In recent years, Problem Based Learning (PBL) has been applied in medical and psychological areas of professional education. The PBL approach requires students to move past traditional choreographic methods toward making dances informed by real-world issues. In PBL, students work cooperatively to solve complex problems. Rather than being presented technical dance steps, they develop critical thinking abilities, acquire problem-solving skills, and communication dexterity. PBL can be effectively adapted for teaching high school and university dance classes, where problems are used to unlock the student voice and fuel the collaborative choreography process. This can be done in part by having groups meet in one dance studio with a roving teacher/facilitator and by using a problem as impetus for the creative process. This article describes a four-day PBL dance workshop and performance.

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.