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This research explores the use of scaffolding by kindergarten teachers to develop creative dance activities, to explore strategies of curriculum implementation, and to enhance teachers' professional growth in a cycle of planning, action, observation and reflection. An action research method is adopted, the research field being the class taught regularly by the researcher. The children are three to four years old. Two other teachers who assist in the class and a special needs teaching assistant are the researcher's 'critical friends'. The project took place over three months of teaching practice and reflection in a cyclical process. This research uses Mollie Davies' theoretical movement framework and the audiovisual textbook "Creating Art with the Moving Body" by Liu Shu-ying and Hsin-Tien Huang (2018) to design and develop creative dance activities based on body, space, dynamics and relationships. The activities selected from the audiovisual material were "Magic Finger Play", "Flexible Foam Strips", "Giant Elastic Bands", "Line Games", "Pass the Bouncing Ball", "Mirroring" and "Undersea World". All were related to the pre-school activity guidelines, the curriculum objectives and the learning goals for body movement and health, language, and aesthetic fields; the exploration process using creative dance activities. Movement is the core of all activities with play as the context and props as the medium. Music runs through everything and with language used to generate imagery and spark imagination. Flowing music helped the creativity with the foam strips, the large elastic bands assisted limbs to stretch, the bouncing balls encouraged child interaction and child-size elastic bags stimulated new shapes. Teaching videos, photos, reflective diaries, lesson plans and reflective dialogue with the critical friends were used to cross-validate finding. The findings from the application of the teaching strategies in the research lead me to conclude: 1. Flexible adjustment of multiple scaffolding strategies, review, materials, language, demonstration, children doing activities with peers, structure, architecture and other scaffolding guidance helps young children's development in creative dance. 2. Creative dance can be developed through the pre-school curriculum guidelines. 3. Imagery is important in inspiring children's creative dance. 4. Sharing and feedback between the young children is important in developing their creative dance and enhancing their creative dance experience. The process of this research has engaged my five senses. The experience has activated my personal professional development in creative dance.
Keywords: kindergarten teachers, creative dance, movement elements, scaffolding strategies, action research
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