Tuesday, October 29, 2019

History of Theatre Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

History of Theatre - Research Paper Example The spectacle is the inclusion of effects such as costumes, scenery and everything else to do with the fact that a player has a visual element and is watched and not just heard. (Bryson) Aristotle quells such questions and explains that music creates and enhances the mood that compliments the emotion being depicted by the characters in the play. Music’s major function in a play is to reinforce the emotional content (Aaron). Music has been forever championed as an effective mode of communication. (Lipscomb and Tolchinsky)Even when played in the background when at many times one doesn’t even notice that a melody is being played, music is still effective in setting the mood and creating an environment that compliments the theme of the play. Music at times has also been called the ‘fourth dimension’ that magnifies the impact of a particular scene or setting within the play (Drama Music). The famous novelist Victor Hugo stated that music can be used to put across thoughts and emotions which need to be expressed but there are no words to describe them. Also mentionable is the fact that audiences, once they leave the theatre, do not remember the dialogues but can definitely recall the songs and re-live the entire play through the songs and melody recollection in their minds (Mackintosh). All evidence supp orts Aristotle views that ‘music is a form of imitation’ and that different types and tones of music can easily help and elicit different types of responses from individuals. It has been suggested that theatre and drama fell into total crumble during the early 17th century. In the late 16th century, renaissance drama evolved during the period of Queen Elizabeth 1. During this time, neoclassicism was almost completely ignored. The  drama focused more on forms that were popular with the audiences.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

The positives and negatives of Formal and Informal Assessments

The positives and negatives of Formal and Informal Assessments Formal and informal assessments are two specific procedures that teachers use to evaluate and grade their students. Both formal and informal formative assessments involve gathering, interpreting, and acting on information (Ruiz-Primo Furtak,2004, p. 4). Formal assessments are standardized exams used by a state to reflect on particular grade level to measure a students academic abilities. These exams are administered in the same way every time with a time restriction and instructions to how the exam should be graded. In contrast, informal assessments are exams or activities designed to specially review or test students knowledge on a certain academic subject taught by their teacher. I will be discussing the advantage and disadvantage for two different forms of formal assessment and four types of informal assessments methods. The two formal assessments are norm-referenced and criterion-referenced. Norm-referenced are standardized tests and are linked to inter individual differences (Gargiulo, 2008, p.65). This test compares the students skill to other students in the similar age group. Statistical method is used to determine how the student did. For example first grade students were tested and the outcome is used in a statistical method. You would be able to see how each student ranked. For example, Jon scored at the 50th percentile among his class. There are advantages and disadvantages in using norm referenced testing. One advantage to this method is it can determine whether a student may need special services. For example, if the student scores less than standard norm for reading, they will receive special services to aid them in this subject. Another advantage to this method is it allows parents to see how their childs academic results are compared to their peers. For example, Julie performs at 86 percentile in her class. This means that Julie performed better than 86% from her classmates. As there are advantages, there are disadvantages. One disadvantage to this method is it consists of broad academic information and may not consist of current classroom content. Another disadvantage is it does not fully capture a students academic abilities on problem solving, decision making, social skills, nor their ability elaborate on certain topic. In contrast, Criterion-referenced tests are associated with intra individual differences and can provide data that is useful for instructional planning (Gargiulo, 2008, p.66). For example, a math problem is given to a student to see if the student is able to add two digit numbers. The outcome is strictly based on whether the student did or did not answer the problem correctly. The first advantage to this test is it can compare a students individual performance from their previous one. For example, Aprils current test indicated her reading skills have improved from last quarter. Aprils results are not compared to how well she did among her classmates instead it compares to her individual progress. Another advantage to this test it can assist a teacher to figure out each students academic strengths and weakness. A teacher can guide and assign additional help in the areas where students need improvement. The downfall to this method is it cannot compare student academic performance to ot her schools or districts. For example, a teacher will not be able to compare her students success to other classes nor to other schools. Another disadvantage is creating a valid exam for students. Designing an exam needs to meet specific standards plus its time consuming for teachers to work around their daily responsibilities. The following are the four types of informal assessments that can be used in a classroom which are an essay exam, a classroom game, walk around method, and a multiple choice exam. The first informal assessment is an essay exam. Essay exams are questions based on a certain lesson or topic where a student needs to provide a written answer. Depending on the exam instructions students may only need to write a couple of paragraphs or several pages in length. The following are two advantages in using an essay exam to test students. First, students have the opportunity to express their thoughts and demonstrate their level of comprehension on a certain question. The second advantage, students begin to construct and analyze how to answer each question. For example, the instruction on the essay says to please explain the difference between a mammal and an amphibian. The student first needs to analyze the differences between the two species and then construct examples to elaborate on the question. An issue does represent itself; this type of method is time consuming for both the student and teacher. The students need plenty of time to answer and write an essay and the te acher needs time to evaluate and grade each paper. The second disadvantage, teachers must be aware of their biases when writing a question where students need to agree or disagree on a certain topic. This disadvantage may get in the way of grading papers accurately. A teacher needs to be aware of their bias and base their grading on the students response not if they agree or disagree with their student. Another informal way to evaluate a students progress is a classroom game. A Classroom game creates an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge and encourages them to learn. For example, the class is divided into four groups to play a game of Jeopardy. The game of Jeopardy consists of questions on a certain academic subject. An advantage to this method is it promotes cooperative learning. Students are learning how to interact, collaborate, and work together with their peers to answer questions. Working together provides positive reinforcements for students to develop social skills and trust among their team members. Another advantage it motivates students to apply their own knowledge and retain new information as they play the game. A game will keep students alert and encourages participation which will lead to learning. Since students are divided into groups not every student is participating or collaborating on every question and this is downfall to this method. Even though each student has an opportunity to answer a question, the group is judged as a whole not the individual knowledge to every question but the ones they answer. Another disadvantage to this method does not provide enough feedback to a teacher to determine which students needs additional assistance in comprehending the current subject. The third informal assessment is the walk-around. This assessment requires the teacher to interact with each student as they work together as a group or individually. The teacher is actively observing and assisting students to stay on task. The advantage to this method it allows the teacher to interact with students individually or as a group to answer any concerns or assist them in understanding their assignment. The second advantage is the one on one conference. The teacher uses the one on one conference to talk to the students for five or ten minutes. This conference offers attention, and additional help in instructions for students(Cole,1999,p.4). This type of interaction builds trust and improves the communication between teacher and student. A downside to walk around assessment is giving each student or groups the same amount of time to answer questions or concerns. Since every student or groups have different questions, some may need additional assistance than others. This may cause some behavior issues or delay some students in completing their assignment. Another issue is making sure every student understands the material or contributing their work to their group. The teacher needs to give every student an opportunity to talk and demonstrate they understand the assignment. Lastly, the multiple-choice test is another assessment used in a classroom. Multiple choice tests consist of questions and a list of possible answers for each question. An upside to this method students begin to access their knowledge and apply it to every question by eliminating misleading choices. This method is also an advantage for teachers as well. The grading is less time consuming than other methods and easier to narrow down where the students are having difficulties. A disadvantage for students is it may cause them some confusion or frustration when the exams are poorly written. Poor written exams consist of tricky options to choose from, for instance having two possible answers. The second disadvantage for students is not being able to understand a question. This may lead the students to guess on answers they are not able to comprehend due to reading difficulties or a poor written exam. This may lead to inappropriate score on the students progress or knowledge. In conclusion, both formal and informal assessments consist of advantages and disadvantages that a teacher should consider and understand before administrating these assessments. Assessments are necessary to pinpoint students academic strengths and weaknesses. This allows a teacher to provide additional assistance to students that are struggling. Without assessments teachers will not be able to properly evaluate and assist students.

