Teaching Philosophy

My learner-oriented dance pedagogy uses rigor, physicality, full- bodied dancing and imagery to achieve a combination of content mastery, problem-solving and individual fulfillment. My greatest value in teaching comes from activating and tracking a student’s journey through grappling with challenging material to finally conquering the seemingly impossible. For this reason, a major tenet of my teaching is intimate teacher-student interaction. I take time to know who my learners are, the kind of knowledge and experience they bring to the group and their specific aspirations, in order to tailor my course to fit their needs. As a facilitator, I push the limits of my students’ potentials by making them aware of what they already know and building on this base knowledge to achieve advanced expertise.

 

I promote classes with multiple learning styles. In the studio and online theory courses, I fuse components from both settings. Online, I include video lectures and dancing tutorials, whereas in the studio I utilize readings and theories of dance forms. In all instances, I require students to individually answer questions and write journal entries that connect the course content to their own lives. As a proponent for communal scholarship, I institute active group learning activities that stimulate intellectual camaraderie, cooperative problem solving and collaborative practice. My priority is to help students appreciate their education, passions and individualized callings as they take an active role in their own learning. Teaching is the most successful avenue for me to achieve this, as I continue to seek opportunities to invest into the lives of students hungry to advance and even those who are yet to appreciate the power of education.