47).

Additionally, exploring songs from a range of cultures creates quality links to other key learning areas, such as English and HSIE. For example, by using a range of cultural songs, students explore the geographical concept of “people and places”, a feature of the curriculum in all primary school stages (NESA, 2015).

  Vuckovic, A. (2006). Understanding Diversity through Music and Song. Victorian Journal of Music Education, (2004 – 2006), 45–52.

NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). (2015). K-10 Geography Syllabus. Retrieved from http://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/hsie/geography-k-10

NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). (n.d.). Learning across the Curriculum. Retrieved May 25 from https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/english-year-10/english-k-10/learning-across-the-curriculum

This week I was astounded by the quality of the garage band app. As a teacher, I believe that finding and using quality technology resources is vital to providing a good education. “In contemporary society, the use of digital technology has become pervasive in all areas of activity and all segments of society, including young people’s lives” (Macedo, 2013, p.207). Being able to incorporate technology such as garage band can help students who may be reluctant or overwhelmed by music to play, and explore different sounds, beats and melodies. Personally, I have no background in music, and the concept of music is slightly overwhelming to me- I just do not really know what I am doing. But I found garage band to be really enjoyable, and I was proud of myself for creating the piece of music with my partner. It allowed me to reflect on musical composition, and gave me a greater appreciation for musicians. Furthermore, the app allowed me to explore musical instruments that I, or other students in Australia may not have to chance to otherwise, such as the Erhu or the Guzheng. This is presents an opportunity to link music with other Key Learning Areas, such as Geography.

  Macedo, F. (2013). Teaching creative music technology in higher education: A phenomenological approach. Journal of Music, 6(2), 207–219. https://doi.org/10.1386/jmte.6.2.207_1

This week I learnt to value the importance of listening to music. As stated by Murphy (2017) Listening is the keystone to developing a musical ear and it provides one of the most accessible entry points for enhancing creativity (p. 104). It can be tempting to dismiss listening to music as a valuable activity in the classroom. However, this week has demonstrated how listening to music can facilitate the development of creativity as “listening closely and analysing structures, melodies and creative ideas helps children think about how they can make music of their own” (Murphy, 2017, p.104). This point is illustrated by our own lesson structure, listening, appreciating and reflecting upon music that led up to the creation of a piece of music, the rap. Furthermore, this week’s activities for appreciation of music not only taught me about the qualities of music, but were a catalyst for developing skills such as creative writing.  As John Dewey (1938) argues, if curriculum subjects are taught in isolation, knowledge is disconnected for the rest of experience and not available in the actual condtions of life (pp. 48-49).

Burnard, P., & Murphy, R. (2017). Teaching music creatively (Second edition.). Abingdon, Oxon ;: Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan

This week inspired thought on how I can encourage creativity in the classroom. “Music stimulates creativity because making music involves experimenting with sounds and rhythms” (Gibson & Ewing, 2011, p.112). In particular, experimenting with the pentatonic scale is an activity that I would like to experiment with in the classroom. For students with that may be apprehensive or overwhelmed by playing a musical instrument, the pentatonic scale allows students to explore sound and music in a scaffolded and comfortable way. Furthermore, as a teacher with no particular background in music, it offers me a tool to facilitate and provide effective music education. 

Similarly, this week we spoke about anxiety in teaching music. Whilst the thought of teaching music is slightly confronting, I have been taking the step to become more musical in my spare time by learning to play an instrument. A driving factor in my reasons for this is so I am abler to provide quality music education to my students. Apart from being enjoyable, numerous studies have shown the effects of learning music and the improvement of academic achievement (Gibson & Ewing, 2011, p.113).

  Gibson, R., & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the arts (1st ed.). South Yarra, Vic: Palgrave Macmillan.