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Today I attended the tutorial for the first week of The Arts in Education. Initially, I was apprehensive to participate in the activities presented by the tutor. I felt fearful of embarrassing myself and was very conscious of the impression I made on other students. Once I noticed other students participate with enthusiasm and their 'laidback' attitude reflected on my reason for attending the unit, to become a primary school teacher, it became a lot easier. Additionally, the encouragement provided by my tutor was helpful to push me out of my comfort zone. I was able to suggest my ideas and participate in the activities in a much greater capacity.

I discovered that my ability to learn is strongly impacted by the environment I am in and how comfortable I feel in it.

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Although I have only completed the first three weeks of AED1260, I am overcome with the sense that this unit will be incredibly transformative for me. I have always been a timid student, and person, particularly in large groups.

However, studying the unit texts, and attending the on campus sessions, has filled me with a hopeful and excited feeling that I will take a lot away from this experience.

As someone who has no experience in the performing arts, beyond what was compulsory for me in my own primary schooling, I am excited to be presented with the opportunity to develop my skills and knowledge of drama, dance and media arts and discover a novel form of self-exploration and expression.

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Today I met with my partner for part 1 of Assignment 1, a 'Talk - Advocacy and justification for the Arts'. We had a productive session collating our work and research in forming our talk.

This collaborative session made me confident in the content of our presentation, as well as our ability to wok effectively together.

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Today my classmate Alyssa and I delivered our talk on advocacy for the arts in education. Although I was nervous to speak, I am happy with our presentation. I think that we both demonstrated capability and growth in our public speaking skills, and were able to convey our research well.
Regardless of our final grade, I am content with the learning experience.

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Week 5: The Conception of the 'Black Beetles'

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Week 5: The Conception of the 'Black Beetles'

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In today's tutorial, we formed groups to work with for the final assignment for the AED1260 unit. I am working with my classmates; Alyssa, Jacob and Nathan. My group met on campus after class to brainstorm for our 'Creative Dance, Drama, Media Arts performance' presentation. We were allocated the stimulus colour 'black' to inspire our presentation. As a team, we decided to centre our performance around the theme of acceptance and forgiveness in the context of conflict resolution.

Our colour stimulus also inspired our group name, the 'Black Beetles'. I am excited to embark on the creative process and work together to complete the assignment.

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This week's tutorial was the second tutorial of the 'dance' module in this unit. The group engaged in a dance-related activity wherein all students had to participate in movement and work together. This activity encouraged us to think and move as parts of a performance group to achieve our common goal of moving from one side of the space to the other.

I feel that participation in this activity cemented my understanding of the learning processes that educators can use to facilitate the development of creativity in primary students. This has contributed to my broader realisation of the significance of participation learning activities to personal growth. Prior to engaging in these experiences, I feel my understanding of the importance of participation and growth in the arts was limited. I now understand the degree to which these experiences shape an individual's creative self-exploration and expression.

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Week 7: The Development of the Final Performance

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Week 7: The Development of the Final Performance

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Through the course of the last few weeks, the Black Beetles have embarked on our endeavour to produce our final performance piece. In week 5, we established the theme and 'message' of our performance.

Since that date, we have progressed significantly. From our stimulus colour, black, we have developed a story set in space. Considering the elements of drama, we have created a full creative story featuring astronauts and aliens from the planet Venus. While I anticipate that our script will be subject to numerous edits in the coming weeks, I am very proud and happy with what we have managed to create thus far. I look forward to seeing the performance be refined and improved.

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Today, my AED1260 class did not run due to the ANZAC Day public holiday. However, I have engaged with the learning content posted to the unit's CANVAS page.

This week's lecture introduced the subject of 'media arts'. We have been tasked to create a media arts poster for a fiction television poster. I feel confident that I will be able to do this as I do have some level of skill in digital media editing from my experiences in high school.

However, I acknowledge that my capability could be greatly improved, and I look forward to my future learning in this area.

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Today, I took the photos that I will use for my media arts assignment. I plan to utilise Photoshop to edit them together and add text.

