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Jenn Stewart Posts: 3
9/17/2022
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I had a dance student who was deaf. She loved to move and was very expressive. I always made sure that when I spoke she could see me as she was a great lip reader. I checked in frequently (with our 'special/secret signal') to make sure she understood. Mid year she received a new device that allowed her to hear better. I turned up the bass in songs so that she could sense the pulse of the music. For our end of the year performance, we added in sign language to our piece. This created a wonderful bond between her and the others in class.
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Laura Hess Posts: 2
10/26/2022
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I had a student who was visually impaired, who was very motivated by music and dance. She was very in the know of different genres and artists and would often ask myself or other students if they had heard the newly released music and what their thoughts of it were. I found that she was more willing to express her thoughts and ideas with the use of music, and would use an iPod full of her favorite songs on it as a reward for completing assignments.
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emily kyle Posts: 20
2/16/2023
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The school where I work has a Winter Dance every year. We have a DJ that keeps the music flowing during the dance. Our deaf students are always encouraged to feel the speakers (which are on the floor not on top of poles for safety reasons) to get a sense of the vibrations emitted. We encourage them to "feel" at least 2 or 3 songs being played so they would have a sense of the differences in the song's rhythms and beats. I would dance with one of them at a time, keeping the rhythm of the song we had just felt with our hands on the speakers. I also would clap my hands with their hands to keep the beat. Some of them could keep the beat themselves after feeling the music through the speakers and they would notice that they could also feel the beat of the music that was vibrating through the floor into their feet.
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Laurie Zentz Posts: 3
3/15/2023
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I had a student in beginning band who was diagnosed with high-functioning Asperger's. At first he would often cry when he couldn't keep up with the class. Because I use multiple modes of representation for music literacy concepts, and much small group differentiation, he soon became comfortable playing his saxophone. For playing tests all students are afforded multiple attempts and extended time. Soon he was not only keeping up with his peers but soon excelled. By his third year of band he received several awards and is now excelling in high school band.
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Kaila Schippani Posts: 3
3/21/2023
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I had a student with a hearing impairment. Being a dance teacher, I am often yelling notes and instructions over loud music (to keep the energy up in class). This student would find this very difficult so I started doing a few different things to make it easier for her. I would try to remember to pause the music before giving notes, I would keep the volume at a reasonable level, and also wear a microphone on some days so this student had a better time hear my instructions. She was wonderful at self-advocacy but I wanted to make it so she didn't have to speak up on her own behalf too often.
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KS
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Tiffany Lee Posts: 3
4/25/2023
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I have taught a dancer with physical and intellectual disabilities dance for many years. We would allow her to try every step and movement as the rest of the class but would need to physically move her to a spot by holding her hand and leading her. Each performance she would have a solo as she could remember steps, although she would often need cues to stay with the music as she often rushed. She loved dance and her classmates. It was beautiful to see her mom cry as she took the stage and beamed with joy.
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Catrinel Sandu Posts: 3
5/28/2023
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In my ballet class, I have had several students with hearing disabilities. Most have some type of electronic hearing "aid". The problem is that those devices are tuned for speech frequencies, and often fail to provide good music feedback for my dancers.
One solution that has sometimes worked is that the students turn off or remove their devices, and I increase the bass output for songs selected with strong basslines. That can allow the students to literally feel the beat and be able to move in time with the class.
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Shelley Bourgeois Posts: 3
8/29/2023
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I have had a student that had dyslexia in my dance class. As for her technical and choreographic work she was an outstanding dancer. When it came to her written work or vocabulary test, I would find alternative assessments for her. For instance, when taking a quiz on positions of port de bras, I would have her model it. When it came to vocabulary test, I could have her verbally give me the definition and/or perform the movement.
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Ian C Wiskoff Posts: 7
11/16/2023
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I had been working with a student that is categorized as EBD. I will be honest, I had a very hard time trying to keep him calm and focused with the other students without having an emotional reaction to some stressors, which I had no idea about. We came upon the unit discussing impressionism, and I happened to show the image "The Scream" by Munch. This child could not stop asking how that picture shows the way he feels most of the time. Very angry, anxious, and feelings of paranoia. I decided that he will be given a differentiated lesson, and encouraged him to use specific colors and expressions to let me know how he was feeling on a particular day. After awhile, I would ask him how he was doing, and he would reply that he was either blue ( calm), red (angry), yellow (anxious), or green ( nervous). He chose these colors without any previous discussion about the relationships between color and emotive expression. He is in another class now, but his gen. ed. teachers tell me that he strictly follows his mood colors, which gives them a heads up on how to interact with him on a given day. I am really proud of his ability to recognize that he can communicate visually, and has become a more mellowed kid in classes now because he can immediately express himself without having to do it verbally, which he did not like to do ( I think it made him feel interrogated).
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