Dance can be very deceptive; how a movement feels or looks in a mirror rarely provides a clear indication of what is happening in the body. To help students acquire an accurate perception and develop a self-directed process for improving their dance training, I combine a Goals and Assessment Sheet with videotaping at the Midterm and Final. In the Fall of 2013, when it was clear that students didn’t understand how to choose a movement assessment, I added descriptive language and included examples on the Goals and Assessment Sheet for Spring of 2014. These changes noticeably impacted the effectiveness of this assessment tool, evidenced by the comparison with student comments on the Finals from both semesters. To close the loop on this CATS assessment project and incorporate student and faculty feedback, I will include a column on the assessment sheet which identifies an area of dancing the student feels positive about and, as part of the video-tapings, I will also incorporate a group sequence with music to allow students to observe the progress of the class as a whole.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| cats-mcalee.docx | 14.7 KB |
| ballet-goal-sheet-2013.docx | 16.15 KB |
| ballet-goal-sheet-2014.docx | 18.9 KB |
| closing-loop-dance-cats-results.docx | 20.7 KB |
| ballet-goal-sheet-2015.docx | 18.7 KB |
Comments
Janaea,
I found your assessment very interesting since I ballroom dance and can be applied to me on a more personal basis. Have you thought of including a column or another assessment sheet focusing on parts of their dance they like? When I see a video of me dancing the natural instinct is to identify the improvements (negative aspects) I need. However, there are a tremendous amount of items I do correct. When I focus on the positives before the negatives, it gives me some sense of accomplishment and progress. You may be able to extend this idea further by assigning them videos of (semi) professional dancers and having them critique, both positive and negative, of what they see. In a similar regard, it would be interesting to have them compare dancers of different levels to show them the progression of dance from a novice (a few months) to a professional (many years). Thank you again for sharing.
James
Hi James,
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment and please forgive the delay in my response! I appreciate the suggestion of adding a column that focuses on something the dancer feels positive about. They are supposed to include this as an ongoing part of their dance journals but I have noticed that this is not something they do often enough, so adding it to the Goals and Assessment as well seem to be a good approach and I plan to add that going forward. I also appreciate your video viewing suggestions and will think about the best way to incorporate this into class - it is difficult because it is only a one credit class and the primary use of class time needs to be used for actively training, but perhaps it would work well as an extra credit project. I do incorporate objective feedback and observations of progress as part of this goals and assessment process. The students are present for each other's video-tapings with their verbal statement of goals. At the midterm they also participate in assessing the progress of the class as a whole and collaboratively determine class goals which I incorporate into the second half of the semester. At the final video-tapings, we review and discuss both the progress of each student, and the class as a whole.
I look forward to meeting you!
Best,
Janaea