iDance!

                  Today Stephanie and Max presented their Lab D lesson for EDU 255. Stephanie taught first and she got us all right into using the iDance pads. He goal of the lesson was very clear; she wanted us to improve our percentage from the first song to the last song. So we started off by doing an easier song all on level 1. After the song was over she had the person with the highest percentage right their number on the board so everyone else could try and beat them. We played a few other songs and I personally improved from having like a 60% to an 80%! I liked how she let us practice and challenge ourselves all depending on our personal ability. After a few rounds of practicing she challenged us by asking us to face the back wall but still perform the dance. This was more of a challenge than I thought it would be. Facing the opposite way made it so everything was backwards and didn’t only make you work physically but was heavy in cognitive area too. Lastly she had us get a partner and work together to try and reach a high percentage. Eric and I were partners and it was interesting to see that many of us did better individually rather than with a partner. I enjoyed Stephanie’s lesson and I thought she did a great job challenging us both cognitively and physically.

                  Max taught iDance second and I thought he did a great job following Stephanie because the lessons didn’t seem repetitive. Although he was teaching iDance as well he challenged us to use iDance in different ways that were really creative. He started us off by just warming up normally with a song. Then had us face the opposite way but would yell out the command “switch” and we would turn to facing the front. I thought this was a lot of fun and was definitely a challenge. After he asked us to find a partner and to connect the mats so they were touching. We each had our own mat next to a partner and this time when he called out “switch” we switched mats with our partners. This was creative and added a fun element to the normal iDance game. To make it an even bigger challenge he then combined 4 mats and 1 practice together to make two teams of 5. So now we all were dancing in a line and when he called switch we would all shift down the line and the last person would run behind everyone and get on the first mat. I thought Max’s lesson was a lot of fun and it put a cool twist on the normal iDance program and added a fun teamwork element. Also I thought his lesson flowed really well and he seemed really confident in what he was teaching. Again another successful day for the Lab D.