How HipHop Dancing Can Make You A Better Teacher

With most subjects I'm a pretty quick study, especially if I have an opportunity to ask clarifying questions. Which is why dance classes are always an eye-opening experience for me; they force me to occupy the role of frustrated student.

I am not a natural dancer, I am naturally enthusiastic, but that's about all I have working in my favor. It took me 5+ years of near weekly dance classes to discover "the beat" and its integral role in dance.

Last night I took a hip hop dance class at my gym. I was unquestionably the worst out of 30+ people. Yet somehow, I managed to smile my way through.

Some thoughts on what worked and didn't work in the class:

Worked:

• After learning new steps we would go back to top and review that. By the end of the class those first 4 moves had been reinforced to the point that I could probably still do them now.
• The instructor had a great enthusiasm for his work, and it was infectious. This, more than anything, is what kept a grin on my face.
• The skills being taught were of particularly high interest.
• I was allowed to quietly fail without comment or criticism.

Didn't Work (For Me):

• At one point the class was broken down into performance groups by gender. That totally killed the safety for me. Random assignment is way better.
• The pacing of the class was far too quick (for me, almost everyone else was keeping up fine)
• The rate of instruction increased as the instructor felt pressed for time.
• Repeatedly saying "Now I know this is a lot...".

Takeaways / Ideas for My Teaching Practice:

• Let people walk away with mastery of at least one skill: For each lesson, pick 1-3 skills that will be reinforced throughout the lesson. Explicitly state what they are, break them down, give a rationale, the whole shebang.
• If you set an ambitious goal, where failure is a risk, allow people the space to fail privately. Don't single people out for congratulations or criticism - this helps to generate intrinsic value for the learning.
• Some classes are not for all people, and that's okay. I nearly walked out many times due to frustration, it was entirely a battle with myself and had nothing to do with the instructor.
• Find a way to make your material exciting to *you* but don't let your excitement detract you from your primary goal: ensuring your students learn.
• Don't say "Now I know this is a lot...". Instead say: "We will be covering a lot of material. My goal is for you to learn X, everything else is gravy."

Thoughts that were helpful to me as a learner:

• This is your first attempt at this, of course you aren't amazing.
• Your peers have been at this (if not hip hop, perhaps jazz, etc) much longer than you.
• Even if you suck, you better keep a grin on your face, because the only sadder than a bad dancer is a bad dancer beating himself up.

I managed to take some of these lessons into my private training work, with good results. Here are my takeaways from that:

• Always, always, always make time for skills integration. People much prefer walking away with one thing they can use over 50 things that really impressed them but they have no idea how to approach on their own.
• Examples with wow-factor are great, but only if they demonstrate good habits. Otherwise they're a trick and manipulation used to make YOU the teacher feel better.
• You must constantly evaluate your teaching practice and adapt to the needs of your students.

I'm sure there are more, but those are the biggies.