TASK 6A Informal Trial - Observation

So currently I am teaching Dance and Drama in a secondary school. My Inquiry question is going to relate to Boys motivation and the barriers that this includes?

I decided to observe one of my year 9 classes which has mostly boys in.

One of my Colleagues a Music Teacher was taking part in a learning walk at the time and came in to watch me.

I decided that the students could work with one person they thought they could work really well with and then I matched them up with abilities and mixed sexes. This went really well I wrote down the groups and so did the Music teacher and she thought she could try this with them in her Music lesson as she was struggling to get the boys to be creative. In my lesson usually they struggle to come up with ideas but this lesson it just worked. They performed and seemed to be really comfortable.

So I decided to observe the Music lesson and see how they would cope in these groupings in the Music lesson. To my and the Music teachers surprise in didn't work. So whilst I was there she asked them why it wasn’t working and the boys opening said that we don't like working with girls in Music as we feel uncomfortable singing in front of them. So the Music teacher let them pick their own groups!!! I was shocked as I have never let the boys and girls just work in single sex group’s because it doesn’t work. But it did work. Really well so I said to the group that I would let them trial this in Drama.

Yesterday I had the group and I asked that the Music Teacher to come to watch just to see the result of this.

So I let them work with whoever they wanted. There were 3 girls groups and 2 boys groups. The girls decided to work in smaller groups and the boys decided to work in slightly bigger groups. The Girls came up with some great ideas. 1 of the boys group the smaller out of the 2 was fantastic the best they have worked in Drama this year. The other group was a disaster this maybe as they need to be in a smaller group and maybe needed more guidance or creativity of the girls.

I asked them what they enjoyed about this lesson and what they didn’t enjoy.

The boys said that they enjoyed working with each other but feel they needed the girls to help them with creating and to play the girls roles.

The girls said they enjoyed working without the boys as they got more done but they needed the boys to play the boys roles.

So reflecting on this observation I have decided in Music it works really well with just single sex groups as the boys don’t feel intimidated but in Drama both sex's need each other to bounce ideas and be able to play parts.

This has made me think about my question Girls and boys need each other to get over these barriers of creating but does working together engage them or making them more motivated.

In my next lesson I will be observing the group with them working with who they want but the groups have to be mixed. I will blog to let you know what happens.

Hoped you enjoyed the read!

Geri