Teaching Portfolio

PORT FOLIO.

Victoria Padilla

Teaching Philosophy

To be able to teach, you must know your craft and how to convey it to others. I believe passing on knowledge from learned experiences is so important to becoming a great educator, coach, mentor, choreographer etc. In dance, personal experience is in my opinion, the best way to get others to understand a certain topic from a raw perspective. It is my goal as a dance educator to make learning fun and easy. Students’, dancers and non-dancers alike should feel welcomed and not judged in an environment that is supposed to bring positivity and sense of freedom from a normal day to day.

For example, I will conduct inclusivity with dance games, allowing students to select the music, and allowing students to lead each other in warmup. My role is to allow my students to express themselves, with certain boundaries and rules enforced so there is a common respect amongst peers, as well as to prevent injury. My approach to teaching is simple, I will include a couple of teaching methods such as collaborative learning and pedagogy. Students will learn the importance of dance in this experience of life, as well as its effect on humanity throughout history. Dance is not only good for the mind and soul but is also a great form of exercise for the body.

The goal for student learning is to have them learn the meaning/importance of dance and maintaining good health. Students will learn that exercising can be fun and freeing. Studio exercises will include learning how to properly stretch, learning about musicality and how to count, as well as basic choreographic techniques with vocabulary. When it comes to the art of dance it is fun to work alone, but I have made the best memories working on choreography with my peers. With that said, my students will be working in groups and this will not only help them in their future careers (dance or non-dance related) but it will enhance their communication/ networking skills.

To be an effective teacher, you must be able to guide each individual student and to do so is to understand their perspective but also keep order. Every day as I am evolving as a teacher, I will also learn from my students. I vow to constantly strive to become a better educator not only for myself, but for my students.

Teaching Goals

The goal:

To create a safe and fun learning environment.

Description:

As an educator, I want my students to feel appreciated, understood and not be afraid to ask for help.

Action steps:

My students will have enriching activities such as group work and journaling that provides them with stimulation. These exercises will help them to work together and also help with self-reflection.

Purpose:

I want to help my students to develop new skills, knowledge and outlook that will help them achieve their goals in life.

The challenges: keeping the students motivated being able to adapt to new personalities making sure everyone feels included

Lesson Plan Example

Grade: 9-12th

Focus: Jazz Class

Objectives: allowing students to practice their technique and performance skills through jazz

Teaching Methods:

Teacher-centered instruction

Exploration of the bodies

Cooperative learning

Class Structure:

High active warm-up: Stretching, and cardio

Across the floor: kicks, chasse, fundamentals of leaps & turns

Teach combination: break down movement step by step

Review technique that will be used in combo

Review choreography together and separate into groups

Show case the choreography and provide a circle of feedback

Cool Down:

Relax the body after movement with a short sequence of stretching and breathing exercises

SelfReflection

Looking back on my time in this class, I feel I have developed a lot as a choreographer and future educator. This class was enriching and involved many activities. The readings were very informative, however, I feel I learned best in the group activities. Because of this class, I discovered I am visual and kinesthetic learner. It was interesting to see how I grasped information compared to my other classes. Some things I can improve on that would help my effectiveness as a teacher would be; be more prepared and clear on my lesson, adapting to different learning styles and time management. Some teaching styles I plan on using include: cooperative learning, kinesthetic learning, and personalized learning. I feel these strategies can help me as a teacher to be versatile and easily adaptable to the different kinds of students that I may have. My goal is to create a fun, safe, and enriching learning environment.

Assesment Rubric

Overall Performance

Performance

Quality

Musicality Technique

Excellent (4)

Dancer consistently executes their performance using facial expressions, complete body movement and great memory

Dancer consistently demonstrates flexibility, strength, and stamina to execute a specific skill.

Dancer consistently shows proper connection with rhythm and timing

Total /12

Good (3)

Dancer executes their performance using moderate facial expressions, body movement and good memory

Dancer frequently demonstrates flexibility, strength, and stamina to execute a specific skill. Dancer frequently shows proper connection with rhythm and timing

Fair (2)

Dancer demonstrates some knowledge of facial expressions, body movement, with very little memory.

Dancer demonstrates little flexibility, strength, and stamina to execute a specific skill.

Dancer demonstrates little connection with rhythm and timing.

Poor (1)

Dancer has little to no comprehension of executing movement, facial expressions, or memory.

Dancer has little to no comprehension of details to execute a skill.

Dancer shows little to no connection with rhythm and timing.

Journal Entries Dance Pedagogy

January 2024

In the beginning of the semester, I went into this class not really knowing what “pedagogy” was In the first few weeks we were introduced to this concept One of our first assignments was to create a warmup for our classmates that included across the floor and center floor combinations. I found this assignment very helpful as we received feedback from our peers and vice versa. I have given warmups before, however, maybe I didn't consider specific age groups, levels, focus of the choreography etc. This assignment along with the readings gave me more insight as to what becoming a dance teacher requires

February 2024

The following month, we focused on different ways of teaching such as teaching with imagery, learning styles, as well as how to work with different students’ personalities. I really enjoyed working in groups with my peers, being both the student and the teacher I was able to learn a lot and really understand what it would be like to teach in a classroom setting. Not only would we observe each other teaching, but for a few assignments we had to observe other classes and reflect on their teaching styles.

March 2024

In March, we began focusing on working with an accompanist and learning how to create music or learning how to choreograph with a specific kind of music. I specifically remember the group assignment attached to this lesson, and I remember having a lot of fun being able to challenge my classmates and be challenged by my classmates Another focus during this month was creating an assessment rubric. There are many things that are deemed essential when it comes to a teaching career, and having an assessment rubric is one of those things that I hadn’t considered before.

April 2024

Towards the end of the semester, we were assigned to split into groups. Each group needed to come up with a warmup, across the floor combination, and center combination to be able to teach to the local high schools. I was really excited for this assignment, because being on the dance team, I would regularly work with the high school students, so I felt very comfortable when it came time to teach There are things that my group and I need to work on as individuals to become teachers in the dance field, however, I feel this class has really helped me to grow not only as a dancer, but as a possible future educator.