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I felt so excited throughout the first drama workshop, it was exciting as it was my second class as a first year at uni. Everything was so new and exciting, throughout the workshop we were all pushed to points where we may have felt uncomfortable, from meeting so many new people to doing things that are out of our comfort zones. The first workshop was the most nerve wrecking. Personally, I felt the most uncomfortable doing the exercises around people I had just met, as for me it takes a long time of knowing people until i get comfortable with them. My most enjoyable moment from the workshops however would be learning about the drama elements, as I'm a dancer who did dance in high school for 6 years it was enjoyable kind of understanding the drama elements as I've done a subject similar. I noticed that during the workshop I was on a rollercoaster of emotions, these emotions however built up and I was able to put those emotions out into the exercises, even though some of the exercises made me uncomfortable. However, from this workshop I was able to discover that I thoroughly enjoy learning visually, as it’s so much more enjoyable and engaging for me. For primary students, this will be a foundational way in which students learn.

Drama Elements (ECU 2024)

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By experiencing the practical activities from the workshops, I now understand that the use of drama as an expressive learning process can be so versatile. One of my favourite videos from the lecture that really stood out to me was the readers theatre video linked below. In this video have I’ve seen the expressiveness of readers theatre from school kids. Using speaking alternations and simple movements such as turning and simple gestures to act out the verbs their reading.  Even using tone in their voices, this video shows a lot of creativity. Again, I learn the best through visual motives, so by seeing this demonstration of readers theatre I was able to grasp a better understanding of what it should look and sound like. I wasn’t as on edge for this workshop as now I’m getting used to the boundaries that drama can push you to, throughout this workshop there was a lot of collaboration with others to create this audio of readers theatre. We did an activity where we had to read off a script, and we had to give exactly like the video expressive tone and simple movements to express what we were reading.  I noticed that throughout the workshop a lot of my peers were getting pushed as well out of their comfort zones and their personalities really started coming out as everyone gets more comfortable with each other. By putting us into group to do this readers theatre activity it helped us to understand each other better and a chance for some of us to get to know others a lot more.

Academic TV. (2018, November 18). Readers Theater titled “Which Shoes Do You Choose” by Aaron Shepard performed by JNCHS students. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqTocgGmc1A

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When considering an activity to teach the media element of character I would use something like the foil stop motion me and a peer made. It shows that the characters used in media arts don’t have to be anything and essentially can be made from anything. So far by doing the stop motion I feel quite confident in that area as I feel that mine turned out pretty good, even though it was very time consuming. I plan to develop my competency practicing media arts skills I want to improve on, by reviewing my finished products after making them and always aiming to improve things I can. Moving through this unit I have noticed I have stopped doubting myself a lot and have started to become more comfortable with the groups I have been experiencing the workshops with. Which ultimately has been reducing the negative thoughts that may hold me back from giving the workshops my everything.

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My favourite part of the AED1260.2 Unit was the dance modules; dancing is something I really enjoy so being able to learn about it more at university was so cool for me. Throughout this unit I’ve had many opportunities to express my emotions, more specifically through the drama and dance modules. One thing that has surprised me about teaching dance, drama and media arts to students is that it’s just as much fun to teach. Being able to teach such a chill but intricate subject is so amazing to watch, as you really see the growth over time which I saw in myself as a student to Simone. The process for my groups dance, drama and media arts performance has been so long, it takes such a long time to even whip something together as at first, we had so many ideas but couldn’t even pick one. When we did finally finalise our topic and performance from there to getting ourselves performance ready has been even more work, figuring out how to interpret the situation so it’s appropriate and understandable for our target audience. Picking out props costumes and writing the script have seemed to be tedious tasks. The final stages of rehearsing have been the easiest so far and the less stressful. Not to mention our media Arts thats linked above, the creation of that. Joining the two videos together to set the scene of our performance was really fun, I'm keen to definitely try out all the arts activities in future classes as i personally had so much fun throughout this drama unit.

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Week 6 was our second module on dance, one of my strong suits. Using dance comes so much expression, there is so much too so little in dance that you can make expressions of feelings and persona from. We looked at one video in particular of students from youtube doing school dance exercises which was a bit similar to our warmups. This week’s practical we looked at different types of movement how in dance we don’t always have to be doing something big and extravagant, we can be doing the smallest movement where we may be isolating on a part of our body. So far, I have been managing little to no pressure by just relaxing and letting loose during the workshops. I have been able to relax a lot more moving onto dance, but it obviously took me a while to get comfortable with drama. So far throughout these units I’ve just realised to trust the process and to not lose hope. Especially during modules like drama where I haven’t felt so confident. It’s been the most important to me because it really allows me to see how resilient I can be at times and to just push through.

MUVEmethod. (2013, April 12). School Dance Exercises - Catch the Beat and Dance to the Rhythm - Dance Activities. YouTube. https://youtu.be/9Gu1nbgAVMY