comfortable, included and like it was a safe space to explore creativity

sharing/speaking in front of the class/ fear of standing out due to being "too enthusiastic"

3. What were your most enjoyable moments?

playing games and learning activities through experience and practical learning (pretending to be in a class as a student)

a) I was excited as I was familiar with some of the activities and liked learning the activities in a new context to use in a different context that is for the pure purpose of teaching an extracurricular activity.

b) I displayed open body language, was smiling, and felt excited to join in.

c) yes, these experiences would absolutely be the experiences of primary school-age students. The use of inclusive words and phrases as well (share ideas, instead of perform and like most instead of favorite) creating a space where students are going to ultimately feel more comfortable to join in free of judgment.

I learned that I like learning spaces that are collaborative, social and engaging. alternative to rote learning style. also know as a preference for doing rather than seeing/reading.

I am a very visual learner, as soon as I see something being done I am able to recreate it immediately. I am also very quick at learning new concepts but finding deeper meaning behind concepts can be challenging for me as I need a lot of time to think about things; sometimes concepts that require a lot of explanation or words can be hard for me to pick up.

Week threes' workshop was a little more confronting. As in, because the voice was now involved and it was lots of words and vocal aspects being used in performance it was more nerve inducing to perform and work with others.

I think I collaborated quite well in the workshop. Week three being my first lesson in the new class it was challenging coming into the new dynamic of the class. But it was good to have that experience, because I am sure the feeling I had would be similar to the feelings that some primary students would feel when they walk into a new class.

Drama has a lot of group work and requires a lot of problem solving, sharing and adapting to ideas of group members. Where individuals have to work together to form a scene or story that is complete. Additionally, drama fosters collaboration and cooperation through performance outcomes because there is the group goal that individuals have to work together and achieve the end performance and goal.

There was a mixed emotional experience amongst the group that I observed. Some experienced different levels of embarrassment when having to participate in using the voice or bodies to act out different movements or sounds.  Some got the giggles due to social pressure of performing on the spot. Some were disinterested and withdrawn from the activities and seemed to have an 'only because I have to' feeling about the workshop. Finally, some were keen to join in and had fun with the workshop and immersed themselves in the process.

I think that the nature of the activities being hard for some people acted as an icebreaker and a little bit of a team-building experience.

a) What did you learn about others in the workshop?

I learned that even the most confident personalities can have their soft side; even some people that act tough, can be humbled through doing arts activities.

They inform my understanding of dance as expressive learning that teachers can facilitate creativity because everyone in the class is actively involved. The elements of dance allow students to express their creativity and experiment with the ways their bodies can move. Dance also creates a space for students to be able to work together in teams and think critically to create art with their bodies.

The strategies I have for managing pressure moving through the unit is making sure I have a diary and schedule. The diary allows me to keep up with notes that I need to have organised like what to wear or bring. The schedule that is in macro format, showing an overview of the whole semester allows me to mark of assessments as they are completed and manage my time with other commitments in mind.

The most important realisation I have made is that adapting to the group around me is really important. Having a good understanding and appreciation of the differences between people and learning to work with everyone efficiently as a team. Some important aspects of this is listening to what others input is, understanding that peoples opinions will be different and that is okay. The other important realisation I have made is that dance can be uncomfortable for people and doesn’t come naturally, working as a team and empowering others to be okay with not being perfect or good at dance was important

Acknowledging and being comfortable with the differences between people is important because being a teacher I will encounter students that come from many different places and that have different personalities.  Learning to adapt and reflect on my response to differences in people and their opinions will become pivotal in my experience as a preservice teacher.

Teaching point of view I would use role-play and storytelling to convey the concept of point of view in media arts. I would encourage students to look at the different roles or characters in the store and discuss how they see things differently or how the aspects come to life differently with the different points of view. Additionally, I could get students into groups tell all groups the same story but give each group a different character from the story. I would then explain to the students that they would rewrite the story from the character that I gave their groups perspective.

I feel confident with camera angle and framing in media arts. Being able to use different angles to create meaning for example, a low camera angle on a subject might mean the subject or character looks superior; vise verse a high camera angle might make the subject or character look small and therefore inferior.

I will make sure to observe media arts classes being taught wherever possible in order to build competency in the area. Also make sure to get feedback to build on skills and ask questions to make sure I am getting the most development opportunity.

Yes, I believe I am kind to myself. I am quite confident in the arts as a subject so it felt quite comfortable for me moving through the unit. I am critical of myself in order to improve but not to shame

• Have you noticed thoughts that get in the way of you embracing the workshop content?

Yes, I have had thoughts that get in the way. It can be difficult to embrace the experience when students in class don’t have the same respect for the process and therefore can be seen making fun of the activities. I will consider this when I teach arts lessons in the future.

Looking back on the unit, my favourites activity was one of the drama activities in week one or two called 'Use this object for what it is not'. The activity involved sitting in a circle and an object gets passed around then, each person had use(by miming) the object as something else. For example, the item we used was a marker, the first person used the marker as a hair brush, the second person used the marker as a violin, etcetera.

Through the drama aspects of the unit, through mime and acting out of events, in the dance the expression of emotions through the movement and facial expressions. Finally, through the media arts the stop motion was a good way to express my emotions through the characters.

As I teach dance and drama already to primary aged students not much surprised me as far as the curriculum and content goes. I did find, especially with the drama modules, the way activities were scaffolded to assist development of primary students was really effective, and I will continue to build on my knowledge to break the aspects of arts down into steps; break down the content into manageable chunks so primary students feel successful.

I am extremely keen to try mime and tableaus' with primary students. I think the "game" like nature of the activities and really getting them to use their imagination would be fun to teach and act as team building in the classroom as well.

Working together as a team to create a creative piece was really rewarding as a first year preservice teacher. The process was challenging at times with different creative opinions and decisions coming in and then also the lack of input was also a challenge. Being able to build each other up so everyone felt confident was fun because not all of our group were confident in the arts and so it was good to see our team come together and support each other and give each other positive feedback.