David Haberlah

Siwa Aroona enjoying the parabola calculator at the Mathematikum in Gießen.

Portfolio: Design Technologies - Research Literature

This 2016 conference research paper by Lyn English, QUT professor of STEM in education, is detailing the nature and roles of the key concept and processes in the Design and Technologies strand of the Australian Curriculum within a broader context of STEM learning. The author highlights the Engineering concepts within Design Technologies, and how these link to other key learning areas such as Science and Mathematics.

Portfolio: Design Technologies - Resourcing

There is a large number of generic project ideas and design briefs online for Design Technologies lessons, such as paper planes and sailboats (e.g. http://dadsforcreativity.com/4-activities-to-introduce-young-children-to-prototyping/). However, Design Technologies projects are arguably best defined within a particular school and class context so that they can address real needs. The design process as discussed earlier on the other hand is more generic. The above teaching resource details a comprehensive design process that can be readily applied to the teaching context in any primary school.  

It details three stages and six steps to be followed in the teaching and learning sequence based on the Stanford Design School process:

Portfolio: Design Technologies - Public Media

This 2017 article by teacher Jessica Lahey investigates the process of Design Thinking from an educational perspective. The Australian Curriculum establishes design thinking to be one of three major aspects of Design Technologies, followed by design processes and production processes which are all included in the following definition (http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/design-and-technologies/structure).

Lahey emphasises design thinking as a process. To her, participation in the process is as much a learning outcome as any final product. In consultation with an executive portfolio director she differentiates four critical stages:

1) Establishing the needs of the end user through interviews (and empathy)

2) Defining and prioritising the specifications (and constraints)

3) Testing ideas through rapid prototyping (rethinking and making required changes)

4) Developing an end product that can be assessed, presented, displayed or put to work

Lahey continues to elaborate on the benefits of design thinking such as high student motivation and engagement, inquiry-based learning, collaborative problem-solving supporting the development of interpersonal skills such as collaboration and empathy, as well as a final often tangible product.

The author concludes with a note of caution, emphasising that design thinking is not just a sequential process but a complex and nuanced approach to teaching and learning that requires expert teachers.

Portfolio: Drama - Resourcing

Play scripts are at the heart of theatre. Teaching drama in primary schools imposes a number of limitations on play scripts: they must not be too long, too complicated, provide roles for the whole class, and possibly explicitly link to other key learning areas or concepts. Having access to a large depository of play scripts sorted by topics and year levels is therefore very valuable. While the school library and Queensland State Library would be obvious starting points, websites such as the one above also provides easy access to PDFs of plays.

Portfolio: Drama - Public Media

In this 2016 Guardian article, two famous playwrights are making a case ahead of a parliamentary debate on UK curriculum changes to keep drama education in schools. Their main arguments are that drama encourages children to develop interpersonal skills, creates a safe space for emotional and creative self discovery, helps to develop imaginative empathy, and can inspire and complement historical, cultural and artistic research. The authors also point out that performance and storytelling are ancient arts and the oldest means of education. This point is arguably particularly relevant in the context of Indigenous Australian education.

Portfolio: Visual Arts - Public Media

In this recent online article, design academic Ari Chand emphasises the importance of teaching and learning basic drawing skills in school. In primary school, students generally progress from the pre-schematic to the realistic drawing stages. Apart from highlighting the importance of drawing on cognitive development and creativity, the author details the skills and design principles that need to be developed in children, including connective thinking techniques, gestalt theory, meaningful perception psychology, the rule of thirds in composition, and colour psychology.

Portfolio: Visual Arts - Resources

As part of Maiwar Brisbane Laneways exhibition, artworks across the city could be discovered using the location-based augmented reality app Story City (http://www.storycity.com.au/). This included an audio file in which the Indigenous Queensland artist Judy Watson reflects on her painting Water Dragon which depicts Brisbane in the 2011 floods.

It can be important to understand the narrative behind artwork, in particular in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander context. This resource is exceptional in two ways: it provides the authentic voice of the Indigenous artist explaining the story of her painting; and it links to a shared city experience of the audience and students.

Portfolio: Visual Arts - Responding

The first photo captured the “water dragon” painting by Judy Watson exhibited in 2016 as part of The River exhibition of The Museum of Brisbane (http://www.museumofbrisbane.com.au/whats-on/the-river/) and the Maiwar Brisbane Laneways exhibition. Using the location-based AR Story City app, Indigenous Queensland artist Judy Watson allowed you to (https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/watson-judy/) access the audio narration behind the story of the water dragon while viewing the 2011 acrylic and charcoal on canvas painting. I am particularly impressed by Watson’s combination of geospatial mapping (aerial view) depicting an accurate map of the flooding that occurred in 2011, with the superimposed symbolic imagery of the water dragon, as well as the bar charts hinting at the economic impact of the flood for Queensland.

