Drama Class: Updated Project

Okay, as outlined earlier, my project involves blogging and skyping in my drama classes.  I have recently returned from Calgary where I had the opportunity to talk with colleagues about this project and idea for future implementation once I am back in the classroom.  Most of the chats were positive and excited that I was  planning on using my new knowledge in a practical way and was able to share my learing with my colleagues.

Since I posted about my project, I have been able to secure  speakers through personal contacts and others suggested by readers of my blog.  Thank you!

I have also found some rubrics thanks to Angela, to use as a springboard for work with my students.  One is for blogging and one is for commenting on others blogs.  I like the detailed nature of these rubrics as they make clear the expectations for students.  I want to have the opportunity to go over each rubric with my students and change things as needed to meet the needs of each of the three classes.

Changes have been made to my project outline entry.

Others have suggested using Voice Thread and Ellumninate for my sessions with students and guest artists.  The former could be used to help other students connect rather than one large group.  This may help other students become involved in the discussions.  The latter is not one I want to try at this time but will keep it in mind.  If need be, the latter might work in a whole class lab session but I like the idea of our guests coming to the theatre via Skype.  These are both great suggestions and I welcome the feedback and encouragement as I continue to evolve in my practise and work with students.

Updates

As I continue to read, connect via twitter, and follow my eci831 colleagues, I continue to grow in my professional thinking and practise around being a connected teacher and a connected classroom.

Before I launch into my recent discoveries, I want to update my readers on some of the challenges that I mentioned in previous posts and the progress in those areas.  My parents MOVED from our childhood home.  Today is the last day of possession as things become cleaned, and left in order for the new buyer.  It has been difficult to watch my parents sort, deal, and discard so many things of their lives these past forty years.  Worse yet, has been observing how tired and weary they have become in the past twenty-eight days since the house  sold.  They are happy to be in a new, clean, safe, and smaller location with less maintenance and NO shovelling!!  My sister and I are grateful this came to pass while they are both healthy and able to make the decision to leave the ancestral manor.  I hope they are able to relax and enjoy their new surroundings for many years to come.

Additionally, I have moved back home to Calgary.  The movers showed up a week early so things were rapidly packed and moved despite blizzards and cold weather at either end.  Our summer home is listed and hopefully the right buyer will pick it up and that will be done by the end of the year.  I must admit that I am tired of packing and living out of suitcases!!  I am back in Regina trying to wrap up my courses before heading back to Alberta.  I am happy though overwhelmed with the MANY boxes to contend with in the near future.  It is amazing what we carry, keep, and part with in our lives.  I remember reading a book in my undergrad entitled, “The Things we Carried” by an American author and it was about what soldiers carried in the war, and how heavy their packs were and of course the metaphors and lessons contained within.

In amongst the chaos of the past few weeks in my personal life, I have felt challenged to be successful in school while still dealing with life.  It is true as teachers that we expect our students to make school a priority, to be focused, and prepared.  We want our students to be successful and as teachers many of us see only what occurs in our company and can’t understand why our students are distracted or falling behind.  While I would never want to repeat the challenges of this semester, I am grateful for the understanding and insights it has brought me.  While we spend a great percentage of our students’ days with them, sometimes personal things conflict with their abilities to focus.  I have had students find out they are moving suddenly and remember being upset that as a result they would miss a play rehearsal.  WE can’t control everything in the lives of our students no more than we can control everything in our lives.  Death, illness, relational issues, financial issues, and so many other things affect each of us personally, so do they affect our students.  I am grateful for the real life reminder…but am anxious to close a chapter on this real life lived experience!!

Project Outline: Continuing the Journey

Essential questions:

• How can I meaningfully integrate technology into my classroom?
• How can the use of an open classroom circumvent budgetary restraints?
• How can curriculum objectives and outcomes be better addressed for optimum student learning?
• How can students create meaningful relationships with one another and extend classroom learning outside of school hours?

