Residency - Barton Open School - Allison Rubin Forester - 4.00 Hours
On this week's visit, I focused more on her morning dance and geometry class. In Allison’s math classes, she had them play math-related games on the laptops. One particular game involved two teams. Imagine one team is on one side of the classroom and the second team is on the adjacent side (or something similar). It worked similarly to 20 questions, but it was with math equations.
Looking specifically in the geometry class, they played an interactive game that involved the translation, rotation, and reflection of a shape. They had to get the shape to fit in a different position, whether it’s a straight shot to the destination or having to move around obstacles in the virtual space. It’s given me a lot of inspiration as to what direction I want my lesson plan to go.
Her dance class was a lot of fun too. I got to try out some of the dances that they’re working on (i.e charleston). It’s very cool that these kids have a dance class, for it gets them moving and not sitting in a chair all day. I have an idea in the back of my mind about fluxus movements and the simple yet effect way that it could make a performance.
Overall, it was very interesting to see how focused the kids got in this lesson. It looked like a lot of fun to do, and I plan on trying to do something similar to get that same effect out of them. If anything, I’d hope to get out the same level of collaborative engagement in my lesson as it did with Allison’s, yet with a arts-related twist to it.