Dance for wellness
Learning Outcomes
"dance expands basic communication: movement may communicate where words fail, and creative dance keeps this channel of communication alive” (Brehm & McNett, Source: PHEC, 2014a)
As has been described in the pedagogies, dance can be used effectively to teach inter disciplinary concepts. When using dance in this way the SEL and physical education benefits are present, however this Dance for Wellness Program with its focus on “exploring emotions through movement” ensures the SEL benefits are learnt. There is also a focus on the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders therefore there are lessons aimed at using dance for this purpose.
The intended learning outcomes are:
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Knowing oneself: sense of identity and place in the world, self-confidence, self-esteem, self-motivated
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Connecting with others: social skills
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Physically active for life
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Can contribute to society
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To have fun! Children these days are confronted with the world’s problems, such as climate change and terrorism and already we are looking to them as the future problem solvers, to solve the problems our generation and generations before us have created! We are preparing them for a world that we don’t even know what it will look like by the time they graduate and take their position in it (Robinson, 2009). So while they can, children need to have fun and not forget how to have fun.
Mapping to curriculum Health & Physical Education: (please note some of the outcomes overlap so I have just placed them in the most relevant) please click on document below:
Learning Outcomes: Dance and The Arts Domains:
The Australian Curriculum adds Dance to the domains of Health and Physical Education and to The Arts; it also puts Dance in its own Domain.
AusVELS adds Dance to the domains Health & Physical Education and also to The Arts.
The document below maps to the curriculum of Dance domain (ACARA) and The Arts domain (AusVELS).