Thursday, July 1

Creative Learning Workshop

Martin Heaney first delineated what he meant by the Creative Agent, such that the students would be able to see themselves as such when they go to observe and teach in the classrooms. As part of this introduction he showed a video from the TED series of Ken Robinson trying to encourage teachers to take risks in their pedagogical approach and re-learn the art of teaching and learning.

In the workshop period, Martin asked the students first to look at a table full of objects in order to identify an object that they connected with. The students then took this object and worked with a partner or in a small group to share why they connected to that object. They continued to share with multiple partners, each time deepening their understanding and articulation of their thoughts.

In the next activity (apologies if I've left anything out--which is always possible) the students worked again in groups and each had to find an envelope hidden somewhere in the space. Each of the four envelopes had an instruction sheet and a series of materials. The students were to follow the directions which required them to complete an short activity, display their work, creating a work station. When the four stations were completed, the groups rotated around to the adjacent station, followed the directions and completed the activity according to the directions on the sheet. This continued until each group had completed each activity.

Here is some of the work the groups produced:

In the close of the morning session, Martin explored what is meant by Creative Learning and showed documents from a case study of a creative learning residency with a group of Year 3 students (age 8) at a town outside of London.

In the after-lunch session, Martin led the group in a series of warm up activities, one of which asked the group to work in partners and take two minutes to teach something to their partner. Among the tasks students engaged included dances and short bits of foreign languages.

The World of the Women in Women Beware Women

Philip Taylor led a reflective workshop on the Middleton play. First the group had a reflective discussion about the text. This was followed with a short series of dramatic activities. The first asked the students to think of a physical representation of the world of the women in Women Beware Women and then had them create this. The students then created a second image/or more dedicated version of the first to reflect the title. In the third turn, the students were asked to add a sound, word, or phrase to their physical creation. All created performed at the same time, and then each took a turn around the circle.

The students then held onto their pose and moved to groups to like physical motions. The newly formed groups took one turn at a time whereby the group made their poses and the remaining students were free to reposition the frozen students into a frozen picture that was more cohesive yet still creating the world of the women in Women Beware Women. In the new image, the students once again took individual turns adding their sound, word, or phrase. Thereafter, the next group went into their collection of individual still images and the other students worked to manipulate them into a more cohesive image.

Here are the group images:

"Good drama is the juxtaposition of the presentation of self and how we really are underneath."

For the final activity, Dr. Taylor broke the group into four groups. Each group completed the Role on the Wall activity for an assigned character of the play. Inside the body, the students wrote anything they knew about the character based on what they saw last night. Outside the body, they wrote dreams, aspirations, and/or questions about the character. Thereafter, the groups rotated around the room to add to the sheets as they saw necessary.

If there had been further work, Dr. Taylor would have tried to bring the characters into London in 2010, creating modern scenes for these characters that showed the tension between public and private.

DRSTOS and School Assignments

I led an exploratory workshop on the DRSTOS-R formative assessment tool for student teaching. I asked the students first to work in two large groups creating improvisations of the effective and ineffective classroom. This activity served to illustrate the stated purpose of the tool--to help teachers move from Not-Yet-Proficient/Ineffective practices to those that are Proficient/Effective. The students worked in groups to unpack the 22 individual elements of the tool and brainstorming examples of behaviors that an evaluator might observe in order to show that they are proficient in a given area.

This is what the groups came up with for observable examples of proficiency in each area of the DRSTOS-R:

Planning and Preparation

1. Pedagogical Content Knowledge

- differentiated instruction to meet the different learning styles of each student

- using different sensory materials for different learning styles

- interdisciplinary instruction

2. Knowledge of Content Standards

- make connections with the lesson plan within the actual lesson; these connection should be assessed

3. Long/Short Term Planning

- the lesson should be built upon an overarching theme

4. Constraints on Teaching and Learning

- using creative activities that take available resources and time into account

5. Criteria and Standards

- use of discussion, journaling, student reflections, homework, etc. to assess students’ grasp of content

6. Feedback, Reflection, and Use for Planning

- responding when students struggle with material

- using realia to help struggling students

- as students who do understand to re-explain or re-teach those that do not

Classroom Environment

7. Student-teacher Interaction with Pupils

- taking questions

- opening up for whole group discussion

- respecting responses form students

8. Classroom Interaction

- teacher models behavior and class rehearses routines and procedures

- classroom community is established on the first day

9. Functioning of Learning Groups

- agenda on the board

- group roles and responsibilities are identified and posted

- teacher gives one-step instructions

10. Transitions

- signals and rituals are established and used consistently

- transitions should be planned and should appear smooth

11. Materials and Supplies

- materials are organizes and placed at students’ level

- clean up routines are established and used consistently

12. Mutual Expectations

- student-created rules and procedures should be established in a classroom contract

- students should establish consequences for not following the contract

13. Awareness of Pupil Behavior

- during group work, the teacher assigns a monitor to each group in order to make sure that students are equally responsible for keeping each other on task

Instruction

14. Lesson Structure and Time Management

- teacher is aware of time

- teacher posts and agenda so students know what to expect

- teacher gives students reminders about time and announces the anticipated duration of a given activity

15. Clarity of Goals

- expectations are posted

- rubrics or building blocks are explained

16. Knowledge of Learning Styles

- teacher uses questions to activate and access prior knowledge

- differentiated instruction

- teacher assesses learning styles (through one-on-one discussions, diagnostic tests, etc.)

17. Student-teacher/Pupil Communication

- teacher provides opportunities for writing and sharing

- teacher asks questions which can lead to group discussions

18. Discussion Style

- peer-to-peer discussion dominates classroom interactions

- student centered activities are primary teaching methods

Professional Responsibilities

19. Relationship with Adults

- teacher offers to supervise unruly students for a colleague

- teacher send a parent letter at the start of the term or semester

20. Cultural Context of the School and Community

- teacher leads class in discussions about their school and/or community

- teacher uses home experiences in drama (What do you do to help out at home? What do you see on your way home from school?)

21. Ability to Reflect

- Student-teacher accepts feedback from cooperating teacher and uses it to improve his or her teaching

- Student-teacher utilizes assessment results to inform planning and re-teaches skills as necessary

Thereafter, I reviewed the assessment criteria for the school visits (the students are required to produce a lesson plan that they will implement at their schools and also put that lesson into context in a unit plan).

Meet with Cooperating Teachers

Dr. Taylor welcomed to cooperating teachers and asked them to introduce themselves. My group is working with Ray at the Haggerston School for Girls in Hackney, East London. Ray gave a comprehensive overview of the school and surrounding community and offered that each of our students might shadow a girl as she goes about her classes throughout the early and late morning sessions in order to get a holistic sense of what teaching and learning is like at Haggerston. We would then meet for lunch and have a planning session to discuss our later observation and teaching.

WAR HORSE (New London Theatre)

War Horse was an engaging and affecting piece, adapted by Nick Stafford from the young people's novel by Michael Morpurgo. The piece used puppetry and minimal scenery in order to evoke the world of World War I, particularly in the UK and France. It told the story of a boy whose father buys a horse he cannot afford and the boy trains it to be a great riding horse. When the war comes, the father sells it on to the army for a considerable profit and the boy is so heartbroken, he enlists in order to go find the horse and bring it back home.

I was moved by the simplicity of the piece, though some students felt the characters did not have significant enough changes in their character arc to warrant a positive reaction--a sentiments I agreed with. Nonetheless, it was a definite crowd-pleaser.