UNIT X - EDUCATOR: DAY BEFORE WORKSHOP

Day before the workshop, just a quick blog post of double checking what we have.

Images on the blog are the visual aids I keep referring back to, I refer back to these just so I know and just feel better that I have some guidance in this workshop, the visual aids are from pintrest mainly, searching for different types of mark making. T

he visual aids are my research and ideas of how this is going to be and the workshop tomorrow is my final outcome.

I’m feeling confident and happy with the Urban group as a team we have done everything together and planned it all together, I feel we all are happy and know exactly what we are doing tomorrow. We keep double checking each other making sure we are bringing in what needs to be in etc. everything is set and ready for tomorrow.                                                    

VISUAL AIDS.

VISUAL AIDS. 

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: WORKING WITH PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS.

This workshop was a very different way to how I’ve been involved in workshops.

Play dough, pieces of paper and pens positioned on the tables and we could do whatever we wanted with them, sit or lay down if we wanted to, as people learn in many different ways.

Make, draw, note taking, mind mapping anything that works for me.

To which the talk begun. It was so interesting to hear about the different types of learning difficulties and how to work with the children... what was more interesting and what engage me more was that Brian Frew had a story to tell, not a story exactly he had the experience. He has helped kids with special needs in his school overcome and develop. I feel that the key things to know about teaching are so beneficial and give you clear insights on how to cope with a class and not even for classroom experience I felt like Brian gave us life advice on how to approach a child with special needs as in all honesty kids and even adults are scared to approach them just because you don’t know how they will react to you.

Just from this little intro and basically the basics I feel that I’m wanting to learn more about children with special needs and how my practice could be beneficial to them, Brian mentioned a book that was written from someone who has Asperger syndrome “the curious incident of the dog in the night time” that gives some insight in the book about autism.

Key things to know if teaching special needs:

·         Require a lot of repetition

·         Don’t generalise/ assume

·         Communication KEY.

·         Simplified language, name first gets the attention.

·         Pictures GOOD to use for communicating

·         Social stories particular good with autistic children.

·         Routines not change. OR prepare them with/for change

*Next Wednesday we go to the dentist* show pictures of how the day will happen- picture of a bus, picture of receptionist, picture of dentist etc.

·         Under and over sensitivity – tend to develop fixations on things

·         A syndrome as some have some aspects and some have others.

·         React badly to loud noises- very common

·         Want a calm and bland enviro

·         Keep things age appropriate – teenagers do teenage things, young adults do young adult things.

·         Backward chaining (practical skills) start with last part of the skill- work back to the next. Always letting them do the last bit... TEACH IT BACKWARDS

·         Plan lessons in advance

·         THINK. Is this too simple? Too difficult? Easy? How do I simplify this? Backward chaining?

·         Awareness of challenging behaviour

Social, emotional behaviour difficulties often acquire problems from there social background- neglect, drink/ drugs, parental issues. CAN get violent

·         They are not doing this because they want to!!

·         Social space

DOODLING. PATTERNS.

To refer back to the very start of the workshop of how play dough and paper were placed in front of us, we were then asked at the end of the talk how we felt. I tried to doodle with pen and paper as I normally doodle, but I found it so hard to listen to Brian and doodle at the same time as I was really interested in what he was saying I needed to make notes not doodle. During the talk I did notice a lot of the group started sculpting with the play dough and majority of the group did prefer to play with play dough whist Brian was talking and still took In what he said... Where I felt like my 2 page of note taking was more beneficial than the top of head.  

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: DRY RUN WORKSHOP

URBAN ENVIRO- SET UP. 

The images I gathered are from the urban layout of how we would set up on the day, having visual aids to guide the children. We went through the workshop as how it would happen at Z arts.

Run through:

Intro of the peppered mouth (Anna talk through this) splits the kids into 3 groups. Explains to kids the different stations. Then kids come to the station allocated.

Urban:
I produced a prompt sheet for the urban group,just to help us on the day.

We do an intro into urban enviro and what we will be making today.

Sky line of buildings for the moths to live in.