Program of Studies:

• Drama 10, 20, 30 classes
• 5 credits, 125 hours per semester
• as per the provincial program of studies/curriculum guide
• meet daily with students for 90minutes of face time per day

Required Tools/Equipment:

• weekly lab time in the computer room, every Friday for each course
• LCD projector, film screen, portable computer for Skype sessions
• list of guest artists, teachers, practitioners for guest lectures
• network of adults to respond to student blogs
• in-school support via school technician, facilities, and library services

**Thank you to all of the readers who have suggested guest artists for my classroom.  Thank you also to my own mentors, colleagues, and friends who have agreed to participate in Skype sessions.

Journals:

• I have used student journals in a variety of ways in the past twelve years of teaching with varying degrees of success.  I have discovered students reluctancy to write pen to paper in class, sporadic submission of journals for grading, and differing degrees of depth of writing.  I have used story starters, quotations, and class content as impetus for writing.  I know I have not tapped the full potential of possibilities in this area and I want to encourage my students to continue to examine, critique, and grow through their writing.  The practise of writing helps students articulate their thoughts and practise their English language skills.
• To address this area of concern in my classroom, I have decided to have the students create online blogs.  Students will have class time every Friday to write a weekly entry and respond to comments received.  Scheduling class time levels the field for students without computers or internet access at home, and enables them to write in community with one another.  This will hopefully encourage students to write, use editing tools, and create a positive writing experience for them.  Having a network of people to respond to my students will also be an important component with regards to the success of this project.  I plan to ask current colleagues/staff at the school as well as members of my  online community to comment to the students.  I am hoping to increase this group of readers to include artists, writers, directors, and other theatre professionals.
• Other considerations will be privacy issues and other school board considerations.  Students will not use their full names. I have created three classes at kidsblog.org to facilitate this.  There are no students listed in any of the three classes as I am currently not teaching this semester.  I have adjusted the privacy settings so that I must approve posts and comments before they appear.  I think this is a good screening process for students and accountability for myself given open learning.
• Evaluation:  Student blogs will account for 15% of their overall grade in each of the three sections.  I will create a rubric for student evaluation.

**Thank you to Angela for her suggestions of the following rubrics for blogs.  One is for student blogs and one is for evaluating connecting assessments.  I will use these rubrics as a springboard for evaluation discussion with the students.  As a class, we will negotiate the rubrics, to make sure they are accessible and appropriate for each of the three classes.  These rubrics can be found here:

http://www.evenfromhere.org/?p=1352

http://www.evenfromhere.org/?p=1282

• Teacher management:  I like the notion that the student journals will exist inside my computer, and provide me the opportunity to respond each weekend, rather than carting journals back and forth from my classroom, to my car, to my home, and back again.  Having all of the journals in one place online will assist me in the marking, reading, and overall management of this aspect of the class learning.  This method of journalling also provides more privacy in class for students in that their journals are not open in the class, easily lost, instead, they are available online.  This method also permits me the opportunity to teaching students about writing for a public audience.

Guest artists/lectures:  (via Skype)

• I am not sure how to record these sessions, but it would be nice if that were possible to refer to again in subsequent classes.  *I have not ever recorded a session but have since learned how to do so.
• Each of the three grades have different units of studies.  I would like to include guests for each of the three courses into the curriculum.
• I am creating a list of guests from artists I know, people who have referred suggestions from my blog, teacher/directors in other schools, and people the students wish to approach
• For instance, Drama 10:

-Orientation (getting to know one another, no speakers for this unit)

-Movement

-Mime (we will look at youtube videos of mime artists)

-Voice (storytelling, reader’s theatre, monolgues, choral speech, radio drama)

-Technical Theatre (sound, props):  **sound engineer, props master

-Greek Theatre/Commedia d’ell arte

-Improvisation:  *improv artist, actor highly trained in improvisation

-Scene Study: *professional actor

Drama 20:

-Orientation(getting to know each other, no speakers)

-Movement

-Children’s Theatre *artists from a professional children’s theatre company, playwrights who write for children/young audiences

