The Dance Studio – Formative Assessment and Student Ownership in the Arts

Surrey educator Menelaina Valencia shares how she harnesses the power of visual evidence, formative assessment practices, and student self-assessment to promote learning in the dance studio.

The dancer who walks in here in September is nowhere as good as the dancer tht leaves here  in June. So, I don’t get the philosophy of letting September dancer bring June dancer down.

I think it’s more powerful for the students to be able to identify their progress versus me telling them. The shift is really from myself as the teacher, to the students.  

What more evidence of learning is there than for a student to accurately pinpoint exactly where their learning is?  

-Menelaina Valencia