Journal | Teaching Portfolio

Final Placement Journal

Getting to know learners and observing classes while being provided time to work on assignments has lightened the stress load to begin this placement.
The design of the school is quite different compared to others I’ve visited, its long and built from a main pathway that runs down the center.
The year 11 and 12 composite dance class is independent with motivated learners helping each other solve choreographic problems.
Year 10 theatre arts are beginning a new verbatim group performance task (see handout) that involves learners selecting an event or theme from the last century and finding artefacts to develop a verbatim scripted performance showing multiple perspectives and at least 2 characters per person.
Made some good connections with the year 11 drama learners during their discussion of analysing a performance: Bloom at the MTC.

Absent for Monday and Tuesday due to illness.
Teaching the year 8 Dance class today have prepared a war on waste unit to link in with their storytelling through movement in their previous exploration of fairy tales.
Have structured lesson plans utilising power point and stimulus to engage learners.
Will be talking with Tyler this week about potential team teaching as the year 10’s make their way through their first group task on Verbatim theatre. This unit is new and an excellent way to introduce learners to this kind of theatre and for them to practice the skills required in vce drama, such as research.
Reflections on Year 8 lesson
- Attempted to get to know learners and their prior knowledge within the dance environment.
- Was nervous however continued to initiate task engagement with open prompts and questioning.
- Could have generated more boundaries like no use of props and scaffolding the task ie complete this then I’ll give you the next instruction.
- Yet to receive feedback
Attended a senior school assembly which informed me of more about the school’s model for learning and structure.
Made further connections with learners in Mr Hess’s class regarding them attempting to guess the 2024 musical selection.

Continued working with Mr Hess and the year 10’s playing ‘Blood Potato’ to begin the lesson.
Worked with each group to further block and structure group verbatim task.
Taught year 8’s, confidence increasing and continuing to make connections with learners memorising their names. The learners worked well utilising the stimulus to explore movement and elements of dance.
Connecting the weather states to an element with station labels helped to level the tasks and reduce extraneous load of having to listen to instructions.
Attended Rory’s year 11/12 Theatre studies class assisting learners with their solo interpretations of Ms Trunchbull, breaking down their monologues into sections and exploring themes within their interpretations to break down the task. Also drawing upon individual learner skills that can enhance their chosen interpretation.
Attended year 10 Tudor house period which is a chance for learners to study if house events have not been planned.
Successful teaching of year 10 insect’s unit with great feedback from mentor on progress.

Year 11 & 12 dance class overview beginning unit 4 outcome 1 for year 12’s and unit 2 outcome 1 for year 11’s with all learners analysing the same group dance.
Assisting with year 12 theatre studies
Played “purse, purse, in my purse I’m gonna put it in my purse” – list an item like bug all other people must then repeat the saying going around the circle and then rhyme their item with bug.
Attempted the rhythm game with syllable “ug”- keeping time – it is slimy and small it’s a – everyone says what they think “slug.”
This new game was successful and assisted in warming up learners’ brains and bodies ready to explore their solo’s.
Year 8 Dance classes went well as a friendly teacher student relationship has begun to form with a successful pop culture barbie lesson.
Watching a house assembly and fun activities that the year 12’s run was a great reflection of their leadership skills within the house system.
Generating learning tasks that reflect the learners’ funds of knowledge allowed for opportunities to connect and explore movement features.

Worked with year 10 drama class on their performance assessment for verbatim theatre and generated a marking rubric that I filled out.
Have also been preparing a monologue task for the year 10’s generating monologues from musical theatre songs. A task sheet will be included allowing learners to edit and re-contextualise their monologues.
Assisted with the year 12 theatre studies floating around working with students to solve design and acting queries and concerns, this was productive with learners focusing on how to include symbolic elements in their performances.
Introduced the new monologue task to the year 10 and experimented with a new interpretation of a Les Miserables musical theatre song as a monologue.
Assisted with continuing to workshop task while a tour came through the paca building.
Helped with theatre studies solos as learners continue to craft their interpretations considering costuming and set.
Attended a quarterly 10-12 assembly with some fun year 12 videos played in celebration to two months till exams.
Assisted with influences research on Infra dance work with the year 11 & 12 Dance class.