Friday, October 25, 2019

Jean Luc Godard?s Weekend as Didactic Self-Reflexive Cinema Essay

According to Stephen Prince in Movies and Meaning: an Introduction to Film, Screen Reality is a concept that pertains to the principles of time, space, character behavior and audiovisual design that filmmakers systematically organize in a given film to create an ordered world on-screen in which characters may act and in which a narrative may unfold.(262) One mode of cinematic screen reality is self-reflexivity. While the other three modes of screen reality seek to sway the audience into accepting the authenticity of the world and the story that are on screen, the self-reflexive style deliberately attempts to tear down the illusion of the cinema. In doing so, it reinforces the awareness that film is socially and culturally constructed and that at its core, film is art, not reality. There are two purposes in using self reflexive techniques, either for comedy or with the hope of addressing a social or cultural issue. (Prince 290) The more familiar of the two modes of self-reflexive cinema make use of a comedic style, and what's more, many contemporary comedies embody comedic self-reflexivity (Prince 291). These comedies do so because it facilitates a more personal rapport between the characters and the audience, thus amplifying the humor that can be seen in the narrative. However, there are certain limitations to comic self reflexivity. By presupposing the audience’s familiarity with the humor or references in the narrative, the mode risks reaching an audience that does not relate to the material presented. Some films are unable to meet a large audience because their narratives are constructed from â€Å"inside† jokes that can not be understood by all who will see it. (Prince 290) The other mode of self-reflexive cinema that addresses an issue of importance is commonly known as didactic self-reflexivity. Beginning in the 1920s with Bertolt Brecht, a playwright who wanted to craft plays that were reflective of society and that made sure the audience was aware of this. He wished that his work inform the public and impact social change, to share his perception without a screen. Seeing realism as an impediment that kept the audience from perceiving the message of the art, Brecht sought to devise theater that was uncompromisingly revolutionary and candid. This new style was characterized by the employment of titles to reveal the next action, in the way tha... ...aken from a scene. For instance, a title passes on screen reading "World / 3", just before the African and Arab workers explain their optimism and their reasons for accepting the necessity for violence. As seen throughout the film, Godard uses these titles as a device to: Introduce and set off a given scene from the surrounding context of the narrative, tell viewers what it is they are about to see, remind viewers of the filmmakers intrusion on the narrative, and emphasize the way the filmmaker has chosen to shape and organize the structure of the film. Filmmakers like Jean Luc Godard employ the devices of the self-reflexive mode of screen reality because they do not value the mode of realism or expressionism to adequately convey some social truth or ideal. In choosing a didactic style of representational reality, he sought to guide and direct the viewer through the key representations and dialogues within the film. Godard believes that it is necessary for the audience to read the film as it must be without misinterpretation and as such has employed didactic self-reflexive devices which facilitate a clear reading of the film. The film is the message for Godard.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Soft Skills For Success

