User:Bmwoods2016/sandbox/Dance and Creative Movements in the Classroom

Benefits of Dance/Creative Movements inside the Pre-Kindergarten-6th Grade Classroom
What are the benefits of using Dance/Creative Movement as an arts integration tool (PK-6) according to current research? The arts are often seen in classrooms across America in the form of drawings, paintings, songs, and movement activities. There is no doubt that employing the arts in instruction provides many benefits. However, most often, the arts are used to enhance instruction and understanding rather than fully immersing students into the arts (Silverstein & Layne, 2020). Full integration of the arts into the curriculum requires teachers to purposefully plan for these activities and link these activities to standards (Silverstein & Layne, 2020). Dance and creative movement are important to implement within daily instruction, especially within elementary grade levels. According to Kogon (2013), art is a dynamic mixture of the intellectual and the emotional, the physical and the spiritual, which makes a virtue of subjectivity. Dance is a fully-fledged art form, belonging to the ‘performing arts’, a goal and a means of allowing a human being to express his feelings, thoughts and experiences. Dance is a natural form of self-expression: the body expresses itself naturally and so therefore does the spirit (Kogon, 2013). Dance activities allow participants to tackle a wide variety of theme-based subjects, (possibly all of them) as well as being effective for dealing with all kinds of human behaviors (Kogon, 2013). Dance education offers a vehicle for holistic teaching that cultivates the human characteristics needed for society. Dance integrates mental, physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of education. Dance has a life impact (Kogon, 2013).

Theoretical Influence
Long before children can express themselves verbally, they have used movement as a form of communication. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development demonstrates how young children learn by exploring and manipulating objects in their environments, and that young children see the world in relation to their body (Piaget & Barbel, 2000). Before children are even exposed to the school setting, they spend most of their infant and toddler years using nonverbal language to explore the world (Griss, 1994). Children are pushing, pulling, feeling, throwing and swinging in order to learn about the different objects and nature around them. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence explains the value of kinesthetic learning in which individuals use movement to learn, understand, and problem solve (Gardner & Hatch, 1989). Creative movement as a language (Griss, 1994), for just like any other language, it is a form of expression. Integrating Dance and Movement in the Language Arts Curriculum is a wonderful way to engage students and allow them to use their earliest form of language to develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills (Sphar, 2016). Creative movement is a natural resource that students can use to enhance their learning skills. Furthermore, creative movement is inclusive and benefits every student regardless of background or capabilities, for there is no right or wrong way to move in creative movement (Lytwyn, 2014).

Influence on Academic Achievement
A growing body of research on the effects of movement activities in the classroom demonstrates the positive impact this has on student achievement (Silverstein & Layne, 2020). Research shows that dance and movement activities enhance academic achievement for students living in poverty, English Language Learners, and students with Individualized Education Plans (Hancock & Wright, 2017). Minority student’s social and academic performance is strengthened through arts integration, including heightened engagement, increased communication skills, and an improved attitude towards school and learning (Sousa, 2012). English Language Learners exhibited further confidence and risk taking in speaking the acquired language when movement and dance were integrated into the activity (Hancock & Wright, 2017). Nonverbal students were better able to express themselves when movement was introduced into the language arts curriculum (Hancock & Wright, 2017). Students from lower socioeconomic households were better engaged in language arts instruction when dance and movement was involved, and this engagement led to increased long term memory and application (Sousa, 2012). With movement, learners are at an increased opportunity for understanding and developing.

Influence on Curriculum
Teachers should involve dance and creative movements into the curriculum because it helps increase students’ comprehension (Griss, 1994). Movement activities have shown to strengthen comprehension by using a kinesthetic approach to concept development (Griss, 1994). Language skills are broadened through movement activities because of its expressive and creative characteristics (Griss, 1994). Students are more likely to obtain material that is abstract by creating movement to spark their brains with the material that the movement correlates with. Additionally, dance serves as a source for creating a more multicultural curriculum which can be discovered through literature, folktales, poetry, dance, and music (Griss, 1994). Further, dance provides an outlet for young students who are often asked to sit for long periods of time (Blakemore, 2003). Incorporating dance and movement into instruction not only provides for a multiple intelligence type of approach, it helps students learn to be in control of their body and use it in developmentally appropriate ways (Blakemore, 2003).

