Dancing Toward the Promise: Educational Opportunity for Rural, Alaska Native Students

• In Event: 54.075 - Considering Place in Rural Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This qualitative, pilot case-study examined how a third-grade teacher in a Yup’ik and Inupiak school in a rural Alaska Native village used and experienced a culturally-responsive, movement-based video learning tool. The tool, Your Classroom Dance Teacher, allows for co-creation of place-specific and culturally-responsive video content in order to supplement what is available locally. With a theoretical framework drawing on critical pedagogy of place (Gruenewald, 2003), culturally-responsive pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 2009) and embodied cognition (Shapiro, 2014; Wilson, 2002). The researchers found that the teacher used the video content in three ways; as a “visiting expert”, as a tool for proactive classroom management and as support for maintaining student engagement.

Authors

• Jesse Moon Longhurst, Southern Oregon University

• Leslie Kimiko Ward, Southern Oregon University