Author information GRK Murty, a postgraduate in Agricultural sciences with CAIIB, DM and PG Diploma in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations, is currently working for The ICFAI University, as Associate Dean. Earlier, he worked at AP Agricultural University, Hyderabad for six years and later with Bank of India for 27 years. He had a stint at Bank of India Management Development Institute, Mumbai as a faculty member and Vice- Principal. He took voluntary retirement as Asst. General Manager in the year 2000.He has published around 45 papers in Science, Banking, Management and Insurance journals. He has also presented papers on Banking and Insurance at National and International seminars. He has published 100 articles in finance and HR magazines. He has to his credit two edited books: Forex Markets: Exchange Rate Dynamics; and Derivatives Markets – Vol 1. He is the Consulting Editor for the ICFAI Journal of Bank Management. The Book There is a popular belief that in todayà ¢â‚¬â„¢s fast changing and challenging business environment, ‘soft skills’ are more critical for success than hard skills.This is a misconception. The reality is that it has always been that way! Nobody in history ever succeeded in delivering a great executive and business performance consistently through hard skills alone. General and widespread awareness of the tremendous importance of soft skills in management is, of course, a more recent phenomenon. As the world has become more and more competitive in recent decades, organizations are finding that under-productivity and incompetence of their personnel are becoming less and less affordable.And when the factors determining employee effectiveness are analyzed, many organizations find glaring inadequacies in soft skills, undermining the effectiveness of their smartest, hardest working and most knowledgeable employees/executives. The managers concerned would not have been recruited in the first place for their soft skill s; at the recruitment stage, their domain knowledge alone would have been comprehensively tested and retested. Nor would they have received any particularly meaningful training subsequently in soft skills improvement, because until recently, soft skills seldom received the attention they deserved.Most organizations worked on the premise that soft skills are inherited skills and they cannot be acquired. At best, they can only be cultivated, honed or fine-tuned along the way in a managerial or executive career through observation and experience. In the actual experience of many organizations, such hopes seem to have been significantly belied, inevitably warranting resort, in recent decades, to a more professional approach for the enrichment of this critically important managerial input within the organization.The imperatives of competitiveness pushed organizations to give increased attention to the soft skills of their people, which seemed to really script the success of organizations better than mere hard skills. The problem has been extensively discussed and researched upon, resulting in the emergence of a whole lot of literature on the subject in the last couple of decades. A lot of work has been done on the assessment of soft skills and on the various measures for improvements in the levels of such skills across the cadres in many progressive organizations.Soft Skills for Success by GRK Murty, discusses the whole gamut of soft skills in a lucid, persuasive and self-explanatory fashion, between the covers of a well-written, 200-page volume. The treatment is intended for the lay reader and is quite free from jargon. Even so, the book is comprehensive without being pedantic. By drawing generously upon the views, ideas and thoughts of a wide spectrum of management experts, academics and business magnates and matching them with the traditional wisdom of the prescriptions of oriental and occidental scriptures and classics, the book invests itself with credibility and authority.The author organizes the book in four sections. The first section titled â€Å"Know Thyself† introduces the reader to a definition and description of soft skills. The second section focuses on role, role perception and the management of role-conflicts in the work situation. It has a chapter exclusively dedicated to the discussion of creativity in the workplace. The third section on â€Å"Communication and Personality Differentiation† offers cogent and well argued essays on communication skills, listening skills and negotiating skills, in separate chapters.The fourth and final section is dedicated to interpersonal skills. The six interesting chapters in this section deal with issues like assertiveness, handling of interpersonal conflicts, counseling, leadership, mentoring, etc. Criticism The author provides a systematic and uncomplicated treatment of the various topics taken up for coverage. The book is compact without being dense, and takes the reader thr ough a guided tour of the soft skills domain.It is an interesting and informative excursion. Given the importance of the subject matter of the book to the aspirants in the employment market as also to those already pursuing careers in management (adequately equipped with appropriate hard skills for jobs but looking out for reinforcement of soft skills), and given the orderly and stimulating manner in which the subject has been presented, it can fairly and safely be predicted that the book would see several reprints in the years to come.Conclusion Soft Skills are intangible, hard to define but that’s what makes us a whole human being, a social individual. Successful people are always found to be not just professional but they also have these ‘PLUS’ qualities – ‘soft skills’ – that others do not posses

