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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Dance Teacher Blog: Checklist


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 shoesTip #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.



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