Portfolio: Media Arts - Resourcing

Aurasma (https://www.aurasma.com/) is currently one of the few free apps that supports multi-media AR content creation. The content is restricted to “following” a user group account which is ideal to limit content distribution to single class or school environments. The augmented content is triggered by hovering over images (or QR codes), which can be easily implemented in the classroom and customised to be location specific (e.g. sight words only appear in one corner of the room with the large letter ‘A’). Most importantly in the context of Media Arts, the app and complementary Mac or Windows software provide a rich environment that facilitate students creating their own content. 

Portfolio: Media Arts - Public Media

Media Arts is a rapidly evolving art form with the emerging augmented location-based and virtual reality likely to play a transformative role for how we create representations and connect with the world and people around us in the coming decades. It is exciting to see that Media Arts is included in the Australian Curriculum with the rational to “enable [...] students to create and communicate representations of diverse worlds and investigate the impact and influence of media artworks on those worlds, individually and collaboratively” http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/the-arts/media-arts/rationale.

As educators, we need to look at what is relevant for current generations of students and therefore understand the latest developments. One exciting aspect of augmented and virtual reality is that it naturally fits well in the classroom and can easily complement all curriculum areas. For example assignments can make use of free apps such as Aurasma to ask students to create AR content that complement physical products. Location-based AR further provides an outlet for student portfolios or learning wall charts with the potential to remove some clutter on classroom walls that is adversely affecting stimulus-sensitive students. Depending on the subject, students can simply pick up their iPads to view relevant “invisible” charts, or showcase their own work to parents and the community.

Portfolio: Music - Resourcing

According to the Australian Curriculum, students in Years 3 and 4 are expected to “recognise and discriminate between rhythm and beat”. The above teaching resource is a variation on the “tennis ball rhythms” (e.g. http://highshoalsmusic.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/tennis-ball-rhythms.html ) that involves whole-body kinaesthetic learning and can be performed with great effect at the weekly assembly. It also supports learning interpersonal skills by requiring teamwork on the full notes.

A recent literature research by cognitive scientists in Liverpool concluded in a recent online article “No proof music lessons make children any smarter” published in The Conversation that music education does not provide any benefits for cognitive and academic achievements https://theconversation.com/no-proof-music-lessons-make-children-any-smarter-70766 . Rather than confirming the theory of “transfer of learning” across different cognitive domains, the authors highlight that there might be simply a correlation in children with significant cognitive abilities giftedness in the musical domain.

Personally, I have never had the opportunity to study dance in school. This is likely one of the main reasons I have remained quite unaware of my body and only had limited proprioceptional skills translating into poor posture. It was only later in life and through injury that I realised the importance of developing more refined body awareness skills in posture and movement.

Over the last decade, I have studied the foundations of dance such as anatomy and physiology, breath control, sequencing, verbal instruction of movement throughout a number of Yoga Teacher Trainings leading towards a degree in Yoga Therapy in 2017.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/no-namaste-parents-offended-by-the-far-east-religion-of-yoga-20160325-gnreq9.html

The recent Sydney Morning Herald article “No Namaste: Parents offended by the 'Far East religion' of yoga” is important in relation to teaching Yoga Vinyasa such as Salute to the Sun in Dance classes or PE. It highlights the sensitivity around using certain forms of greeting, gestures (Namaskara) and sounds such as “Om” which can be perceived as religious in nature. It is important as a Dance teacher who wants to incorporate cultural elements into their classes to fully understand and acknowledge these and related concerns (e.g. cultural appropriation) and to make sure to teach in a secular way.

As an accredited yoga teacher, I understand the value of daily moving the spine in all directions, stretching all major muscles and learning how to sync body movement with deep breath. Following a sequence or flow of movements (Vinyasa) helps children to develop greater awareness of their body parts and requires concentration.

The F-2 achievement standard for Dance expects “students [to] use the elements of dance to make and perform dance sequences that demonstrate fundamental movement skills to represent ideas. Students demonstrate safe practice.” http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/the-arts/dance/curriculum/f-10 .

The sun salute is a great sequence to practice daily in class to build awareness around the different non-locomotor movements, including bending, stretching, flexing, extending, lifting, raising. There is scope to improvise and include twisting once the skills connecting movements and breath are firmly developed. The sequence is safe for children, and can be used to discuss safe practices, in particular movements limited to exhalation, switching on of core muscles, bending the knees when lifting.

Sun salute also provides opportunities to link with other curriculum areas, in particular HaSS with seasons and compass directions. In terms of cross-curriculum priority, there is a strong cultural link between Surya Namaskar and “Asia, and Australians engagement with Asia”, with opportunities to highlight culturally significant morning routines, greetings and hand gestures (i.e. Namaskara mudra) in India, the second largest Asian country and among the main countries-of-origin for Queenslanders born overseas.

From the many versions available, I selected the poster (or handout) above for it’s level of abstraction with stick figures that is ideal to introduce as a way of writing choreography.