Raising dance standards
UD professor to serve on National Coalition for Core Arts Standards
11:07 a.m., Dec. 21, 2011--Lynnette Overby, a University of Delaware theatre professor and director of UD's Office of Undergraduate Research and Experiential Learning, has been selected as one of 10 dance educators and 40 arts educators nationwide to serve on the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS).
A nationally renowned dance educator, Overby will work with the coalition to help guide curriculum designers, teacher training programs, funders and federal and state policy makers in their decision making concerning arts education, specifically in the area of dance.
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NCCAS received more than 360 applications from throughout the country to serve on one of the four writing teams of dance, music, theatre and visual arts. The coalition’s professional arts education organizations chose team writers based on breadth of experience and skills in teaching, standards and curriculum writing, assessment and leadership, and practical knowledge in their area of expertise.
Past president of the National Dance Association and of the Michigan Dance Council, Overby is the co-author of Interdisciplinary Learning Through Dance: 101 MOVEntures, a series of lesson plans published in 2005. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Mental Imagery, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, Cognition, Imagination and Personality. She also is the co-editor of seven volumes of Dance: Current Selected Research.
She has previously taught and was the dance company director at Duke Ellington High School for the Performing Arts, the director of the Coppin Dancers at Coppin State University in Balitmore and coordinator of the dance program at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Overby is one of two representatives from Delaware selected for the NCCAS writing teams, according to the NCCAS news release. Tom Dean, a high school music educator at Mt. Pleasant High School in Brandywine School District and the Eastern Regional president of the National Association for Music Education, will assist with the development of new music standards.
More information about NCCAS and the next-generation arts standards project is available at http://nccas.wikispaces.com.
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson