Dance Reflection

Creative Dance
Creative dance in the classroom is a great way for children to be actively engaged (physically and emotionally). Students are more excited and ready to be involved when they're focusing on more than mental processes.  Creative dance, as we learned in class, is different than I would have expected it.  It's a lot less technique oriented, and more about just being up and moving and putting emotion into movement.  It will help a lot of children realize they might have a future in something like dance, even boys.  Along with that, students may learn that dance is an effective learning method. Through our two week study of dance I learned that it is an effective way to incorporate concepts into memory. Creating movement to words creates a physical memory, and adding the music creates a mood which, in turn, creates an emotional memory. The whole experience creates several neural pathways to a concept, making it easier for later recall. Dance is not just a useful memory tool, but a healthy emotional outlet. Creative dance allows expression.  When students participate in creative dance they are able to express their emotions and feelings using a positive outlet.

In my preparation for field, I will use creative dance in my lesson planning.  I hope that by using creative dance I will better understand the personalities and confidence levels of the students I will be working with.  This could help me know what the best approach may be to teaching the class as a whole, and for working with individuals.  I hope that by incorporating creative dance into my lesson plans, that students will grow in their confidence and desire to participate. I believe that creative dance can build confidence and increase the comfort level among peers.

To incorporate the concepts I've learned in this creative dance unit, I will continue to take dance classes my self.  I will pay attention to the effects these classes have on my personal confidence, as well as my physical capabilities.  I believe it is important to stay active and healthy, and will do this now in my life so that I can be an example when I teach my future students about being active and healthy.  We are often taught to model what we teach, and what better way to model being actively engaged than doing it regularly in my life now? I will help the students I am working with in field, and in my future classrooms, understand the importance of building self-confidence and educational understanding through creative dance. I am also interested in finding books and music that I can use as tools for teaching concepts with creative dance. 

The group project was a great experience! I loved working on it with my group and seeing everyone participate during the presentation.  Dance is always fun, so this project was very enjoyable for me. This group was fun and easy to work with.  They all participated and contributed equally and helped each other.  I've learned that equal contribution is the best way to make a project move forward. Through all my group experiences the main theme would center around equal commitment and contribution.  When everyone is committed to helping the project move forward, it is a success.  Sometimes the project turns out different than expected, but when everyone helps it is usually a success!

Music Reflection

 Music is, in my opinion, the best communicator. I really believe that it has the ability to touch the emotions.  When emotions are involved in the learning process, the memory connections are must stronger and more easily recalled. Music should most definitely be included in the elementary classroom. Almost all little children love to learn fun melodies and rhythms. When you apply education lyrics, it will be that much easier for them to retain the information.

From the assignment, I learned that creating music with a familiar melody is much easier than trying to write lyrics and create a melody.  Writing the song was easy because we took the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and place the information in with the rhythm.  I tried to find away to organize the lyrics so that they had an order to them, such as North to South, however they didn't fit the rhythm very well that way, and that bothered me.  In either case, at least the children would know what state were part of the original thirteen colonies. In presenting, I noticed that some of the girls in the group were singing the song very fast and that was hard for the class to catch on. I tried to slow it down a bit so they could process the information.  That was the only real thing I noticed needed changing. 

I will use music as much as I can in my future classrooms.  I'm sad to say, the only time we sang in my elementary school was when we were preparing for a school recital or something. Luckily, I had personal lessons outside of school, but we did do have some music classes every once in a while.  I like how we've been taught in this program to use music to create songs that are actually about the topic we are learning. Sometimes I just don't think about things like that, so I'm glad it was brought to my attention. I will create songs for any topic possible to help my students better remember. Music is fun and engaging for most students, so to learn something in a fun and engaging way will improve their memories of it. 

I will continue to take music classes. I talked with my music teacher at UVU and she said that there will be a class next fall semester for elementary teachers that requires them to learn specifically about music in the classroom. I'm excited to take that class! I will study more instruments and maybe even a few classes concerning music therapy. I want to minor in music, so this is going to be a big part of my classrooms! I'm excited to help children find a love of music, and learn through it.

The group project was a little difficult because everyone was kind of shy to work together on a song. I felt the most comfortable with it, I think, so I kind of pushed the song along.  Everyone contributed equally. People found books on our topic, we all collaborated on ideas.   It was a fun project and I felt we presented it well together! I would maybe ask my future students to delegate among themselves the responsibilities and choose one thing I want them all to collaborate on together.