Field Experience

I really enjoyed field experience these past few weeks. It was really rewarding to work first hand with the students and see how great it is to be a teacher. Our lessons which implemented creative arts were one where we had the students use movements in dance to portray what they thought of vocabulary words in our Mountain Man unit. The other lesson used process drama while conducting a readers theater having to do with Mountain Men. The students seemed to enjoy both lessons and it was great to see them learn and grow while using creative arts with the unit. I am excited to be a teacher in the near future and be able to use more creative arts while teaching my students. I have seen first hand that by implementing creative arts, our students will be able to retain more information while learning, because it has been taught in a creative way and they remember more while learning.

Teaching With and Through Visual Art

I particularly enjoyed the specific elements and principles we learned and focused on in visual arts. It was fun to have the hands on experience really understanding all of the various elements involed with visual arts. Although I have had some art intructional background, it is still refreshing to be reminded of these particular elements and principles. It was also very important to keep these in our journals so that we can refer to them and have specific examples of each when we are teaching the arts in the field. I think its important that our students understand these principles and how they are important when they are creating visual art. It helps them understand visual art and respect it when observing the art of others as well as their own.
I also enjoyed the day when we presented information about the artists of childrens books and provided materials for our classmates to participate in various art elements and principles. It was exciting to realize the different elements and styles that each artist used and how this diversity in art is pleasing to the viewers as well as educational.

Teaching With and Through Music

So far, of the arts elements, this has been the most natural for me. I think if is very important to incorporate both drama and dance into curriculum, but music has always been more natural. Students of every age can somehow relate to music. Whether listensing, singing, writing lyrics or composing, most of them can contribute in some way. I really enjoyed the presentations in class. Every team utilized music in their presentation with much success. The points of their lessons came across effectively and more substancially because we incorporated music in the learning process. Whenever I do any meanial task, it is enhanced when I do it while listensing or singing music. Music makes our world brighter and more colorful auditorially.
I plan on implementing music in my future classroom by all the avenues. I plan on providing background music on many occasions and will definately have children sing often. I will also have them create lyrics to tunes on many different topics depending on subject matter and even feel like it would be beneficial for students to learn how to put notes together to create musical peices that they design. I have been involved in directing childrens music and feel like it is a worthwhile and educatonally enhancing activity.

Teaching With and Through Dance

I enjoyed class because it was different than how I had previously viewed dance. I thought it was very creative to use our own bodies to provide a display of our emotions. In the past I thought students would participate in a dance unit by being taught and practicing a choreographed traditional dance. This is more the product of dance, but what is more beneficial to our students is the process of dance. When they are allowed to express themselves through movement, they can gain something more vital to their education. When they are allowed to do this they can benefit in many areas of education and this process will enhance their experience. Through such means, they connect meaning to their experience and are more likely to remember it.
I plan on implementing this process dance in my curriculum as much as possible. I feel like when I can incorporate dance that my students will learn more and enjoy the process. Students really enjoy movement and it stimulates their brains which will enable them to learn more. I think that creative expression through dance or movement will benefit their educational experience in many areas.

Teaching With and Through Drama

I thought it was refreshing and fun to participate in our drama presentations this past Monday. I am very excited to implement curriculum with drama in my future classrooms. I felt like by using this creative art in lessons, it kept students engaged and focused.
I plan on using drama in a variety of ways in the classroom. I think by having students pretend to be reporters or interviewers while they interact with other students is a great way for me to assess their comprehension of presented material. I feel like when we engage our students with these types of activities, they learn by reviewing important lessons previously learned which will lead to more long term memory of what they have been taught. I think I will mostly use the types of dramatic integration that include all or many of the students. This way if there are more shy students, they can feel safe by participating in groups. I particularly enjoyed the lesson where there were 4 groups who represented different locations in Utah, and then reporters asked them about the area, which would require the students to use former intruction to answer. They could work as a team to recall what they had learned. Then they were able to role play as they reported.
I think drama can be integrated into many curriculum areas. Students tend to be very fond of use of drama and other arts areas in their educational experiences. For this reason, they will naturally be more likely to maintain instruction.

Teaching In, Through, With and About the Arts

I have been amazed how much I just really didn't know about education and the arts until I participated in this class and read the assigned chapters so far in the text. I don't really understand why the arts are not more implemented currently in curriculum in edcation. Its surprizing to me how much teaching in, through, with and about the arts can make a difference in many aspects of students' education. There has been so much research on how much it can help their test scores improve dramactically, inspite of difficult personal circumstances. It also has been shown to improve social and other situations. I am excited to be learning these beneficial art activities to implement in my future classrooms. I feel like every students needs to have the opportunity to learn with and through arts and that by educating us as future teachers, this will help us implement arts into our curriculum and pedagogy.