Stephanie Milling, Associate Chair and Undergraduate Director, Theatre and Dance, Interim Administrative Coordinator Dance Program and the Head of Dance Education

Integrative Learning in Dance as a Catalyst for Develop Emerging Leaders in the Field (Dance 470)  

In reviewing scholarship on teacher preparation in dance from the 1980s until the present, scholars perpetually indicate that to meet current and future demands of the field, dance educators need to be able to draw upon skills that extend beyond the knowledge acquired from an isolated, narrow disciplinary practice (Stinson 1993; Kalich 1993; Andrezejewski 2009; Kassing 2010; Stinson 2010; Risner 2010). The proposed outcome for Stephanie Milling's grant project is to develop a systematic approach that allows students to demonstrate the knowledge gained in the course through a project that is connected to their beyond-the-classroom experiences, as well as their own professional development/leadership pursuits (conference presentations, professional development workshops, and future teaching), and generate research data relevant to current topics in the dance scholarship.

DANC 470, Dance Pedagogy for Middle and High School focuses on topics relevant to middle and high school dance classrooms. Teaching dance in K-12 education requires one to be extremely well-rounded in the discipline by demonstrating the ability to teach dance performance, choreography, history and culture, and arts integration to all populations, including gifted and talented students and students with disabilities. In addition, dance educators need to be trained as arts advocates who can communicate the benefits of dance education to stakeholders responsible for policy and funding. Therefore, postsecondary teacher preparation programs in dance need to offer curricula that extend beyond the nuts and bolts of teaching and include leadership development. Due to its broad scope, Dance 470 has inadvertently become a “catch-all” course that covers general dance studies content outside of some of the more the specialized dance topics included other courses. Currently, assignments are not interconnected to form a framework for comprehensive learning that demonstrates breadth and depth of knowledge. The Innovative Teaching Faculty Mentor Grant provides the perfect opportunity to support the redesign of this course. 

While USC’s dance education program currently offers a uniquely meaningful experience when compared to other dance education programs across the country, having comprehensive evidence to support this claim would provide helpful data for recruitment, accreditation, internal program review by the College of Education, and practice-based scholarship. Millings believes that the groundwork established over the past three years in addition to this opportunity would provide her with ample tools to serve as a faculty mentor for other faculty on campus who are trying to redesign their curricula to align with perspectives beyond the classroom such as current personnel needs in their respective fields, accreditation and industry standards, program and institutional effectiveness and overall student development.              

Lesly Wade-Woolley, Associate Professor, Communications Sciences and  Disorders, Arnold School of Public Health
Suzanne M. Adlof, Assistant Professor, Communications Sciences and  Disorders, Arnold School of Public Health

School-Age Language and Literacy Development and Disorders (COMD 720/720J)
Advanced Study of Literacy for Speech-Language Pathologists (COMD 727/727J) 

Act 284, the Read to Succeed (R2S) legislation, requires speech and language pathologists practicing in SC schools to have six credit hours of coursework on literacy in order to receive the mandatory credential. Communication Sciences and Disorders (COMD) has incorporated the coursework necessary to meet the R2S mandate into the Master of Speech Pathology (MSP, on campus) and Master of Communication Disorders (MCD, distance learning) programs. In 2016-2017, the courses became required for the respective programs. The courses integrating the necessary coursework were planned and taught separately by Lesly Wade-Woolley (LWW) and Suzanne Adlof (SMA), both specialists in literacy development and disorders.

For their grant project, Wade-Woolley and Adlof will collaborate in revising the four current, interlocking, COMD masters courses required to meet Act 284 requirements. Because feedback from students revealed significant areas for improvement, the courses will be revised to address the issues raised by students and, at the same time, work towards two larger goals: (1) Create a meaningful and integrated progression between the required introductory and advanced literacy courses in the online and on-campus programs  (2) Bring the required literacy courses for the MCD and MSP programs into better alignment. (COMD’s accrediting body requires that the master’s program is equivalent across all modes of delivery.)  They will also share their experience of co-developing and team teaching in the development of these courses, and insights gained from the Best Teachers Institute through brown bags or other workshops.