Introduction

Dance Analysis

Section 1

Section 2 

Section 3

Section 4

Management Suggestions

Assessment Strategy

Teacher Reflections

Dr Hopper Website
 

Teacher Lessons and Reflections

by Rebecca and Lindsay

Lesson Plans

Lesson 1   Lesson 2   Lesson 3   Lesson 4   Lesson 5   

Working Collaboratively

• We found it very useful working cooperatively to plan this unit and website.  We had fun coming up with an imagery idea to shape our dance around. 
• We recommend collaborative planning to bring new ideas to the unit, the other person may have ideas that you have not previously thought of.
• Teaching our peers helped give us a better idea of to refine the dance to best teach to our movement sequence to elementary students.
• Feedback from our peers and our own reflection of our peer teaching reminded us of the importance of keeping in mind length of gym classes in elementary schools, so the length of our dance was also an area that had to be refined.

Moving in Space

• We found that students needed reminders for staying in own personal space and away from the walls.  Even though students have had previous experience in this area, friendly reminders are always necessary.
• Constantly giving feedback on students' use of personal space, such as recognizing those students that are working hard to stay in their own space, encouraged students to move safely throughout the gym.
• If you are lucky enough to have a gym to work in it is important to remind students to use all of the available space.  This allows for more creative movements!

Pacing the Lessons

• In the first lesson we focused on exploring personal space and moving to a steady beat.  We realized the students needed more time to explore their own movements before focusing on specific actions words. 

• From this point on, we focused on exploring action words such as peek, creep, and skip, etc... using instruments and the music to guide the movements.  Since we taught in half hour gym times, it took more time than expect, therefore, not much time was spent practicing music to the music.

• Students can then explore creating their own ending for the final lesson while incorporating the elements of creative movement they have learned previously.  This is a fun idea, but due to time constraints we did not get the chance to develop this part of the dance. 

Introducing the Picture

• When we introduced the picture throughout the lessons.  The students were very enthusiastic and contributed lots of ideas of what they might be and how they might move.  This was definitely a motivational aspect for the dance and we recommend using an picture to develop the imagery for other creative movements.
• Using the picture helped students further explore levels and pathways.  When we asked students what they could be hiding behind, many students used ideas from the picture and their exploration with levels resulted from this.
• Enlarging the picture or displaying it on an overhead is most effective. 

Putting It All Together

These are some of the strategies that we found most effective in putting the dance to a steady a beat and to the music:

• finger dancing
• listening to the cues in music (raising your hand when you hear a change in the music)
• use of a variety of instruments that match the imagery of the dance and keep the steady beat
• Teacher cues (calling out beats and sections of the dance)

Creating your own ending

•  Creating your own ending can be a fun way for kids to use what they have learned previously while adding their own creative element. We found that it is beneficial to give some prompting to stimulate students' thinking about how they want to complete their ending.  We used the Harris Burdick picture as well as the music to extend the students creativity.

• Giving students the opportunity to explore creating their own ending can be a fun experience for the students but it can be time consuming and you need to allow time for the students to explore and play around with ideas. We were unable to get to this point with our students but from our observations of their learning, we think that they would have enjoyed this part of the dance.

Inclusion

• There was one boy in our class that was Autistic and we soon realized that there were some things that he was not as willing to take part in, such as skipping.  Even though he didn't participate in all aspects of our movement sequence he was still excited to be a part of the class. We think that it is very important to refine tasks so that all members of the class are able to participate at some level.