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I look forward to seeing my students learn essential English skills through Drama. I think a lot of students have lost the art of public speaking and memorization, and by teaching drama I have seen so many students drastically improve in their confidence and in this area in school. Outside of school, my husband and I are opening a coffee shop in our town. We are excited for this new adventure, and know it will bring a lot to our community since there is no coffee shop in town

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Engaging with students.            I really like what the teacher above said about Drama helping students gain confidence in public speaking. I find that to be true as well, as a Drama teacher. My name is Lauri Touchette. What I look forward to is engaging with students. They share their life experiences with me - the experiences outside of school. It builds a bridge between us. This, in my opinion, gives me as their teacher, a more substantial place for them to allow me to help guide them on their journey, whether that be here at school in their academics, and/or their social/emotional life :)

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Engaging with students.            I really like what the teacher above said about Drama helping students gain confidence in public speaking. I find that to be true as well, as a Drama teacher. My name is Lauri Touchette. What I look forward to is engaging with students. They share their life experiences with me - the experiences outside of school. It builds a bridge between us. This, in my opinion, gives me as their teacher, a more substantial place for them to allow me to help guide them on their journey, whether that be here at school in their academics, and/or their social/emotional life :)

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I am looking forward to using visual and performing arts within language arts to help students make better connections to the texts that we read in class. For students who have poor note taking skills the ability to act out the key details of a text helps students solidify its theme, the lesson/moral, mood, and/or tone.

In my personal life, I’m looking forward to the beautiful weather, if it ever gets here, and working in my yard/garden.
Jaime

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Formative Assessment in HS Drama - Lauri Touchette

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Formative Assessment in HS Drama - Lauri Touchette

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3 formative assessments I noticed in the video (HS Theatre) are:
Hot Seating, Tableaux, and Thought tracking. I was thoroughly impressed by the teacher's use of these formative assessments. I could tell the students were engaged, and actually thinking!
Another formative assessment to engage all learners and check in with their progress might be for students to write down their character's history and how it ties in with how that character got to where the play begins. I find this to be useful to get the students motivated to learn the story and get into character. Then, I can see whether or not the student understands the story and their character.

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I utilize different teaching/learning methods to cater to all students:
Reading/listening/visual/kinesthetic. I give scripts to students to read, read the scripts outloud, show videos of actors performing the script, and then having my actors perform the script themselves.

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I'm looking forward to the July workshops and collaboration opportunities.  I'm interested in learning about how my peers and the art teacher experts are integrating the art standards into an elementary general education classroom.  My goal is to return in August with new, developed lesson plans that are ready for implementation.

Personally, I'm looking forward to this summer and the additional time for my hobbies: running, reading, hiking, traveling, and spending time with my tribe.  Can't wait to recreate so that I can re-create!! :)

Kate Mitrovich

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Theater: Acting Out Books: Plan, Revise, Perform

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Theater: Acting Out Books: Plan, Revise, Perform

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The teacher had small student groups collaborate by sharing ideas, constructively critiquing, and producing a document on a topic. The document was later reviewed by the whole class for peer feedback. One document was a classroom floor plan for a modified theater. Another document was a plan of action for the play's production.  The teacher could intervene during small group work (document's creation) and during the classroom discussion (if needed).  My favorite assessment was the "Success Criteria" document.  It was also student generated (i.e. student ownership and awareness).  The teacher used it to select the most important areas and created a rubric that allowed students to monitor their own progress.  Another way the teacher could use formative assessment would be for students to have access to a question box.  If there is a question a student is too shy to ask in a small group or large group setting, a box for anonymous questions could be read to the whole class and answered by peers/teacher.

Kate Mitrovich

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I like to provide multiple ways to access knowledge for different learning styles AND for engagement. For example, we were studying the solar system. Students first completed a table with two sections related to the sun: What Do I Know? What Do I Want to Know? We then created a class table and it was displayed daily to see if we had discovered an answer based on a lesson or student research. I did a demonstration for the vocabulary word: orbit. A student acted as the sun and I acted as Earth.  Students were paired and also acted out an orbit. We watched NASA and Brain Pop videos about the different types of stars and planets. We cut out proportional NASA photos of the Earth and sun, went outside to guess how far each student's Earth was from the sun (taped on a tree), and then counted in feet the actual proportional distance. In small groups, we looked at photo card sets (with facts on the back) to record answers related to our solar system's planets (and order them based on size, orbit around the sun, and distance from the sun). Students designed flip books with independently researched "Fascinating Facts" related to the Earth's atmospheric layers. All of these activities provided multiple ways for a student to use their cognitive skills of listening, watching/reading, writing, speaking, and moving.

