Why should dance teachers create their own dance lesson plans?

 

Dance teachers often fall into two camps when it comes to their dance lesson plans – there are those who take the “make it up on the fly” approach and don’t plan out anything in advance, and those who are the “write every word out” types. I’ve definitely been on both sides when it comes to my own planning. As an experienced teacher, I can “wing it” when needed. But in my experience, a good dance lesson plan is the most effective way to ensure that dance students are progressing in their dance technique, artistry, and overall wellbeing all year long. That is why I developed The Holistic Approach to Dance Lesson Planning. This comprehensive approach to the dance lesson planning process helps you establish clear, holistic learning goals for your dance students and plan an efficient path to reach them.

There are many companies that offer dance lesson plans for purchase, but I believe that it is important for dance teachers to create their own dance lesson plans. I believe that your dance lesson plans should be unique and authentic to you: your knowledge, your dance teaching style, your dance students’ goals, and your shared vision for holistic growth in dance technique, artistry, and overall wellbeing. After all, you know your strengths and weaknesses as a dance teacher better than  anyone else – and you know your students best, too! The Holistic Dance Teacher Guide to Dance Lesson Planning is a 68 page digital resource and workbook that helps dance teachers use The Holistic Approach to Dance Lesson Planning to create unique, authentic dance lesson plans for dance classes of most dance styles, ages, and skill levels.

 

What role does dance lesson planning play in The Holistic Approach to Dance Education?

 

In 2020, I established The Holistic Dance Teacher Approach to Dance Education, based on my sincere belief that we can do dance differently by emphasizing the powerful positive benefits of dance education, while also minimizing the harm that can come with dance training. The dance lesson planning process is an important aspect of The Holistic Approach to Dance Education. Most standardized dance lesson plans that are commercially available take a “one size all approach,” assuming that all dance teachers and students thrive under the same circumstances. The Holistic Dance Teacher Approach is different. In The Holistic Dance Teacher Approach, we work to honor the individuality of each dance student, dance class, and dance teacher.  We recognize that the dance lesson plans that work for one class might not work for another – and we empower dance teachers to create individualized, authentic dance lesson plans for each unique class!

Moreover, The Holistic Dance Teacher Approach to Dance Education recognizes that there is much more the dance than technique. We want dancers to excel in and out of the dance studio, so we design our lesson plans to include more than dance technique skills. In The Holistic Dance Teacher Guide to Dance Lesson Planning, you will discover how to successfully and seamlessly integrate foundation movement skills, creative and performance skills, and social and emotional skills that will have a lasting positive impact for your dance students.

The Holistic Dance Teacher Approach to Dance Lesson Planning is based on my experience as a dance teacher for over two decades, working in recreational, competitive, and pre-professional dance studios, K-12 schools, and college dance programs. I blend what I learned about dance lesson planning in each of these settings and from teaching thousands of dance students across the country to create a dance lesson planning process that can work effectively no matter where or who you teach.

 

What is the first step in the dance lesson planning process?

 

In The Holistic Approach to Dance Lesson Planning, dance teachers serve as navigators, directing our dance students to their ultimate goal through the dance lesson planning process. Just like a navigator on a road trip, we begin by figuring out our final destination. Where do we want our students to be at the end of the dance season? After all, we can’t plan a route if we don’t know where we want to end up!

Knowing the final destination helps us determine our class curriculum – the content we will teach and the learning goals for our dance students to meet by the end of the term. In The Holistic Approach to Dance Lesson Planning, we begin the dance lesson planning process by developing a holistic curriculum that includes not only dance technique skills, but also foundational movement concepts, creative and performance skills, and social and emotional skills that are vital for dance students’ holistic success in and out of the studio.

The Holistic Dance Teacher Guide to Dance Lesson Planning walks dance teachers like you through the entire curriculum building process, helping you determine what to teach throughout the year. And even if your school or studio requires you to use a specific curriculum, this guide can help ensure that you are supplementing the required learning with the holistic skills that will support your dancer artistry and overall wellbeing as you teach the required technique skills and concepts.

 

How do you use a dance curriculum to create dance lesson plans?

 

The next step in The Holistic Approach to Dance Lesson Planning is to develop the class material that we will teach to help our dance students learn curriculum or standards in a way that feels natural, authentic, and real for us and our dance students. These include warm-ups, exercises, drills, progressions, dance games, improvisational activities, and combos  After all, dance lesson planning is not just about what we teach, but also how we teach it! To help us develop our class material will need to figure out:

• What is safest and most impact order to teach the skills in your curriculum?
• What kind of class routine or structure works best for you and your dance students?
• How can you make the learning process most effective for your dance students?
• How can you minimize the amount of weekly time spent on your dance lesson plans?
• How can you ensure that dance students are progressing each week and working toward their goals?

