Georgia Dance Standards

 

Dance education begins with addressing the developmental process and sensory integration of the whole child. As the understanding of how the student learns best continues to evolve through research in cognitive neuroscience and related fields, the importance and relevance of the skills and concepts within dance education are underscored. The view that the child is a holistic integration of many interwoven areas within the physical, emotional and cognitive self is further developed through the experience of learning and creating dances and reflecting on and analyzing dance and the creative process. Dance as a curricular subject centered in the arts hones a means of knowing and communicating not otherwise addressed in the K12 curriculum. The many rich areas within dance develop a wide range of skills, such as motor skill development, higher order thinking skills, and collaboration with peers through meaningful, problem solving contexts. Lastly, although correctly considered an autonomous subject area, dance has always been rife with potential connections of its themes, ideas, and concepts to other bodies of knowledge, making for authentic and meaningful learning experiences.

 

The authors of the Georgia Performance Standards in Dance had as a primary intention the creation of a document that would provide Georgia’s dance educators with effective tools reflecting current content and pedagogical knowledge, as well as maintaining and furthering opportunities for pedagogical excellence. It is hoped that these tools will allow teachers to continue to create quality, well-informed, and inspired content in their classrooms, while aligning with national dance standards and contributing vital experiences that, along with other curricular subjects, make a difference in the education of Georgia’s students.

 

Dance education seeks to provide a continuous and sequential dance education for students from kindergarten through the 12th grade; however, due to an inconsistent prevalence of programs throughout each district in Georgia (and in much of the U.S. as well), a student rising to the next grade level or school may or may not have enjoyed the same sequential, continuous curriculum preparation as his or her peers, resulting in a variance of levels within any given class or grade band. Therefore, in these Performance Standards, teachers will find a document that is flexible and adaptable to meet the varying needs of each student. The

 

Georgia Performance Standards in Dance are organized by domains, standards, and corresponding elements. In congruence with the other Georgia Performance Standards, the dance standards and elements will provide the basis from which sample tasks, student work, and teacher commentary can be developed. The standards are separated by their individual grade levels from kindergarten to grade five. The middle school grades (6-8) are banded, yet delineated by proficient and advanced levels. High school standards are delineated as Dance 1, Dance 2, Dance 3, and Dance 4. This design provides flexibility for dance teachers so that they may

differentiate instruction within any given class or grade based on a student’s prior experiences with dance. It also enables flexibility for the variety of class schedules found in high schools and the mixed grades that occur within the study of dance. There are four overarching domains that organize the standards