Reaching Rural Communities: Videoconferencing in K-12 Dance Education.

This article reports the findings of a study exploring the effects of using videoconferencing (VC) to deliver dance instruction to rural communities. The context of the study is a university community partnership run through blended live and VC instruction with elementary and middle school students in Eloy, Arizona. This research is part of a larger, ongoing study of iDance, aimed at defining instructional methods and creating dance curriculum to meet the needs of students in rural communities. VC presents unique opportunities for teaching students in rural settings. Considering the relative accessibility of VC centers makes it possible to educate rural students in a broad spectrum of dance contexts: composition, performance, technique, and analysis. Regardless of geographical limitations, community partnerships can flourish through VC technology. Addressing the literature on the use of VC in other disciplines, methods of data collection include interviews, short answer questionnaires and journaling were employed to gather participant views regarding the viability of VC dance instruction. Data revealed that students benefited from the instruction. This paper describes the discoveries of VC as a tool for supporting the teaching and learning of iDance Arizona in rural settings. The discussion section addresses the need for additional research in this area and determines the application of videoconferencing dance instruction. The use of videoconferencing in dance education has not yet been the subject of large-scale research endeavors so this research study aims to make a contribution to the field.