Standard 1: Goals and Purposes of Dance Arts Education
Accomplished teachers understand the goals and purposes of dance education and use this knowledge to inform their instructional practice, motivate student learning and achievement, and convey the importance of dance to life and learning beyond the dance environment.
These PDFs display two lesson plans I developed in alignment with state and national standards. These lessons are about similar content (basic choreography) and refer to analogous standards, but for different age levels. The lesson for 1st/2nd grade is more heavily scaffolded and teacher-led, while the lesson for 3rd-5th grade calls for more independent work, demonstrating my ability to teach the same content to different groups in ways which are developmentally appropriate for them. Both lessons engage students in the creative process; the 1st/2nd grade lesson also features students collaborating as a large group, and the 3rd-5th grade lesson asks students to communicate through both dance and writing, thus building 21st Century Skills of communication, collaboration, and creativity.
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These are two exit slips filled out by fourth grade students after a lesson. The exit slip includes two questions asking students to analyze and reflect on their own abilities in class that day by identifying what were the hardest and easiest parts, respectively, of what we had done, and then explaining why. In addition to engaging students in reflection and analysis, this exit slip also requires students to consider the cultural and historical context of the dance we had learned.
