Blog Post 1: introduction

The art of dance has a special place within my heart, as I spent my entire youth and young adulthood dancing competitively. For many students, dance allows for an emotional release and freedom to express and move one's body in any way of their choosing. As a future educator, I look forward to integrating dance into my classroom, through making connections across the curriculum and various subjects. As stated within the arts curriculum, dance creates space for students to develop an understanding of the art form, themselves, and others (The Ontario Curriculum, pg.14). Additionally, through dance students will learn how to communicate their feelings, ideas, and understandings in ways beyond oral communication and writing through engaging the entire body. Overall, the focus of this multimodal resource portfolio is to explore the importance of integrating dance across the curriculum and how this supports student engagement and performance within the classroom. 

Given the pandemic, schools across the world have had to make the switch to virtual learning, making it difficult to ensure that students are engaging in daily physical activity. One of the resources that I have found most helpful is GoNoodle, which includes a series of videos that inspire students to move their bodies. This
video (Academy of Dance), provided by GoNoodle highlights the history of dance and the benefits dance has on student development. It provides students with an introduction to various styles of dance, such as tap, jazz and hip hop. Additionally, videos such as (The Loud House Dance Remix) get students moving, and get them comfortable dancing! Given that dance can be intimidating for a lot of students, by engaging them with an interactive video, students gain the confidence to begin dancing. Overall, GoNoodle has been a resource I have used throughout my practicum to engage students in movement and get them dancing! 

Moreover, the following video provided by OESSTA highlights the importance of arts integration across the curriculum Integrating The Arts (Dance) and Social Studies. Within this video, students are exploring how dance can be used as a form of communication. In this particular video, students connect dance to the social studies curriculum by reflecting on their feelings and understanding of the relationships and interrelationships explored during their inquiry into First Nations education. Overall, it is evident that dance plays an essential role within education and I look forward to exploring the ways in which I can implement dance across the curriculum as a future educator. 




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