Introduction To Dance Blueprint Professional Development (PD)
The Office of the Arts and Special Projects provides citywide professional development in the implementation of the Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Dance. Professional development sessions are led by master teachers—outstanding public school dance teachers identified by the DOE—and teaching artists—professional artists from local cultural organizations. During these sessions, teachers explore the five Blueprint strands of Dance education and learn strategies for lesson plan building and engaging children in the Dance. Teachers participate in hands-on projects, allowing them to directly apply the lessons learned at training sessions to their classrooms. The Office of Arts and Special Projects also supplies teachers with toolkits containing materials to implement these projects in the classroom.

Upcoming PD in Dance

Collaborative Inquiry for Effective Dance Teaching: Dance Legends and My Students
Registration CLOSED
Payment Due Immediately.

How reflective are you about your teaching practice? Give yourself the luxury of time to reflect on what you do as a teacher to affect student achievement in dance. This series of workshops will focus on questioning our practice as dance educators, enabling us to closely examine our strategies for lesson implementation and the results we get. Working in small collaborative groups based on level, interest, and experience, teams of teachers will draw upon their own classroom experiences to determine lines of inquiry about teaching practice that they want to investigate together throughout the year. Building on the formative assessment work we did last year, we will engage in lesson study to analyze the nuts and bolts of lesson implementation. Using the evidence our students present to us on a daily basis as a guide, we will identify concrete instructional challenges and collaborate on strategies to address them. This is a unique opportunity to share what works and how we know it works, and to support each other to improve outcomes for all our students.

Some examples of types of questions that might arise:
- How can I better meet the needs of my students in a particular area of dance study?
- Which students aren't I reaching and what might I be doing to reach them?
- Why isn't a teaching technique working?
- How can I improve my students' retention so they progress toward Blueprint benchmarks?
- What issues of classroom management do I want to address and improve upon?

We will partner with a legendary dance artist or company for part of each workshop day. This immersion in dance content will include an open reflection on teaching and learning in dance, enriching our small team discussions.

The cultural partners for each workshop are as follows:
November 3: Jean-Léon Destiné (Haitian/Caribbean dance)
February 1: Merce Cunningham Dance Company
June 10: Limon Company