Fine Arts Programming
The school I was placed at for practicum was a Fine Arts Academy. The school has two streams; one for regular students and one for the fine arts students. The difference in programing is that the fine arts students take band, art, drama, music, and dance together as well as their core classes where other students will take cores and options. The fine arts programing takes priority for these students as they are often involved in plays, musical performances and choir/band trips. The major difference as a practicum teacher that I noticed was how much more intrigued these students are with the fine arts. Getting them hooked on drama or dance is never a task, it just comes naturally for these students. Often it was these students that were the easiest to get along with and easiest to teach. This showed me how interest in the classroom has a HUGE impact on the development of the class. |
Fine Arts 7-2 & 7-3
-The fine arts 7 groups were overall, a blast. It's crazy to see the dedication differences between a main-stream class and a specialized class. The students were more engaged, had more of a background in the area, and seemed more ready to participate and learn. The thing these students taught me is that you can have the best lesson planned, be prepared and have thought everything out, but that relationship with students will always be important to being able to carry out a class. |
Fine Arts 8
-I did not have the opportunity to teach this group due to a large project being done prior to my arrival for practicum. I was however able to get involved in assisting groups with their projects and working with these students in Dance 8. The project being built by them is a "TV Network" which was a concept developed by my TA. She had the students put into groups of 4-5 students and gave them a topic such as "Talk show" or "infomercials". The students would then develop a short series that would be pitched for a television network. |
Fine Arts 9
-This group I was able to teach for only a week due to them rehearsing for their spring show that is coming up in June. This group is one of the most advanced classes I saw during my practicum experience and just due to the classes they were in when I saw them, I would go as far as say they were "gifted" in the fine arts. Each and every student in the class had a drama/dance/music background and they were all willing and able to get up and do whatever it was that we were doing in class. During my rehearsal time with these students I realized that sometimes even the over zealous students can be a handful to control in class. According to my students, "twerking is a thing" and hilarity ensues when students need to "DISAPPEAR!" |
Option Drama 7
-My time spent with the option 7's was memorable to say the least. These students were surprisingly enthusiastic for an "option" streamed class. During my time with these students we explored the concept of Radio Plays. Through this unit we engaged with building soundscapes, short dialogues, and developing full radio plays for performance. I challenged these students to be the best they could be, and I believe they met that challenge head-on and succeeded. |
Option Drama 8
-This group was set to take on the complex task of a miming unit during my time out for practicum. The students were challenged by the topic but pushed forward none the less. They began with tableau's to tell stories, develop focus and prepare themselves for harder concepts. From there, they progressed to the fundamentals of mime, developed their skills and performed a final project. Some students took the opportunity to share their craft with the school community by performing their final pieces in the hallways during noon-hour. Other students performed their engaging pieces in class. If these students taught me anything it's that classroom management is always going to be important to keep an eye on. Keep your class on task, keep them engaged and things will go much smoother. |
Option Drama 9
-Improvisation was the name of the game with the Option 9 class. With assistance of my TA, we developed a competitive but safe classroom environment with a "whose line is it anyway" competition. From day to day we would view games on youtube, practice skills needed to play, and perform the games for classmates. At the end of the unit, the team with the most cumulative points would decide on a line-up of games for the final classes where students would be graded on the same ideas in previous classes; creativity, speed, accepting ideas and stage voice. With these four concepts they were able to develop and perform entertaining scenes and stories that warm the hearts of the audience. |
Social Studies 7-1
-This was one of the most exciting groups during practicum. This class only had 8 students and is an "adapted" program. The students in this class are coded for learning disabilities which gave me a big challenge as a practicum teacher. I had little time to get used to the students and little time to get through the unit. I was pretty happy with results that I was able to get from the students from the first day until the last. I believe the trick to really getting things to stick was developing a relationship with the students where they trusted me and were able to get fully involved with the activities for class. |
Dance 7-2,7-3 & 8
-I never would have thought that of all people, I would be teaching a dance class. During my time in the studio I assisted in teaching the Grade 7 dance which was choreographed by the Fine Arts 9 Dance class. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to teach the stage dancers their part of the dance as well as assist them during rehearsals with the full class. I was also given the chance to teach the entire Dance 8 class. What an adventure. This was similar to the grade 7 dance where it was choreographed by the Fine Arts 9 Dance class but taught completely by me. This was one of my biggest struggles during practicum but was it ever worth it. During this class I also had the opportunity to work with students with special needs. One of these students was wheel-chair bound, but was still more energetic than anyone to move around during dance. This student and I would often do the work-outs together with what limited movement he had while the rest of the class would do their regular work-outs. It was a great chance to explore inclusive education and involve a student who otherwise may not have had anything to do during that period of the day.
-I never would have thought that of all people, I would be teaching a dance class. During my time in the studio I assisted in teaching the Grade 7 dance which was choreographed by the Fine Arts 9 Dance class. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to teach the stage dancers their part of the dance as well as assist them during rehearsals with the full class. I was also given the chance to teach the entire Dance 8 class. What an adventure. This was similar to the grade 7 dance where it was choreographed by the Fine Arts 9 Dance class but taught completely by me. This was one of my biggest struggles during practicum but was it ever worth it. During this class I also had the opportunity to work with students with special needs. One of these students was wheel-chair bound, but was still more energetic than anyone to move around during dance. This student and I would often do the work-outs together with what limited movement he had while the rest of the class would do their regular work-outs. It was a great chance to explore inclusive education and involve a student who otherwise may not have had anything to do during that period of the day.