Team Teaching is the concept of using more than one teacher on a student's dance program to maximize the effectiveness of the instruction by utilizing more than one vantage point with the information. Essentially, it is the dance instruction version of the phrase "it takes a village".
Ballroom Dancing is a hobby with a wide spectrum of sub-categories - from Competitive Dancing, Dance Routines, and Nightclub and Minor Dances to name a few. With Team Teaching, students can tap into a wider array of interests much sooner. Here are some examples of how.
In some cases, a pair of teachers will divide the subject matter to split the two major disciplines in the hobby: Ballroom Dancing and Latin Dancing. Teacher A focuses on Ballroom, Teacher B focuses on Latin, which allows each teacher the opportunity to focus on the depth of focused content, rather than a single teacher alternating between both.
As students begin to add dance routines to their hobby, their dance program becomes, in construction terms, their foundation while their dance routines add style and decoration to the structure. In this case, Teacher A may be best suited for the Program, while Teacher B may be most passionate and talented about the performance side of Dance Routines.
Team Teaching allows each teacher to stay in the area of their strengths, to the benefit of the student.
Think about it, your regular teacher is typically the opposite gender, yet there are things you may need to learn that are easier to identify with when they are shared by someone more anatomically similar to you. Team Teaching in this fashion allows your regular teacher to focus on things like your dance program and routines, while the same gender teacher focuses on things like styling and leading or following.
There are many perceived drawbacks to a dance program with multiple teachers. Here are some areas that, if not addressed, can make a dance program with multiple teachers feel like the old phrase "too many cooks in the kitchen".
It is absolutely imperative for teachers to be highly communicative with each other for a program with multiple teachers to work effectively. Team Teaching can really highlight great communication, or poor communication. Regular visits from the Supervisor can really aid in the flow of communication to ensure that this is an effective strategy.
One of the primary benefits of Team Teaching is having more than one voice, and style of instruction, for the student's brain to latch onto. That being said, if the teachers involved have roles that are ambiguous, the chance for communication and content errors increase dramatically.
If there was a pink elephant in the room on this subject, then letting go would be it. For teachers, Team Teaching requires the art of delegation. Delegation is, at its core, admitting that you could use some help. This isn't an easy thing to admit. For the student, they may feel a sense of loyalty to their teacher that can nullify potentially beneficial team teaching opportunities. On either side, it is an expansion of the comfort zone, but the end results are well worth the risk when executed well.
In some Arthur Murray dance studios, team teaching is ingrained in the culture, is a regular part of a dance program, and is accomplished with ease.
In those studios, "it takes a village" to create a great dancer.
In others, it is a new concept, and may not seem worth the risk. The benefit may make sense but the team may not have the tools necessary to take the next step.
They would prefer to not have "too many cooks in the kitchen".
In any case, the Team Teaching at Arthur Murray Dance Studios is a concept that is designed for a single purpose - to improve the success rate of dance students achieving their dancing goals.
To learn more about Team Teaching, chat with your studio Supervisor and stay tuned for more articles on the subject.
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