Teaching Dance as Art in Education

Teaching Dance as Art in Education is a comprehensive introductory textbook that helps dance education majors and dance specialists understand and incorporate the aesthetic foundations of educational dance in grades K-12. Unlike other models of teaching dance, this book delineates what a standards-oriented, aesthetically driven program should encompass for both the dance specialist and his or her K-12 students.

Teaching Dance as Art in Education fosters an understanding of dance as arts education and defines the dance specialist's roles and responsibilities, including how the national arts initiatives and student-centered inquiry affect the teaching of dance. It explains how to advance student growth in the areas most critical to teaching dance: the physical, mental, artistic, and social. Content is delineated through four cornerstones of dance as art in education:

-Dancing and performing

-Creating and composing

-Knowing history, culture, and context

-Analyzing and critiquing
These cornerstones are subsequently integrated into the K-12 Dance Cornerstone Curriculum Framework, which enables dance specialists to develop substantive and sequential dance experiences for students as they progress from kindergarten through grade 12. The framework distills all the skills and concepts that dance specialists need, including developmental expectations for different ages.

Teaching Dance as Art in Education also presents a new instructional approach, the Eight-Step Plan, that facilities integration of all four dance education cornerstones into each unit to make the lessons more coherent. Further, the many features in the textbook help dance specialists become aware of not only their unique roles and responsibilities when teaching educational dance but also how to develop an arts-oriented, professional teaching portfolio.

The following user-friendly features are interwoven throughout the book:

-Reflect and Respond: Case studies, or scenarios, invite the reader to consider an issue or situation and develop a response.

-Questions to Ponder: Thought-provoking questions at the end of each chapter help readers extend and apply chapter concepts.

-Rich Resources: Suggested resources, such as books, videos, and Web sites, supplement the topics covered in the chapter.

-Notebook or Portfolio: Practical exercises to complete, record, and compile into an arts-oriented teaching portfolio are useful for future job interviews.

-Inspirational Quotes: Selected quotes from famous dancers, choreographers, and teachers support the topics covered.
Teaching Dance as Art in Education reveals how to meet the National Standards in Dance Education without being driven by them, and it goes one step further—it marries dance with arts education in a way that makes teaching educational dance clear and distinct.