Professor: Tamara Irving

Tuition: $215 member / $315 non-member

4 Weeks; 1 NDEO-Endorsed PDCs

**Optional add-on** College Credits through Oakland University: 1

This course is the process of gathering evidence that may be used to effectively measure student learning. Assessments may be used in any dance education environment: private school of dance, conservatory, recreation center, preK-12, or post-secondary education. We can both monitor students’ progress during the learning process (formative assessment) and at the end of a period of time (summative assessment), perhaps a semester, a season, or a year. This 1 unit course will give participants a basic understanding of assessment as it pertains to dance education and understand how to use rubrics and portfolios as tools for assessments.

Book required: None

Questions about this Course?  Email opdi@ndeo.org

"This course forced me to do work that I had been putting off or just didn't make time for. It stressed the importance of creating and using rubrics, and identified the importance of portfolios. While I use a portfolio system in my classes I didn't really understand that was what I was doing. This helped me to identify it and will help going forward to present student growth, including how to show progress over time when there isn't a performance to present (making the invisible visible)."

"This course will continue to help me create more specific and concretized expectations from the students which will advance their achievement."

"It helped me think about ways to structure my class in the future and encouraged me to dialogue more with my students."

"The course readings and assignments not only gave me great ideas for assignments/assessments/rubrics, but also included examples that we could use to design our own. I really liked the readings about assessing creative work/creativity."

Tamara Irving (MEd, BBA) is a distinguished arts educator and performer. After graduating from Howard University, she was a dancer with the Atlanta Hawks Dance Team and the Atlanta Opera. She was in the premiere casts of both the Hamburg Germany Company and the Cheetah US National Tour of Disney’s The Lion King. Tamara recently completed 12 years as the dance director at North Atlanta High School where she was the 2014-2015 Teacher of the Year, and an International Baccalaureate Dance teacher. She received her MA in Dance Education from the UNC Greensboro in May 2017. Tamara has adjunct roles at Kennesaw State University and Brenau University. As owner of TMI Design & Consulting, she champions arts programs and co-founded Dance Stories ATL, dedicated to honoring Atlanta's black dance heritage. Tamara is also a proud wife and mom of 3 young artists!

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