The dance team season, unlike any other high school or collegiate sport, runs year-round. Typically, tryouts are held in the late spring, teams attend camp in early to mid-summer, and the first performance takes place at the first home football game at the end of the summer. This schedule means dance team coaches are eager to schedule efficient…

During the course of a program evaluation for Footprints Dance Project Society of Alberta, we uncovered a discrepancy between children and parents regarding both motivation for program participation and expected outcomes. At Footprints Dance Project, we work with a diverse group of children, primarily from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Despite…

Recent technologies have extended opportunities for online dance learning by overcoming the limitations of space and time. However, dance teachers report that student-teacher interaction is more likely to be challenging in a distant and asynchronous learning environment than in a conventional dance class, such as a dance studio. To address this…

Navigating predatory publishers as an educator, course developer, author, and/or editor can be frustrating and sometimes complex. This article offers how to recognize, avoid, and check if one is being targeted directly or indirectly by predatory publishers. The authors share a literature review on the conditions of predatory publishing, interviews…

This study evaluated the changes in literacy and numeracy levels on schoolchildren across four New Zealand primary schools. A total of 187 schoolchildren aged 8-9 years were assigned to either a dance group (n = 101) or control group (n = 86). The dance group (DG) from each school participated in a six-week, curriculum-integrated dance program…

The purpose of this qualitative research was to analyze the career paths of principals working in dance education institutes and to increase understanding of the different careers of the managers and principals working in arts organizations. Very few studies have explored principals' career paths in art schools in Finland or abroad. The following…

The slogan "I can't breathe" reverberated in 2020 with the Black Lives Matter movement protests against police brutality and racial injustices in America. As much as there was an uncanny coincidence with that phrase and the root of the COVID-19 pandemic, the immediate association of those words for me, a dance educator in South Africa,…

What is 'African dance'? Is the label 'African dance' representative enough of the diverse dance traditions in African communities, or is it just another form of tokenism? How is the term 'African dance' rooted in the histories of colonial racism against the African people? What are the dangers of using the same label as an attempt at instituting…

With the advent of the global pandemic wrought by COVID-19, much of the world's citizenry was forced to immediately pivot to new ways of doing business. This included shifting instructional delivery systems around the globe to online platforms. In the US and elsewhere, the dance education community displayed remarkable resiliency and perhaps more…

The question of whether dance education trains students to be obedient or self-disciplined has fundamental ramifications for students involved in dance activities as well as for the field of dance education. In order to explore this issue, I surveyed dance major and minor students, conducted in-class activities, and held discussions. The purpose…

Dance teachers are ideally positioned to implement safe dance practices and injury prevention strategies for their students. However, to date, it is unclear whether these safe dance practices are being utilized and implemented by teachers in dance schools and private studios. To this end, we aimed to understand dance teachers' knowledge, beliefs,…

Many job postings in postsecondary and PK--12 dance education will ask applicants for a statement of teaching philosophy. This is most commonly a one- to two-page written statement that summarizes your beliefs about teaching and learning that underpin the way you go about structuring learning activities, curriculum, student engagement, and…

This article examines teaching strategies to empower metacognition through dance writing and collaborative dance making based on a project for middle school dance students at a Title I middle school during the Fall of 2020. This project draws on theoretical frameworks of critical pedagogy, intersectionality, and educational constructivism. Based…

Climate change is a contemporary global crisis that necessitates pedagogical innovation for the middle school dance classroom. This article describes an integrated design for a dance and science unit. Building on students' kinesthetic abilities, teachers are able to create a unit comprising a series of lessons on bird migrations effected by…

The National Conference is the National Dance Education Organization's (NDEO) flagship program, bringing together longtime and new members, seasoned professionals and college students, and dance educators from every sector and a wide range of dance genres. NDEO's National Conference is unique among other dance education summits and professional…