Empowering Metacognition Through Dance Writing and Collaborative Dance Making

ABSTRACT

This article examines teaching strategies to empower metacognition through dance writing and collaborative dance making based on a project for middle school dance students at a Title I middle school during the Fall of 2020. This project draws on theoretical frameworks of critical pedagogy, intersectionality, and educational constructivism. Based on class interactions and informal conversations with students, the project was designed to develop class community across the digital divide of virtual and hybrid learning environments, promote social-emotional skills of self and social awareness, and to support the unique needs of diverse learners. The goal of the project was to empower student metacognition and cognitive monitoring within a middle school dance class through dance writing and collaborative dance making. Through this project the dancers examined complex social issues that matter to them personally, cultivated social emotional skills of self and social awareness, and gained confidence in higher order thinking and metacognition.

KEYWORDS:

• Metacognition
• choreography
• dance writing
• social emotional learning
• K-12
• community

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Generate, Organize, Rehearse, Refine, Perform.

2. Assignments are not linked to individual students. Student responses were optional and collected anonymously to ensure student anonymity. When registering for this course, students and parents gave permission for work to be used in reports, presentations, and publications.