Week 3: Drama and Math

Strategies Explored:

 I found Hot Seat to be an effective strategy because students can interpret the character role and the students can ask the character questions they want to know more about. The students can also play supporting character roles and ask questions from different perspectives.








Picture walk can be an effective strategy. Students can explore the pictures of a text and create a tableaux or a role play that involved the dialogue and give context to what they feel are the main ideas of the story.

Main Activity: Drama Structure 

Cross Curricular: Math 

Drama Structure includes role play, 2 warm ups, teacher in role, and movement

 To begin, the teacher tells a story (in this case on Captain Tew) and encloses students in a small space as if it were the under part of a ship. The story gives context to the roles students will be playing.

   

Warm-up: Sword Fight

In sword fight students are told that Captain Tew wants the best candidates for his ship and the teacher models movements for fighting. This is an effective activity because it gets students warmed up, it can also be transferred to other curriculum areas such as social studies (medieval times).

Students get into small groups and decide who in the group would be the most appropriate person to be sent free from the ship. That person gets to roll the die and must roll doubles. The recordings are taken. This can lead into a discussion on Probability. 

Connection to curriculum: Grade 6 Data Management and Probability: determine the theoretical probability of an outcome in a probability experiment, and use it to predict the frequency of the outcome.

Grade 6 Drama: B1.1 engage actively in drama exploration and role play, with a focus on identifying and examining a range of issues, themes, and ideas from a variety of fiction and non-fiction sources and diverse communities, times, and places

Afterwards this lesson can be taken into other strategies, such as Hot Seat, where students question Captain Tew about his life and decisions he makes. 

Reflection: I feel this is an effective lesson because it relates to John Dewey's Progressivism theory. In Progressivism:

• Students thrive in an environment where they are allowed to experience and interact with the curriculum. Essentially, human beings learn through a 'hands on' approach.
• Students should not only take part in their own learning, but conduct their own paths for acquiring and applying knowledge. 
• Curriculum should be interdisciplinary, connecting many subjects.

Drama is an appropriate way to allow students to experience and interact with various areas of the curriculum. This lesson is a hands on way to experience math concepts, by prefacing the content with an engaging lessons where students are in role. This helps them to build autonomy by taking a part in their learning and applying what they know to their character roles. This lesson connects many areas of the curriculum; drama, math and even social studies can be connected, all of which enhances the learning experience. 

This lesson is effective for differentiating material for students. This is a more hands on approach that easily engaged students. They are able to experience the math and put the math into a real world context. The indirect instruction allows for inquiry.