Using different kids on equipment to make marks of buildings, windows, bricks, houses and when finished your picture you can stick it on the wall or we can if not much time.

All done stick on wall and then the next group. X2
End:

URBAN ENVIRO- PROMPT SHEET.

URBAN ENVIRO- Mark making on the wall.

Kids all together see if they enjoyed it etc.

Split the kids into two and let them stand around the natural environment and urban environment and Anna ask kids questions... are your moths happy in the natural? Are they sad in the urban?

Then pack away.

That dry run through the group were very proud of, as we got to see each others workshop and the group have really done a great job on making there section fun and enjoyable.

The feedback given from group 1 was very positive on how we are very well organised, we didn't look like we was under pressure, they were just generally impressed with how the workshop was and even being our first ever one and how our dry run just flowed.

I completely agree with the feedback given (not to blow our own trumpet) but I felt like our group (Group2) was so more at ease and we all knew what we was doing as we came up with the idea whereas group 1 dry run was very hard to watch. Some didn't know what they were doing and being a “team” they all should have an input.

These images are of the other stations in our group, peppered mouth and natural environment. 

MOTH PUPPETS- SET UP

NATURAL ENVIRO - SET UP

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: SHOPPING LIST

Now the group is happy with our workshop for the kids we just need the materials for the kids and to bare in mind how much to buy! As we produced a shopping list in that “how to plan a workshop” session, we just needed to find places that would sell the materials we needed.

As the task is everyday/ home materials – using them to challenge drawings styles to create a urban environment we could bring our own materials from home but because we really have to buy in bulk we wanted to have more than less. 

Pound land and A4 and more were the main shops that sourced all our materials, all we needed was to create marks ourselves for the dry run on Monday.

URBAN ENVIRO SHOPPING LIST.

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: PLANNING A WORKSHOP.

Planning your workshop was a great insight into what we would say bad and good teaching is. As a group we discussed these bad and good teachings and all had stories to tell with the reasons...

Example of bad teaching:

-          Reading  out exactly what is says on a PowerPoint slide

-          Can tell they don’t want to be here either

-          Unprepared sessions and always having an excuse as to why they aren’t prepared

-          Vacuum voices

-          Picking out favourites/favouritism

-          Rudeness or sarcasm

-          Speaking for far too long – speaking length

-          Supply teachers never teaching or making us learn it’s just mock exams all the time

-          Pushover teacher

-          Lack of control

Examples of good teaching:

-          Passion

-          Balance of fun and learning

-          Engagement

-          Generally got to like them

-          Mixing it up a little

-          Asking questions

-          Taking something a little boring but tweaking it to make it not so boring

-          NO SILENCE- music, relaxed atmosphere

-          Making conversation with everyone or at least willing to try and make it with majority

-          1 to 1, making it clear you’re here to help for each person’s learning styles

-          Personal relationships- speaking about personal life

-          Bringing a lesson to life- hands on and physical

-          Stages – chunking it

-          Making it interactive- not just staring at a board or book.

 All of the examples each one of us hand experience with whilst in education and even now in university. With those few examples already they are something to remember by and go off if wanting to take educating unit further.

The 2^nd part of the session was about our workshops coming up next week and to get our groups together and plan what our aims and objectives are going to be for this workshop.

Definition of aims and objectives.

AIMS = what is to be accomplished

OBJECTIVE = How it’s going to be accomplished

Before we started to figure out what our aim and objective would be, the group was talking about the suggested ideas that we had did on the Monday...

Notes- Group talk.

We decided that we wouldn’t use black paper it would be white paper and using black media instead, as a group we didn’t like the idea of buildings as we thought the kids would find it quite daunting to draw a building. As the urban group are all textiles students we liked the idea of mark making as a better and more creative way to produce buildings. We all loved the idea of mark making instead of actual drawing as we all prefer to create marks to actually detailed drawings in our designs. The work produce would then come together as a patch work / collage of all the kids drawings coming together to make an urban environment.