-Shakespeare Scene Study *professional actor

-Playwrighting  **professional playwright

-Theatre History

-Technical Theatre**costume designer, make-up artist

-Major Scene Study **professional actors (this can be done in small groups with the student actors and different professional actors

Drama 30:

-Orientation(get to know you, no guest speakers)

-Docudrama (guests vary on topic, such as domestic violence , or the Great Depression)

-Theatre History

-Technical Theatre  **lighting technician, professional stage manager

-Acting/auditions **professional actor

-Director’s Projects**professional director

Process:

• As the students move through the grades, they will take more responsibility for choosing, hosting, and interacting with the guests.
• Sessions will be booked in advance so that guests, equipment, and students prepared.
• Guest artists will be from a variety of backgrounds that connect to the curriculum.
• Sessions will be whole class as well as small groups.

Critical Reflection on eci831

So, it is now November 1, 2010 and the course “officially” ends in terms of projects, etc. in just about a month.  So, now that such time has passed I need to truly examine my thoughts on open and networked learning.

a)  First of all, this is an exciting and new type of learning for me.  I have felt both enthusiasm and tension (ovewhelmed) for most of this journey. Until recently, I had never tweeted, blogged, or knew about ‘delicious’ or google reader.  I have enjoyed listening to the different guest speakers, having mentors, and being connected to my colleagues in this way.  I feel I have learned SO much through this experience that I long to take more online courses and continue my interactions long after this course.

If one is uncomfortable or slow to warm up as I have been, it can be easy to fall behind or feel pressured to compress learning differently.  Many of our speakers have talked about finding/maintaining balance.  This is truly a challenge as someone is always online, there is always work to be done, more to do, learn, and create.  However, families, and other priorities come into play too.  I haven’t scheduled my screen time but I do like how Michael Wesch commits evenings to family time.

b) Pros of this type of learning is that I can work independently, in hours that work for me.  I am glad this class doesn’t have group work like some online courses at other universities.  I feel like I can learn at my own pace and work on aspects that align with my philosophies and needs as this time in my career.

c) Cons of this type of learning…well, this would be a critique of both of my classes this  semester but I am just not sure where I stand in terms of marks/grades.  I am enjoying the learning and I feel that I am making great strides in my progress yet I do not know if I am passing.  This is a concern to me because at the end of the day, I want to be successful in my classes this year so that I am able to obtain my degree.  Though I am so excited about what I am learning it would have been easier to learn some of the material and tools in advance.  By this I mean, an intro about what we would be covering so I could practise in advance of the course rather than doing it all right now.  Having the meeting time published at the time of course registration or earlier on would have been helpful to me given that I am taking concurrent classes.

d) The guest speakers and variety of material covered is wonderful.  I am not sure how I would improve this course/type of learning.  I love the mentors and opportunities we have been given.

e)  This work, learning has been informing the way I teach/learn.  For instance, this course has shed light on possibilities in my classroom.  I am excited about the potential available to me as a classroom teacher.  I love using ‘delicious’ for keeping track of sites and this has come in handy for writing papers, and other research.  I need some work on learning how to organize such material.

***How does one get SMART board certified?  I have heard speakers talk of this, tweeters tweet the same thing….and I am confused.

Thank you!

Though I am still new to this blogging, tweeting, network building, and community creating, it is starting to come alive for me.  Alec has talked in our lectures about the thoughtful, kind, and supportive online community.  In the past few hours, I have truly experienced that kindness, and I wanted to share my experiences!

First of all, Lisa M Lane commented on a previous post of mine and was both empathetic and insightful in response to one of my most personal blog posts.  I appreciated her kindness, words, and the video camera, thank you.

Later today, I noticed a twitter message from @childwillread who I have been following.  Paula has a great program for struggling readers, and an active tweeter whom I have been learning from.  She sent me a kind and honest message regarding a recent blog post and I was so surprised.  First, that we had connected, secondly, that she was truly honest, helpful, and direct.  Her suggestions had me view my work in a “new” (just for you Paula :)) way!!  And, she was so right!  Then after revisiting my work, and making some changes, I was able to tweet Paula and thank her for helping me!!  I know this won’t be our last conversation.  I am so excited!  Please check out her site.

