TEACHING
My teaching practice finds its basis in two key elements: Montessori principles and design thinking. Thusfar I have developed my didactic skills through internships and professional experiences in a variety of settings, ranging from a secondary school (IVKO) to 5 O’clock Class, a pre-education for dance, as well as in a social context at a community center. Following this introduction, I will further elaborate on how I apply the Montessori method and Design Thinking within my teaching practice.
“Movement has great importance in mental development”.
Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind (1949)
Montessori in my teaching practice
I myself was educated according to the Montessori method in both primary and secondary school. Montessori values are an integral part of who I am and are therefore a natural part of my teaching. I am patient and allow my students to find their own ways within structures. I cater to personal learning needs and make my students aware of their successes. Depending on the group and level I am teaching, I proceed from a certain degree of independence. The students take responsibility for themselves and their learning process. I guide them in this and help them to do it themselves.
“We must help the child to act for himself, will for himself, think for himself”.
Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind (1949)
“If human need is the start, design thinking rapidly moves on to learning by making”.
Tim Brown, Ted Talk (2009)
Design Thinking in my teaching practice
Excerpt from my research and essay about Design Thinking
Based on my vision of didactics and pedagogy, I move away from a traditional dance class structure. I apply ‘design thinking’ in my classes, which means that my students learn through creation. As a teacher, I am a coach who provides the right guidelines to stimulate innovative creation and personal development. This approach is student-centered, with a focus on a final product, but without a fixed route to get there. It is an iterative process, in which the learning pathway becomes clearer as the final product develops. This method allows my students to immediately apply what they have learned in practice, and enables me to add artistic motivation to my role as a teacher.
STEP 1
The design thinking process is humans-centric and leaves room for ambiguity, meaning that something can be interpreted or approached in more than one way. In ‘design thinking,’ each student creates their own learning process, in which I, as a teacher, play a guiding role. Before I can offer effective guidance, I first need to know who I’m working with. That’s why this step is about observing and getting to know my students.
STEP 2
In this step, you analyze all the information you gathered during the “empathy” phase. The goal of this analysis is to identify the core of the creative process. Step 1 is crucial for carrying out this step, because it allows me to determine the potential of the students and, therefore, the potential of the piece. In Step 2, it becomes clear what direction the students’ learning track will take, what I will be able to offer them in this creative process, and simply who I am working with and what foundation already exists.
STEP 3
This step is about gathering ideas. It focuses on generating as many possible solutions for the core problem, thinking “outside the box,” and trying out as many possible options before selecting a final solution. In my dance class, I translate this into trying out a variety of different exercises and ideas for the piece before making final decisions. These exercises can be many things: improvisations, creative assignments, brainstorming sessions, composition, choreography, etc. Coming up with the right exercises builds upon steps 1 and 2. Having gained good understanding of my students, I now know what they are capable of and what they will benefit from. The exercises I choose align with the students’ learning process and simultaneously serve as explorations for the piece.
STEP 4
In step four, a prototype is created to determine whether the chosen solution works. I approach this as the process of setting the material and moments in the piece, allowing it to take shape. Through this prototype—or work-in-progress—you can see which elements do and do not work, and what has to stay or needs to be changed.
STEP 5
In this final step, the product—that is the piece—is tested. The piece is now fully put together, and before it’s complete, only the finishing touches need to be done. Testing a piece means dancing through it in its entirety to see if the transitions flow smoothly, if the flow and structure are good, if it’s in line with the music, and so on. A piece can also be tested with a “viewing” in front of a test audience, to see how it comes across to the viewers, whether it’s engaging, if the audience loses focus at any point or is unsure where to look, etc. A test can also be very technical. For example, positions will be slightly different when dancing on a stage that is much wider or much deeper. In different theaters, lights will be positioned in different places and wings will be hung in different ways. All of these things need to be experienced and “tested” before a piece is performed.
Five steps of 'design thinking', developed by Herbert Simon.
Learning
Through
Creation
The Design Thinking method is not linear, but rather flexible and iterative. Iterative means that the solution keeps getting better because it builds on itself. The final product keeps improving through trial and error, creating, cutting, innovating, and—above all—not sticking to a fixed framework. The Design Thinking process can be repeated multiple times; with the information gained from the testing phase, you can go back to step 3 to try out new ideas and then to step 4 to implement them in the piece. This is a very direct application of learning through creation, both for me as a teacher and for my students/dancers.