Meeting wrap up

The focus of this weekend's Critical Links meeting was to focus in our questions with the collective wisdom of our colleagues providing much additional insight.

Here are some notes from the weekend that will influence the direction of my continued research:

The video collection of student work is powerful stuff. I need to edit into a time-line one or two students to show their progress over time.

It was suggested that I also include video of "the teacher in action with the class."

Another great suggestion: to show that the work applies in academic areas, arrange to shoot some footage of this class doing some kind of oral presentation in their home room class. I would look for something in the final quarter of the year to see how much of the work has been retained and can be applied.

To make this a valid study, I would need to document a class that is taught in traditional voice-focused methods, along with a control group that has no voice training whatsoever.

Interview the students whose work I am collecting.

Observe how resistance to change may be overcome by the physical work.

We were not in school today due to sub zero wind chill temps. A big snow storm might keep us out tomorrow.

When I do meet with this class again, we will be working with projection and articulation exercises combined with physical actions. More "Word Tennis" and conversations with consonants.