Hot Seating:
"An activity where students would take turns asking questions to someone sitting in the “hot seat” who would then answer those questions in character. This gives students an opportunity to ask questions to a character from a piece they are studying or story. In this lesson, students will assume the role of a plant or animal cell and students can ask questions about the two different cell types. This allows students to ask questions to deepen their understanding of a cell, while also being able to assess which students grasp the concept of the cell types based on their ability to answer."
This activity was set up by having a seat at the front of the room. Josh was voluntold to sit in the hot seat. He played the role of a red blood cell. During this activity, fellow teacher candidates would ask Josh questions, and he would have to answer it as if he was the red blood cell speaking.
Lesson Adaptation:
When planning for this lesson, if you know you have shy students in the class, or even students who are not all that comfortable presenting, you can adapt this lesson to better suit their level of comfort. For instance, you may decide to have students sit in pairs in the hot seat, to help one another out. You may also decide to group the students, and have the group present their questions to their hot seat member, as opposed to the whole class asking questions. This way, all students benefit, as they still hear the questions and answers; however, for the students who are not fully comfortable, they can have that small group feel to the activity.
Reflection:
Hot seating is great if you have students in the class who are less shy. For instance, I would not do well on the hot-seat, though someone like Josh did. It allows students with different strengths to be able to participate in the lesson still. For instance, you will have your students who may know a lot about a topic and want to be able to teach their peers something. Hot-seating is great for this then because rather than asking their teacher, students can ask the person in the hot-seat, and get answers from someone who is playing the role of whatever is in the hot-seat (in this case a red blood cell).
News Reporting:
"A tactic of performance, wherein students will present information (fictional or real), in the style of a television or radio news report. It is essentially a verbal rendition of what one might read in the news. While news reporting, students will take of the role of the reporter. They will act from this character while presenting information and/or interviewing others."
This activity involved working with your table groups. We had to come up with a news story and report it to the class. My table group elected Matt to be the news reporter, and he talked about a virus that the cells were not fighting well.
The definitions to these strategies, as well as how the students will enact it can be found on group one's handout.
Lesson Adaptation:
What is great about this one too is you can bring technology into the lesson. You can have students record their skits on an iPad, and allow the class to watch it as if they are watching it on TV! This way, students who are uncomfortable presenting in front of the class won't lose marks for their presentation skills, as they will record their news report and play that for the class. This could be a great alternative for your shy students!
Reflection:
This is a fun way to get students participating in the lesson. It is also a great way to get in a media mark too. You can always have students come up with their own ideas for news reporting, just make sure they get their topic approved for appropriateness. An alternative could be to assign topics that they are currently learning about, and have the students deliver a news report to the class.
During week 2, we explored a science lesson on rocks that involved many strategies of drama. In our table groups, we were to act out the following images:
The strategies we used to act out these images were the following:
Tableaux:
"A "living picture." In this activity, students create a still picture, without talking, to capture and communicate the meaning of a concept by using physical poses, gestures, and facial expressions."
The entire class used the 4 images in the top left hand corner of the powerpoint screen to demonstrate sedimentation, compaction, strata, and cementation. My group (myself, Matt, Tyler, Annessa, Christopher and Alex) had to act out sedimentation. Each group was responsible for one piece of the image. For our group, we decided two people would represent the land, two would represent water, and two would represent sediments that began to settle in the water.
Lesson Adaptation:
You can adapt your lesson by allowing students to find their own images to tableau. This will help with student engagement in your lesson. You could also expand this by having students create a micro-lesson, where they teach the class a topic, and then tableau the image that relates to their lesson. This will allow you to incorporate a literacy mark into the activity.
Reflection:
This was a fun activity because you got to image that you were the scene in the picture. Not only that, but you got to watch other groups perform their image, and see how it all pieces together. This way, students who are shy with performing in front of others, feel more comfortable because once you quickly freeze, you know the next group jumps right in, and therefore, they are waiting more for their cue to jump in, as opposed to watching your every move.
