POINTE 5*6*7*8
Dance Teacher Blog: Checklist
By Brandy Curry
Setting
your classroom up for success starts with your organizational skills. The following checklist will help you plan before your first day of school. Here is a quick overview
of the checklist. I use this simple checklist for each of my classes; each
class I vary my attire, music, and lessons so that they are age, gender, dance style and
level, appropriate.
ATTIRE
It is just as
important for you to dress for your dance class as it is your students. While I take the more traditional route of
dressing like my students, your studio or school may have their own dress code
and professional attire policies. I have
taught at schools wear wearing a leotard was both unexpected and inappropriate. I have also taught at schools that required I
dress in full leotard, skirt, and tights.
Check your school policies before you shop for your wardrobe. Tip #1: I keep a professional change
of clothes, heels, dress, blazer in my office.
You never know when an impromptu meeting will occur and going to the
meeting in your sweaty dance clothes is unprofessional.
DANCE BAG
I pack my dance
bag the same way I packed it when I was thirteen and taking daily lessons. I always keep extra hygiene products tucked
away in my bag. I teach ballet and jazz, but I have all sorts of shoes in my
bag. Tap shoes, lyrical/contemporary shoes and, of course, my jazz sneakers and
pointe shoes. Tip #2: I also use my bag as an example
for my students. I make it part of "the basics" Dance Etiquette Lesson.
DANCE SHOES
Yes, you should
wear dance shoes! Some teachers prefer
to dance on their barefeet, but I have the philosophy for my students that they
should wear the same dance shoes as the teacher or teaching assistant. If you expect your students to be in ballet
shoes, then you should be in ballet shoes or at least a soft dance shoe. Bloch makes a great soft dance sneaker that
allows for a beautiful point, and keeps you off your heels. BLOCH DANCE SHOES Tip #3: Keep an extra pair of socks,
and tights in your bag to replace stinky socks or tights. Keep dryer sheets in your shoes to rid odor.
NOTEBOOK
My staff always
joked about my many notebooks. I had my
Department Chair Notebook, a Choreography Notebook for my advanced dance
classes or after school classes, as well as a Curriculum and Lesson Plan
Notebook.
LESSON PLANS,
ACTIVITIES
Start gathering ideas, brainstorm, look at previous year lessons,
or lessons you have seen taught by other teachers. As soon as you get your schedule from your school you can start to plan your daily routine. Plan time to change clothes, get a snack or coffee. You can also do a mental scan of your week, holidays, meetings, conference’s, to plan your class lessons accordingly. You can use this Lesson Plan Template or you can create your own Lesson Plan template.
MUSIC
Gather music, be it CD’s or in your iTunes for warm-up,
progressions, across the floor movement, combinations, choreography, ballet
class, tap class, jazz class, pilates, modern, etc. Your music is your class style. If you want to crank up the energy in your
class, select high energetic music. If you
want to calm your class, select calming music.
iTUNES
At some point in your teaching career you should download
new music, and upload your CD’s into your iTunes. It is the best way to
organize your music for your classes.
Both PC and Mac computers have iTunes, and iTunes now has iCloud so you can share the songs in your library with all of your devices. (i.e., your smart phone, iPod, iPad, Laptop,
Home computer.) iTunes also has great features for editing, and cutting music
that are a secret to our industry.
PLAYLISTS
Once you have your iTunes account and have downloaded new
music and uploaded your CD’s into your library you need to organize it and
create playlists. I have a playlist for
each of the classes I teach: Ballet 1-Ballet 6, K-3 PE, and Choreography
for my advanced dancers, and music for our annual production of the Nutcracker. This allows me to connect directly to the
stereo system, grab my remote control and start my class. I don’t have to stop to pause the CD, or
worry about it skipping.
Playlists allow me to see my class in its entirety. I put my warm-up music at the top, add in
across-the-floor music and select a few songs for choreography or
combinations. I can look at the bottom
of my iTunes counter and see that my song list will last thirty minutes for my
forty-five minute class and I add more music for the time allotted in my class.
CLASS LISTS
(Student Roster)
Having the rosters of your class helps organize the class
flow. Understanding the Level(s) of your
students helps you put together a solid pacing plan, and daily lessons. If you are familiar with your students’
ability prior to the first day of school you will have the opportunity to
create exciting lesson plans that are both challenging and engaging.
#OF GIRLS
V.S. #OF BOYS (Levels)
Understanding the relationship and population of each of
your classes help you prepare age appropriate, gender appropriate
material. Male dancers don’t always want
to dance to the latest Britney Spears song.
In ballet class or performing arts programs, you may want to teach a
separate Male class. You may have to
rethink your class structure if you are teaching a dance elective class with 12
males and 14 females. There is
opportunity there for partnering, however, note the age and level of the
dancers before you get into any advanced partnering.
FORMATION
GRID
I use grid or notebook paper to do my formations. I also write down X marks, like most of you,
and on notebook paper. Now that I have an iPad I actually
take photos with it to see what my formations will appear like to an audience
or on video.
COMBINATION
MEMORIZATION
I make time to memorize all of my warm-ups, my barre
combinations, and my center practice or across-the-floor combinations prior to
my dance students walking into the room.
It is essential to have a physical lesson plan in your body as well as a
written lesson plan. In ballet class if
you are teaching a new battement tendu combination you should have the music
selected, and the combo memorized before you teach it. Tip #4: I show my dancers the ballet combination twice, I dance with them once, and
allow them to do the otherside of the combo by themselves to give corrections,
and do adjustments. I do not stop the
music when they make a mistake as it allows them to gain self-confidence and do
self-correction. Unfortunately, I have taught very advanced dancers that
cannot self-correct and they have poor dance self-esteem. I’d rather have a
confident intermediate dancer, than an unconfident advanced dancer in my
class.
WARM-UP, ACROSS THE FLOOR, CENTER PRACTICE
I write all of my warm-ups, across the floor movement and
center practice down on paper. It is useful for the substitute teacher
coming in to teach my class. It is
useful for the Principal giving me an evaluation. I take notes and journal about how my classes
flow on a weekly basis. I use these notes and journal entries to compile more
successful lesson plans in my class.
CHOREOGRAPHY
When I first started teaching at a high school in Los Angeles, creating Choreography was not my favorite part of my lesson. I dreaded coming up with new ideas, themes,
and dance variations that would be entertaining for the audience. I wanted my kids to experience the education
and academic component in class and thought the choreography and recitals
should be left for the private dance studios.
Then I subbed a Level 2 (10th grade) Modern Class for OtisSallid. They were working on their final
semester presentation asssement and his choreography was not only brilliant but
it gave me a ballet formulaic approach to teaching choreography. I was inspired by his students whom were
performing very advanced steps but at their dance ability and level. I went home and wrote up my progressive warm
up, which went into my progressive across-the-floor, which became center
progressions. I, at one point in my
teaching career titled a dance performance, "Progressions." This approach is a natural progression for
ballet and modern teachers, but not always for Jazz and Contemporary Jazz
teachers.
PROPS
All dance classes should use props at some point. Props are fun. Well, besides the fun factor it is a good way
to keep your class engaged in the daily lesson.
Musical Theater incorporates props, modern incorporates props. With creative movement classes or ballet classes it is easy to use rhythmic
ribbons, scarves, and hula-hoops. Tip 5#: You can show a video of Alvin
Ailey’s Revelations where the dancers
use fans, and umbrellas.