The heart of the classroom…

I am having a difficult time putting into words what I am thinking and feeling right now.  I am excited, anxious, and ever mindful of the clock.  I tend to be a night person, an all night person…if left to my own devices, and now I am reluctant to sleep because I keep reading, and thinking, and clicking.  There is so much to learn, so much I want to do…yet it is already November!!!

Let me take a step back and share a little more about what is going on in my personal life as the physical disruptions in it are reflective of the thoughtful disruptions and refocusing I am experiencing in my professional/learning life.  To teach well, I believe we need to see the whole child so here you will see more of me.

– This is the first year in 13 that I have not been in the classroom.  I have dedicated this year to learning, reading, and reflecting. Thanks to my school board and teacher’s association I have received some funding to assist in having such a year!

-I moved from my current city to the city of my origin in order to complete my studies and spend more time with my parents.  While I am managing okay, there is a different mindset and educational lingo here that I hadn’t noticed before especially when one speaks about privatization!  Additionally, while I have located the closest Tim Horton’s (a definite NEED) I still don’t know where to take my dry cleaning!!

-Then my parents have decided to downsize and move quite suddenly.  This has been truly disruptive in a way that I could not have predicted.  The home they are selling is the one I grew up, the ‘home’ I would run to when things would go wrong, or celebrations occur.  This is the house the built the year I was born  Now, home is being shifted, changed and will not be the same.

In the way, my ideas of HOME SWEET HOME  are being analyzed and disrupted there is a parallel here to traditional modes of teaching and learning.  My parents have decided to downsize to such an extent that pets are not welcome in their new “condo” and no guest beds are being set up. I never thought I would need to stay in a hotel to go home!  Truthfully, as in many families, my perception of home and the Campbell’s Soup Family of my distorted memory never really existed.  Realistically, the idealistic images of childhood that both my sister and I giggle about are not tied to our house.  I know that I can take the best of what I learned to move forward.  Now, at this stage, I know neither my sister will truly be able to go home again.

Now, changing/shifting and packing/moving are some of my least favourite activities….but through them I continue to learn and grow.  I have been living out of a suitcase since March 2010 and will for a few more weeks as it turns out.  I sold my house in my current city to move home.  In the midst of that decision, I foolishly bought a summer home, and as a result of its location can’t get internet access so I have been living at my parent’s house.  Who knew that getting internet access in rural Saskatchewan was so difficult!!  I took that aspect for granted…and am now listing that house!!!  So, while change seems to be the theme for 2010, I continue to persevere.

Every cloud often come with a silver lining if only we take off our blinders.  This is true for me in that my childhood house to my new home mirrors traditional learning to 21st century learners.  I am soon to be married and will have the opportunity to establish a new home with husband.  This new home/marriage is exciting and something I want to pursue like changes to my teaching practices and learning but I sometimes feel like,  “I have no idea what I am doing” as I haven’t had a dress rehearsal!

-I don’t want to fail….what if my husband gets sick of me  or I never become an agent of change in my school and board that I long to be?

-While fear is a natural part of life, becoming bound by fear will not move me forward personally or professionally.  I long to find the layers, to get my students to think critically and to engage them in powerful learning opportunities.

-Using drama as a medium for learning is great because play, participation, performance, simulation, etc. are all elements of Drama class and theatre arts productions.  Risk, collaboration, and cooperation are integral to the program.  Creating authentic and believable characters is a critical aspect in Drama class and so many conversations regarding authenticity and transparency occur frequently in my classroom.  This readily opens up the conversation for reflection and self-awareness…thus as I am creating myself and so are my students!!

Who am I?  Who do I want to be?  Thankfully, I don’t need all the answers yet, because I thought I did, and now it has all been turned upside down.