Voice-over Narration:
"The voice of an unseen narrator speaking or the voice of a visible character expressing unspoken thoughts."
For this activity, each group member had to elect one person from the group to narrate, while other group members had to act out the image. For this activity, my group decided to do the picture at the bottom of the powerpoint. Tyler narrated as Matt and I demonstrated Magma, and Christopher and Annessa demonstrated the pressure moving downwards. For this activity, each group had a choice between which image they wanted to narrate.
Lesson Adaptation:
Similar to the news reporting, you can have students prepare their presentation by recording themselves on the iPad. This way, if students get nervous speaking in front of the class, they can just play their recording for the class.
In addition, you could also have only the narration recorded, and play the narration for the fellow group members to act out. As well, you could have all group members, including the narrator act out the scene if done in this way.
Reflection:
Again, another great strategy. Due to the narrator, students can focus just on the moves within the scene that they are performing, as opposed to worrying about their movement and narration. This also will allow for strong speakers to shine in class, as they narrate each movement being performed. For students who are more comfortable speaking in front of a crowd, as opposed to acting, this is a great way to get them involved!
Flashback:
"A flashback is a scene that goes back in time from the current point in the story. They are often used to recount important parts of a story to fill in backstory. Flashbacks can bring depth to activities involving still images or improvised drama."
For this activity, groups had to again choose an image from above and act it out as a flashback scene. For this activity, my group chose to act out the image at the top right of the powerpoint screen. First we demonstrated the Intrusive Igneous Rock, then moved into Extrusive Igenous Rock and then demonstrated Magma. We worked backwards from how the Earth actually works, due to the strategy calling for us to create a flashback.
Lesson Adaptation:
Similar to the tableau lesson adaptation, you may wish to have students create a micro-lesson to the class on a topic relating to something they are currently studying in the class, or a topic of interest that is appropriate for the grade level. Students should display the image of their flashback on the board. This way, students in the classroom can try to follow along and figure out what is taking place. Students should present their flashback as the minds-on, and then later explain to the class what happened from start to finish.
Reflection:
This strategy is neat because it makes you think of the process of something in reverse. For instance, the diagram would be magma, extrusive igneous rock, and then intrusive igneous rock. However, with this activity, we had to perform the image in reverse. It was a neat way of looking at the image, because you begin with the end point, and work your way back to the beginning. It is definitely not the traditional way to look at something, but it may give some students a better understanding in the steps involved.
Gibberish:
"Students will act out scenes using a made up language to replace the regular words."
For this activity, we did not use the rock images above. Rather, in your table group, you were supposed to create a short skit that involved creating your own language to act out a scene that involved two people. For this demonstration, my table group had Tyler and Christopher enact a scene that used the Charlie Brown gibberish voice. While you sat back and watched the group members act out their scene, you had no idea what was taking place, but it was as if you didn't need to know the storyline. All you needed to know was that they were talking to one another, and it made sense to them.
Lesson Adaptation:
Before students begin this activity, prepare a clip with a fellow teacher or find a clip online, to demonstrate to students an example of what they will be doing. This may seem like a difficult strategy for some students, as they may be confused by the fact that they are being marked on a skit involving gibberish.
Have your students prepare a silent skit first. Provide feedback for students if their actions make their skit clear. If the students actions are clear, they can then move forward by adding gibberish language into the skit, without jeopardizing the message of their skit.
Note: always give your students practice time with drama strategies to ensure that students are comfortable with what the strategy involves, prior to presenting.
Reflection:
This is a fun little activity that you could do with the junior/intermediate levels. For instance, if you want to teach someone about recycling, you could have the students perform a gibberish scene, and students should still be able to pick up on the message of the skit based on the actions taking place. This would teach students the power of their actions, and how you don't always need to understand someone's language, to figure out what they are trying to show you. I think this could be a great life-long learner's moment because you will come across people at any point in your life who may speak a different language, and with that language barrier it may be hard to communicate with them. However, if you make your actions clear, you can communicate through that.
Please refer to group two's handout for more information on their lesson. Definitions above have been taken from their handout.
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