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Week 10: Recognising the Significance of the Black Beetles (and Group Collaboration)

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Week 10: Recognising the Significance of the Black Beetles (and Group Collaboration)

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Today, we were allocated time in the lesson to work on our final performances. Unfortunately two of my group members were absent. However, myself and the other present member of the Black Beetles used the time to edit our script.

As the performance date approaches, I am becoming increasingly excited to share our work with our tutor and classmates. As we move further through the creative process of finalising the performance piece, I recognise how fortunate I am to be working with people that I wholeheartedly respect and appreciate. I feel that our  collaboration has been one of the most important and influential factors on my enjoyment and learning in this course.

Reflecting on this, I see that creating opportunities for primary school students to complete these sorts of creative activities is incredibly beneficial.

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In today's lesson, we rehearsed our final performance piece for our tutor. I felt confident performing as I am extremely happy and proud of what my group has created.

After our performance, our tutor provided us with feedback. She expressed to us, her appreciation for the obvious time and effort we had dedicated to the assignment. I found this feedback to be immensely encouraging and validating, especially as someone who has always been nervous and apprehensive to participate in activities of this nature.

Our tutor also provided constructive suggestions for how we could improve our physical placement and actions on stage. This feedback has been incredibly helpful in assisting us to improve our performance.

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After our AED1260 session this morning, the Black Beetles went to the ECU campus library to film the media arts element of our final performance.

We worked together to achieve this. The group made the decision to cast Nathan and myself as the news anchors for the media arts element, as we have the least amount of lines in the stage performance. Therefore, Alyssa and Jacob operated our camera to capture the video.

Additionally, I have been assigned leader of the post-production aspect of the media arts element. I look forward to using this strength in my skillset to contribute to the final group product.

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Today, the Black Beetles captured our images for the stop-motion element of our media arts section of our final performance piece. As leader of the media arts element, I was responsible for editing the images together to form a stop-motion film.

I found this experience to be rewarding, as I felt I was able to use my skills to contribute to the group in a positive way.

I understand that for primary school students, undertaking a creative process similar to our final production would be valuable to encourage and develop self confidence and capability in the arts. The distribution of responsibility allows all group members to work in individual and collaborative manner to achieve the common goal of the performance.

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Week 12: First Contact, Our Final Performance

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Week 12: First Contact, Our Final Performance

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Today, my group, the 'Black Beetles' delivered our final performance to our tutorial group. I am incredibly proud of the growth demonstrated by myself and my group members in relation to our confidence and ability in arts. We all worked exceptionally hard on conceptual and practical elements of the performance, and were able to achieve a fantastic final product. I feel this is even more impressive, considering only one of the four of us had any prior experience in arts beyond compulsory schooling.

After the performance, I am able to reflect on the creative process which led to our final product. I have no doubt that the lessons I have learned in AED1260 will stay with me as I continue to pursue my Primary Education degree, and beyond.

It is a very bitter-sweet thing to see all of our effort and time come to fruition. I am so moved by the way that we were able to work together, that I am actually sad our work has finished. I will undoubtedly forever treasure this experience.

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As I complete my reflections in Padlet today, I am overcome with pride seeing how my skills, confidence and understanding of the importance of arts education have improved. At the beginning of the semester, I had freshly moved to Western Australia, knew no one and had strong doubt in my capability to succeed in this unit. As a person with no almost no prior knowledge or experience in drama and dance, I was nervous that I would embarrass myself or fail to participate in the unit's activities.

Now, at the end of the semester, I have completed only 12 weeks of study, but feel exponentially more prepared and enthusiastic to participate and engage with the arts, even though I may not be the 'best', or most talented. I have experienced first-hand how important competent arts education is to the development of an individual's confidence, self-exploration and self-expression. I have created friendships with my classmates that I will look back on and cherish for the rest of my life.

I am so incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in this unit, and wish to give my sincerest thanks to Edith Cowan University and its staff. Thank you.