From that discussion we loved that idea so much more and was ready to start thinking of what materials to use... as its about mark making we didn’t want the kids to use pencils or paint brushes we wanted them to think a little on how to make a building look like one through the use of marks, examples of different marks been created by using simple and everyday objects that would be in your home.. (Example of sheet)

Now we have decided on workshop that we all like and feel comfortable to produce and decided it will be based on mark making we needed to get the materials now, we knew that Z-Arts is a after school club for the kids but we didn’t know what kind of facility it was. Would they have glue? Water? Paper? So from that we really needed to get a shopping list together and get buying!

We made a little shopping list as to what to get:

-          Diverse paper sizes A4, A3, A5      

-          Tooth brushes x4        - Sponges  CUT UP

-          Plastic cups                   - Glue PVA

-          Black paint                    - Ink

-          Charcoal                        - Cardboard pieces chopped up

-          Old fabrics/ cloths       - Plastic forks

As from Monday it was suggested the moths would be on sticks but the peppered moths group had produced a mock-up of the peppered moths and how they would be placed is with Velcro. So we needed to bare in mind to buy Velcro and to stick it on the urban environment when the kids had finished there drawings.

Urban Enviro- planned workshop sheet.

A workshop plan on our aim and objective and how we will plan our time during workshop session.

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: IDEAS.

From the workshop brief yesterday, I find it easier to plan out what we said of our ideas, research etc.

I produced a quick mind map of the notes taken from the briefing.

From the mind map I started to produce some visualisations of how this would look.

MIND MAP

Using Photoshop to create quick visuals of what I got from our talk from the brief. Planning on how it would look on the wall and how the moth puppets would be placed on the wall. Just trying to have a plan for the urban group to get going with of what kind of materials to buy.

Visual Idea- How moths would be put together.

Context- moths placed on urban enviro.

Visual Design. Planned how and what will be used.

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: WORKSHOP BRIEFING

Workshop Briefing

Group 2 and working with Z Arts that is an after schools club 4-5 a 1 hour workshop but we set up at 3pm. The age group being an after school club is diverse ages start from 4-11 year olds.

The workshop is based on the Peppered moths. Peppered moths are linked to the industrial revolution in Manchester where we have a white moth that was in its natural habitat but when the industrial revolution kicked in the city when black from the soot so the moths became black to blend into the urban habitat so they could survive.

Being the first ever workshop any of us have done before we have a workshop plan to which is led by Hannah. The workshop plan is very structured and easy to go off. So from that we were briefed on how the day should run and consisted of having different workshop stations on how to create these moths.

THE AIM: Create complete peppered moths with environments for the out of schools show.

As a group we needed to come up with ideas on how we are going to do this... so we split this into categories like the workshop plan.

               Moth puppet

-          Pictures of peppered moths on table. VISUAL AIDS.

-          Puppets.

-          Need to be reversible puppet

-          Moths on sticks

Natural Environment

-          Collage? Create a tree environment

-          Collecting sticks, leaves anything natural.

-          3D or flat?

Urban Environment

-          Black paper on wall

-          City scape – visual aids of buildings

-          Favourite building in Manchester?

-          White paint, white chalk if papers black.

-          Drawing buildings.

-          Mark making

Placing moths in enviro

-          Fun facts about the moths.

-          Research of the moths

-          Artists

We have now generated some ideas for each station, to make this easier for us all we split up into groups. Roughly about 3 in each group. I chose urban enviro as love the ideas we pulled together from that talk, I felt that the urban enviro is what I could fit into whereas in natural I felt not interested as it being more 3D and for actually creating the moths I felt like I couldn't make a puppet and I did not really understand the story of the moth.

So being in Urban enviro I’m happy with and feel I could generate ideas further with my group member, I know this group will be good as all doing the same course we are on the same wave length, so we need to go off and think realistically how this is going to work, what will it look like, what do we need for it as we have to source our own materials so we need to keep in mind how many kids we need to buy for which Hannah mentioned to keep about 20-30 children in mind when we start buying.. So for Wednesday I’m hoping to have ideas sketched up and potentially a list of materials to buy and hopefully the girls will have the same to start figuring out the POA for when we do the workshop at Z-Arts.