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Embarrassing Moment Essay

Advantages At first when I took first aid training from a local hospital, I had no idea how much helpful is this training in providing help to others. It gives you a sense of self-satisfaction when you help someone in acute emergency. But at the time of training, I didn’t realize about the importance and advantages of first aid box but after some time when I got a first aid box to keep at my home and equipped the same with all necessary items, I have a piece of mind to cope any type of emergency in my home or even if it happens with anyone in neighbor hood. If you are a person who also likes to help others, even if not others, just to provide treatment to your loved ones, you must maintain a first aid box at your home. But before you maintain a first aid box at your home, consider taking part in a first aid training course because it will train you in using various surgical instruments and medical devices properly. Usually, after you get first aid training from any hospital or organization such as Red Cross, your trainer also provides you a check-list for your first aid box. The check-list usually includes following items: * Antiseptic Wash * Gauze squares & Gauze rolls * Cotton balls & Cotton swabs * Neospirin or other triple antibiotic ointment or cream * Medical tape, hot/cold pack, small scissors * Bee sting kit, thermometer * Selection of bandages There are many other extra items which you may keep in your first aid box such as sterile water, self-adhesive tape, nail clippers, trauma shears, surgical suture, surgical suture needle, vicryl mesh, Ethicon sutures, steroid cream and sunburn treatment (aloe products) etc. Some of these items need more specific training to use them properly such trauma shears are used to cut leather jackets, seat belts and denim etc. Like wise to use surgical instruments such as surgical suture and surgical suture needle, you also need specific training to take care of large wounds or cuts. You can also make two first aid kits, one for your home and other for your. Take a small kit with you when you travel or you can name your travel kit as a mini kit. To get all these necessary items for your first aid box, you can search over the internet to find many reliable resources where you may get discounts if you order for all medical supplies at one place. The contents and equipment of the first-aid kits are not otherwise specified. Therefore, the following items are to be included in each first-aid kit and be available at every pool or spa: 1. 1 – First Aid Book 2. 1 – Box Plastic Adhesive Bandages – 1†³ x 3†³ 16/Box 3. 1 – Tweezers 4. 1 – Scissors 5. 1 – Spool Tape – 1/2†³ x 5 yards 6. 2 – Compress Bandage – 3†³ x 3†³ 7. 1 – Triangular Bandage – 40†³ 8. 1 – Small Ice Pack 9. 1 – Box Fingertip Bandage – 10/Box 10. 1 – Box Cloth Knuckle Bandage 11. 1 – Eye Dressing 12. 1 – Box Telfa Pads – 1 1/2†³ x 2†³ 12/Box 13. 1 – Roller Gauze 14. 3 – Packages Clean Wipes 15. 1 – Compact CPR Shield 16. 1 – Latex Gloves, Pair 17. 2 – Emergency Blankets Moral As well as the moral duty of employers to protect employees and members of the public,General Health and Safety Legislation covers all employers and workplaces. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 These regulations place an obligation on employers to assess risks and where necessary, take action to eliminate or control the risks. The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 These regulations state that, in order to provide First Aid to their employees who become injured or ill at work, employers must have adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and personnel. Regulations apply to all workplaces, including those with less than five employees. Self-employed workers need to ensure they have adequate facilities to provide First Aid to themselves. If the self-employed person works with others on mixed premises, then joint arrangements should be made with other occupiers. It could be that one employer will take responsibility for the provision of First Aid cover for all workers on the premises. back to top Further information on First Aid at Work * Email your query now * Call our Adviceline on 0800 019 2211 First Aid at Work (external site) This site from the Health and Safety Executive provides information on all aspects of first aid at work for employers and employees across all industry sectors. Free resources from Healthy Working Lives Links below are to publications pages giving options to download these resources: * Risk Assessment Form * Risk Assessment Form – Worked Example Free First Aid guidance from the Health and Safety Executive Note – all links are to external pages on the HSE website giving options to download or order these resources: * First Aid at Work – Your questions answered INDG214 (external site) Priced First Aid guidance from the Health and Safety Executive Note – all links are to external pages on the HSE website giving options to order these resources: * Basic Advice on First Aid at Work (external site) * Electric Shock: First Aid Procedures (external site) * First Aid at Work: The Health and safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981 – Approved Code of Practice and Guidance L74 (external site) back to top