Kate Mitrovich

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The formative assessments I saw the teacher doing was questioning, and hot seating. The teacher did a great job of making sure all students were following and engaged. I also like that she started with a small warmup to ensure they were actively engaged.

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Based on the way I was taught UDL, I start my curriculum design with the end in mind. When I am planning a quarter, I know what I want my students to be able to do and learn by the end of it. I then think about the type of students I have, and what I have learned about their learning style. I try to plan engaging  activities which I know they will respond to.

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The teacher used oral discussion, checklists, and direct observation of students as formative assessment tools. The teacher either had side conversations to check in with student understanding or listened to conversations between students to check for understanding. He did a great job of observing both the vocabulary of the lesson as well as the students’ ability to perform the movements. He also mentioned that he uses checklist to assess his students. His ability to engage all learners was prevalent and thorough however, he might have used peer feedback in order to see if the students could identify the movements when performed by other students. He might also utilize visual representation as a formative assessment in this lesson.
Jaime

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Every class and every student encounters their own obstacles in learning whether they are an auditory learner, kinesthetic learner, non-verbal, have limited mobility, etc. I know that every student requires varied materials, approaches and practices to become successful and this is a struggle for me. I want to make sure that I am hitting every angle, so my students can be as successful as possible.

As a new teacher, I know I have room for growth in this area. I enjoyed reading Kate’s response, as it gave me other ideas to try.

I have used many techniques and modalities, such as talk to text, PECs, modeling, music and movement just to name a few.

I think the most fun I had using UDL was with a 5-year-old non-verbal student, I will call Emily, who was also not ambulatory and had no purposeful hand movements. We were doing a movement activity. It was time to get creative! Emily uses an eye gaze system for communication. We allowed her to use her “words” through her system to give movement commands to me and I would perform the movement. She thought it was hilarious and then the other students wanted to join in and be given movement commands. It brought so much joy to everyone.
Jaime Stevens

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As a teacher, I am looking forward to seeing the creative set renderings and models that my students are making for their final Drama project! This unit is the first time I've attempted any technical theater or design elements into my Drama class, and it's fun to get to see some of the students shine who are a bit more reserved.

Outside of school, I am excited about having a lot of outdoor adventures this summer!

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The teacher in this video essentially lead a discussion and called on various students to identify different aspects of a tableaux designed around a Greek myth. She uses these guiding questions to check in with each student to assess their understanding of both the myth and the tableaux. After this initial discussion, she launches into a series of short activities which gradually become more complex, building on the understanding that students have already demonstrated.

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If I had to briefly summarize what UDL to a non-educator, I think I would explain it like this: "Teach things in as many different ways as possible, and give students as many different ways to demonstrate their learning as possible". This is already something that I try to do in my teaching, but as a new teacher, it can be easy to become overwhelmed and forget to include these aspects in some lessons and projects. One thing that I do frequently is layer activities when I am introducing a new skill. First, I may show a video to pique interest and introduce a concept. Students will pair share, then we will discuss together. Then, they will have time to do some guided practice with each other, and will finally perform or demonstrate something before the class together. This approaches the topic at hand from multiple angles and also gives students some time to prepare, discuss, and understand before being put on the spot in front of their peers.

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Theater (Grades 6-8): "Acting out Books: Plan, Revise, Perform"

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Theater (Grades 6-8): "Acting out Books: Plan, Revise, Perform"

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Students shared ideas in small groups and worked together to give each other feedback.
Most of the formative assessment happened within the context of work done in small groups and then getting peer feedback as ideas were shared out. I liked how respectful students were as they were critiquing each other. The teacher did a great job of recognizing the challenges the students faced.
I think that maybe a few more opportunities for quick review of key/major concepts being covered would be nice, but most of the kids seemed to know what they were talking about. Also, I wonder how often they received the feedback as they were workshopping ideas.

Miguel

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I would like to try to be more mindful in my lesson design. UDL helps me really think about what some of the obstacles might be that I would have never even realized, and try to find creative ways to reduce or remove the obstacle. I liked some of the simple strategies like using clips...who would have thought that something so simple could make such a difference in the experience. Also, the idea of staying in the "green" zone and keeping the true purpose of the task in mind was insightful.

Miguel

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I look forward to integrating more arts instruction in my ELA and History lessons. I like the idea of trying to find new ways to make these subjects better come alive for my students.
In my personal life, I look forward to some travel and visiting with family and friends over the summer.

Miguel