Today was my second day back at Priestnall where I observed the Drama and Dance department. I spent the majority of the day in dance lessons with Mrs Morrison and I spent the final lesson of the day with Mr Dever in drama.
As the Priestnall Dance Showcase was the week after Industry Week, the main objective of the dance lessons today were to refine the routines to ensure they were strong enough to be performed onstage in front of an audience. This taught me that when planning a lesson it is important to have an objective to reach so that the time in the lesson is spent productively and effectively.
The 1st and 4th lessons of the day were spent with 2 different year 9 groups who had a slightly lower ability in comparison to the Year 10 and Year 11 GCSE classes that took place in period 2 and 3. This was due to circumstance, as not only were the Year 10's and 11's older meaning they had more experience, they had also chosen to do Dance at GCSE level whereas the Year 9's were younger and had to chose between Dance or PE. This meant that it took more time and effort to achieve the objective of having their dance routines in a strong position in time for the dance showcase. This has taught me that sometimes as a teacher you have to be patient and that each class will have different outcomes and will reach their goals in a different amount of time depending on the ability of the group. This has furthered my understanding of tailoring a lesson to fit the students who are in the class even more so.
One thing I noticed within the Year 11 dance class was how Mrs Morrison was more conversational with them at the start of the lesson when introducing the class as they are students who are older and more mature but when it came down to doing the work there was more urgency due to the circumstance that not only were their dance pieces for the dance show, the same pieces were also their exam pieces which was taking place next week. By doing this, you are communicating the level of importance that something may be in a way that gets the message across without panicking the students. The skill of communication is very important between a teacher and their students and there are variety ways a teacher can communicate information to a student. By observing this I am developing my communication skills so I can improve and increase the amount of ways you can present information.
I spent my final lesson with Mr Dever teaching a Year 8 class. In this lesson, the students went into small groups and were set on a task to devise a short piece of theatre. During this lesson I went to each group to track their progress and to ensure they were getting on with their work. I struggled with this at first as I didn't really know what to say or do, meaning I was just walking around the room from group to group without adding any productivity to the lesson. However, throughout the lesson I became more confident and developed my skills of interacting with the students on a smaller scale and aiding their work by asking them to tell me what their piece was about, to show me what they had so far. Then, I gave each group feedback or suggestions so that they could add improvements to the work they had created so far.
Two videos from YouTube where you can follow a stretching routine.
After finishing my second day of teaching I came home and started to stretch in order to further develop my flexibility skills and continue to work on my professional development targets. Today I decided to vary it up by following 2 Alivia D'Andrea videos in order to have a 30 minute stretch. I find these videos very helpful, particularly after a long day as I find it easier to follow a video rather than to think of my own stretches and figure out which stretch I should do next and potentially forget to do some. I have already noticed an improvement in my flexibility as I am able to push deeper into my stretches, which in turn will intensify them. Continuing to do this will allow me to achieve my target of being flat in my left and right split.
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