The Anguilla Community College (ACC) showcased the work of students enrolled in the Associates Degree in Primary Education and those enrolled in the Associates Degree in Early Childhood Education on Thursday and Friday of last week (July 16 and 17, 2015) in five classrooms at Campus B of the Albena Lake Hodge comprehensive School. Both groups of students followed summer session courses at the College for just over 6 weeks.
The teachers in training in the Early Childhood course were enrolled in “Creative Arts for the Young Child” while those at the Primary level were enrolled in the “Visual Arts” course.
Creative Arts for the Young Child familiarized student teachers with approaches to the creative arts as they may be applied in early childhood settings. They learnt about visual arts, drama, music, and movement activities for young children. Additionally they also learnt how the creative arts foster total development. The teacher’s role in planning developmentally appropriate creative arts curriculum was emphasized throughout the course. The student teachers had opportunities to design, implement, and participate in various creative arts projects. While the primary focus of the course was learning to foster creativity in young children, the secondary focus was demonstrating the integration of the arts with all of the content specific areas. To be noted also is the fact that artistic expression is the precursor for many skills; from drawing emerges writing, and from “reading” pictures, comes reading words. Drama teaches children how to solve problems and work together, while music has a direct correlation to math concepts.
The teachers enrolled in the Visual Arts course were able to develop their innate creative potential in order to build positive attitude to the visual arts. The course also provided the avenue for them to develop self confidence in the teaching of the Visual Arts whether as a separate subject, or combined with other subject areas. These teachers also explored how children learn and develop their creative self-expression through exposure to the Visual Arts.
The exhibition provided the opportunity for the general public to see the activities that the children on Anguilla can be engaged in during the teaching and learning process in our schools. On display were paintings, crafts in the form of clay, tie-dye, textiles, and needle work and wood. It was very intriguing also to see the manner by which discarded materials on Anguilla were given a second chance.
Besides the practical work on display, the student teachers exhibited curriculum, units, lesson planning, charts and other resources that will be used during the actual teaching and learning process to realize similar activities in their classrooms such as those on display.
The Anguilla Community College commends both the teachers in training and the instructors of the course for their hard work and looks forward to them applying what was learnt in the new academic year to enrich the teaching and learning process in their classrooms.
– Press Release
(Published without editing by The Anguillian newspaper.)
