K-12 EDUCATION

To the left are education and dance education texts that inform the content I teach, as well as my teaching philosophies and approaches. 

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This video demonstrates original contemporary fusion choreography I taught to 5th grade students in a middle school dance class according to their developmental stage and technical skill level, modifying movements as needed. 

Creating a dance inspired by and accompanied to a popular song that students expressed great enthusiasm in supported culturally relevant instruction, engaging their attention, interest and motivation to learn the ballet-inspired movement vocabulary. 

Additionally, students had the opportunity to collaborate with one another to contribute original choreography to the dance. In groups, students created movement phrases that explored the theme of friendship and also expressed moments in their life when they missed someone or something. This assignment prompted them to build on prior knowledge of personal experiences and contemporary movement vocabulary in order to make dances that expressed artistic meaning. 

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I designed this unit plan for beginner 6th grade dance students in a middle school dance class. It encompasses multiple days of instruction and demonstrates my ability to design organized, sequential lesson plans that scaffold students' knowledge and skills in performance preparation.

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Lesson activities are differentiated to support students with diverse learning needs. 

Activities in this unit balance creating, performing, connecting and responding to dance content to provided a well-rounded dance education experience.

To the left is a Reference Sheet for Language of Dance (LOD) symbols that I use as a framework to support students in their choreographic processes. I placed these symbols on large die that I called "Chance Dance Dice," creating a fun, novel and unexpected tool for selecting symbols as inspiration for creating original dances, often in collaboration with peers. 

I also utilize Jacob's Pillow Video Archives to expose students to dance performances in a variety of genres. 

I designed and taught this lesson plan to intermediate-level high school dance students. The lesson focuses on elements of partnering and demonstrates my ability to design coherent instruction, as evident in the ways I guide students to make connections between sensed timing and developing partnering skills. Students first explore what they know, which is performing the modern dance phrase to numeric counts. Next they transition to practicing the new skill of performing the same phrase with sensed timing. Afterwards, while introducing the choreography activity in the lesson, I facilitate a brief, informal class discussion to help students relate these two skills (and sensed timing and partnering). This discussion supports students to apply their developing skills in performing with sensed timing to the choreographic modification activity, in which they create original partnering sections and incorporate them into the phrase.

This summative assessment is the culmination of an experiential anatomy unit in which advanced high school dance students identified and explored anatomy of the pelvis, spine, scapulae and feet. Students were prompted to demonstrate their knowledge of the function of an anatomical body part in relation to a specific dance-related skill through a presentation that included teaching a relevant conditioning exercise. 

The provided document includes the assignment instructions, sign-up sheet for presentation dates and an assignment criteria rubric. 

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The assessment aligns with national and state dance standards. More specifically, it addresses National Core Arts Standard (NCAS) DA:Pr5.1.IIIb and New Jersey Student Learning Standards(NJSLS) 1.1.12adv.Pr5a and 1.1.12adv.Pr5b.