How does Dance/Creative Movement Look inside the Classroom?
In order to increase the language development skills of students through dance and movement, an integration into classroom activities is crucial. Many educators focus their strategies of instruction on verbal/linguistic and logical/mathematical intelligence and shy away from teaching through musical or kinesthetic intelligence. This is due in part to the intimidation factor that derives from dance and creative movement if a teacher is not skilled in this area (Skoning, 2008). Instead of focusing on whether or not the educator has skills in this area, set up the experience and push students to a deeper understanding of concepts through dance and creative movement. As previously mentioned, through integrating dance and creative movement within instruction, a variety of learners’ needs are met in a more meaningful manner (Skoning, 2008). In order to meet these needs through classroom integration, lesson plans, student projects, and grade-level projects must be purposefully planned and implemented.

Inside Reading/Language Arts
Within lesson planning for a PK-6 classroom, teachers often plan for content areas such as math, science, social studies, and language arts. There are several ways for teachers to implement creative movement and dance through daily instruction throughout the day. In each of the content areas, dance and creative movement can be integrated into lessons. Within language arts, students can showcase their understanding of a character through dance. Dance and creative movement can be used to describe character traits such as physical attributes and actions as well as a character’s reaction to a problem. Through movement phases, a mood or theme of a story can also be portrayed (Skoning, 2008). Vocabulary can be practiced, enhanced, and even introduced through creative movement. Through acting out words, students are more likely to recall the definition and use it within their daily vocabulary. Students might create movement sentences by assigning a particular movement to each part of speech (Cravath, 2011).Role play can also be used to act out stories children have read or written, creating a more engaging learning environment.

Inside Math, Science and Social Studies
Dance and creative movement can also be integrated into math, science, and social studies lessons as well. Gestalt (2016) shared that incorporating movement within lessons can be integrated as a small warm up, an entire teaching activity, or used for assessment purposes. An example of this would be for students to use hand signals or their entire body to display attributes of shapes, such as right angles and four sides. This would be a quick and easy way to engage students and activate prior knowledge of shapes before beginning a lesson. In science, students can represent figures and parts with creative movements or create dances to remember scientific topics. Within the social studies content, students can create their own play, dance, or movement to act out an historical event or historical figure. This enables students to showcase their knowledge in a variety of ways that differ from pen and paper, traditional styles.

Other Ways to Incorporate
Dance and creative movement can also be incorporated into classrooms to foster creativity and design thinking. One example would be for students to respond to a question with a certain movement that was stated by the teacher or the students might create their own movement to express their thoughts or to respond to a question (Bielefield, 2017). According to Valenzuela (2019), students love music and dance. His research indicates that learning through music structured movement is good educational practice. Students have a love of song and dance that can deepen their enjoyment of the learning experience. The key strategies for bringing music and movement to your classroom is to create a classroom playlist, use lyrics to enrich a lesson, and have a classroom dance party (Valenzuela, 2019). Additionally, Valenzuela (2019) provides educators with several ideas to connect dance to coding, a technology skill many young students are thriving with. Through a coding program, students can construct choreography to complete the code and then showcase the completed dance. Brain breaks are also a wonderful time to incorporate dance and creative movements within the instructional day. This creates a time where students can release some energy in a creative manner and improve their focus within instruction. Furthermore, creative movement enables self-expression, strengthens individual cooperation with in-group problem solving, mutual respect, tolerance and friendship (Gersak & Tancig, 2016). Students are able to express themselves and are influenced by the movements of others to form an even greater masterpiece. When creating lesson plans for instruction involving dance and creative movement, it is important for teachers to include multiple entry points that include all students regardless of their prior knowledge of the content, their experience with creative movement or their individual learning capabilities (Lytwyn, 2014).