Mirroring

Because of the group work challenges we had last week and my talk with Ms. Rossiter about respect I chose to teach a class on mirroring with an emphasis on being good leaders and followers. I began class having the whole class mirror me. This brought a lot of focus to the group and I think it was good for them to see me move and get a better picture of the possibilities for movement during a mirroring activity. When I have done mirroring in the past some students didn't seem to know what to do as the leader. After mirroring me I talked with the students about what they had to do to be able to follow me. Some answers I got were concentrate and move slowly. I expounded on those and others as important skills for leading and following. Then I had the students get into partnerships to try mirroring each other. I put on music and walked around giving feedback. Most of the students were very focused and I saw them trying new things. A few partnerships got confused and started shadowing instead of mirroring but I helped them understand. Then I split them into groups of 4 so that they could try flocking. This gave them the opportunity to work in a larger group and to be both a leader and a follower within that setting. Most groups remained focused and quiet, but I had one group of gigglers. At the end of class I reminded the students that group work takes concentration and respect for both the leaders and followers.