The Holistic Dance Teacher Guide to Dance Lesson Planning will guide you through the process of performing Skills Breakdowns, creating Master Skill Lists, creating exercises through which you can teach the skills, and developing class routines that help foster a positive, supportive class environment. The unique dance lesson planning workbook and templates included with the guide will keep you organized throughout the year, making the dance lesson planning process easy and minimizing the amount of weekly time spent on your dance lesson plans.

 

What should you include in your dance lesson plans?

Every dance teachers’ lesson plans will look a little bit different, depending on their experience, values, goals, and preferences. The Holistic Approach to Dance Lesson Planning recognizes that there are many factors that shape the design and content of our dance lesson plans, and offers a flexible process that helps you determine what is most important to you.

However, there are a few key elements that I believe should be included in every dance lesson plan. These include themed units that tie together the concepts and skills you are learning, effective class routines that work for you and your dance students, activities that go beyond dance technique to teach important artistic, social, emotional, and life skills, and ways to gather input for your dance student to ensure that the journey you are planning is one they want to go on. You can learn more about each of these in The Holistic Guide to Dance Lesson Planning.

Themes to tie the learning together

 

Learning is all about making connections and synthesizing material – and dance learning is no different. We can help dance students make connections by organizing our dance lesson plans by theme. Having a theme or through line for your classes can help students make those important connections among the skills they are learning.

 

Effective dance class routines

 

To help students learn, you’ll need an effective dance class routine. Some dance forms have codified class sequences built in, such as ballet: barre, center practice, turns, and allegro. But, you don’t have to be tied to tradition! Develop a class sequence that works for you and your learning goals, then try to stick with it. Most students thrive with a consistent routine, and consistency makes the lesson planning process easier for you, too!

 

Activities that go beyond dance technique

 

As dance teachers, we want to move! It feels good to get students learning new dance steps, progressions, and combinations. But we also know that there is much more to dance than just technique. Too often, we focus our dance lesson plans on technique alone, and let the rest of the learning happen by chance. It is critical that we actively build artistry and social-emotional development in our dance lesson plans, to help our students grow into well-rounded dancers and empowered individuals. Here are my suggestions for which skills to include – and how to fit them into your lesson:

• For a list of foundational technique skills that are important for dancers in nearly every dance genre and style, check out this blog post.
• My favorite ways to teach artistry in class, including creativity and performance quality, can be found here!
• To read about the social and emotional skills you need to include in your dance lesson plans, check out this post

 

Input from your students

 

Okay, so you may be reading this and think … if I asked my students what we should do in class, we’d be making TikTok videos and playing freeze dance all day! I get it, and of course I don’t think that you should let your students dictate everything you do in class. However, when you know students’ interests, goals, and histories, you can use that information to create more effective dance lesson plans. Tailor aspects of your dance lesson plans to connect with their responses, and you’ll see a difference in their engagement and enthusiasm all year long!

• Help your students set and achieve new goals for the dance season with The Holistic Guide to Goal Setting for Dance Students. This guide includes a brainstorming tool to help you easily lead your students through the goal-setting process, and ready-to-use worksheets to help your students organize and share their goals.

 

How many dance lesson plans do you need for an academic year?

 

Many dance teachers try to come up with elaborate new lessons and fancy combos each week. While it is good to keep students on their toes with some variety, the reality is that creating a brand new class every week isn’t necessary. In fact, it can actually be detrimental to dance students’ learning. The Holistic Guide to Dance Lesson Planning includes a unique process for easily and effectively including more variety in your dance lesson plans without starting from scratch all the time. By using creative ways to build and vary different dance exercises and combos throughout a 6-8 week themed learning unit, you can simplify your lesson planning process and create the balance of repetition and novelty that students actually need to stay learn effectively and stay engaged in there dance training.

 

How can I create my own dance lesson plans?

 

The Holistic Guide to Dance Lesson Planning guides you through the entire process of creating your dance learning goals for the year, dividing them into themed units, and creating unique and highly effective class lesson plans. This comprehensive 68-page guide and free workbook helps you easily create a year’s worth of engaging and effective lessons – without reinventing the wheel each week!  In addition, The Dance Technique Skills Lists offers recommendations of movement skills to teach at the beginning, intermediate, advanced intermediate, and advanced levels in 6 different dance styles!

 

Let’s connect!

• What are some of your favorite dance lesson planning strategies? I’d love to learn from you … share your thoughts and ideas in the comments!
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