An online mini-course for new teachers & assistants to get started with taking leadership in a class

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Ready to kickstart your
West Coast Swing teaching journey? 

Maybe you’ve started assisting in class

Maybe you’re considering starting to teach

Maybe you’ve been teaching for <1 year

If so, congratulations and welcome
to the West Coast Swing teaching community! 

We understand you might:

  • Feel excited but overwhelmed
  • Feel honoured but pressured
  • Feel motivated but intimidated
  • Wonder secretly if you’re good enough to teach
  • Wonder how to manage a class full of people
  • Wonder how you you can best serve the students

We got you! Start here.

Basic Teaching Operations Course

Build your essential foundation as a WCS teacher or teaching assistant to provide a responsible and reliable service to WCS students.

Register Now

It all starts now.

In this lightweight, online-only mini-course, you'll get a solid orientation to the procedural elements of teaching West Coast Swing classes, so that you can feel competent and gain confidence in teaching or assisting in WCS classes.

Course Outline

Unit 1

Teacher Development

Teacher training journey overview to you can get the big picture and see exactly what where you are and where to go next.

Unit 2

Goals

 Understand the difference between your goals as the teacher, the students goals as a dancer, and how to deliver lessons that accomplish both so that your students are happy and you don't feel like you sold out and just taught a bunch of moves.

Unit 3

Role & Responsibilities


Know what's expected of you as either a teacher or teaching assistant, such as:

  • Considering & serving students’ needs
  • Creating a safe environment
  • Positive atmosphere & inclusion
  • Thinking critically
  • Honouring the art
  • Being a Role Model

Unit 4

Procedures
before class

Preparing yourself and your space before class to make it go as smoothly as possible for everyone:

  • Syllabus Overview
  • Managing conflicting ideas
  • Setting up

Unit 5

Procedures
during class

How to take leadership in the mechanics of the class experience so you can all focus on the learning.

  • Working as a team
  • Formation & Rotation
  • Using your voice
  • Demonstrating
  • Explaining
  • Providing feedback

Unit 6

Procedures
after class

How to wrap up and followup in a way that help students feel complete and knowing exactly what to do next.

  • Encouragement
  • Promotion
  • Reflection

Study on your own or with your co-teachers

Are you a Swing Club or studio representative looking to grow your community by supporting your next generation of teachers?

Ask us about discounts for multiple teachers registering together.

By the end of this course...

You will be able to competently:

  • Anticipate most of the needs of the students and plan accordingly
  • Anticipate most of the needs of your fellow teachers and support them
  • Set up your class space to help things run smoothly
  • Provide simple feedback for students in class
  • Demonstrate, guide, and manage students in class
  • Represent WCS and your studio in a professional way

Basic Teaching Operations Course

Build your essential foundation as a WCS teacher or teaching assistant to provide a responsible and reliable service to WCS students.

$197 USD
includes immediate access to:

  • All 6 Units of the course
  • Access for 1 year 
  • Private Swing Literacy Teachers-only Facebook group
Register Now

FAQ's

How do I know if I qualify?

If you have already been taking WCS classes for at least 1 year, you will have no problem understanding this course. Ideally, your teacher can tell you if you are good enough at WCS to start teaching.

Should I take this course if I'm only interested in assisting for now?

Yes! This is perfect for you.

Do I have to be actively teaching classes in order to take the course?

No. There are a few assignments that require you to try things in class when you have a chance, but you can skip over them and come back to them later. In order to get the certificate to complete the course, you'll need to catch up on those assignments within 1 year of your initial registration.

How long is the course / how much time commitment?

You could complete the whole thing in about 2 hours, but it's easy to break up and do sections at a time.

Is there any live component to the course?

Nope. All online, with no live trainings. If you are part of an organization aiming to provide training for your teachers, we recommend supplementing it with your own in-person group meetings on your own schedule.

I've been teaching for more than 1 year. Will I get any value out of this course?

This course will probably seem too basic for you, since it's aimed at brand new teachers. Instead, we recommend the Swing Literacy DDP Teacher Track.

I'm interested in taking this course to improve my dancing. Can I do that?

No. This course is not designed to improve your dancing. In fact, teacher training courses in general are not designed for this purpose. To satisfy this need, we built you your own course called the Swing Literacy Dancer Development Program. We recommend starting there.

How does this compare to other teacher trainings?

This course is compatible with any WCS style, studio format, or method. It focuses exclusively on the operational aspects of teaching, not the dance content or teaching techniques (since these are covered in the Swing Literacy DDP Teacher Track)

How much overlap is there between this course and the DDP Teacher Track?

Very little, since this course focuses more on the procedures of teaching and the DDP Teacher Track focuses on how to use Swing Literacy method to teach the skills of WCS.


Background

Tessa Cunningham Munroe is a Champion WCS dancer based in Vancouver, Canada. As a master teacher with 30 years experience in teaching and coaching, Tessa specializes in instructional design, creating the online Swing Literacy Development programs, which have been training dancers to train smarter and teachers to teach smarter since 2009.


The Swing Literacy Teacher Development Program trains teachers to use progressive skill development to flip the traditional script of how West Coast Swing is taught, and instead focus on skills first before patterns. 


Teachers can take this course at any phase in their teaching journey and see massive results in their students instantly.

But in order to start their teaching journey and be able to use this method, dancers transitioning to teaching need more directions on the operations of teaching: how to actually manage a class.


This is where the Basic Teaching Operations Course comes in.


With degrees in Kinesiology and Education, Tessa was a school teacher for 12 years and a competitive swimming coach for 10 years. As a teenager volunteer coaching in her swim club, she had an amazing mentor coach, but for volunteer coaches there was a lack of structure and procedural knowledge which caused a lot of confusion. So she created and published a Volunteer Coach Training Manual that was adopted by the provincial association is still being used today for training new coaches.


This was Tessa's entry into instructional design and the origins of the Basic Teacher Operations course.


Basic Teaching Operations Course

Build your essential foundation as a WCS teacher or teaching assistant to provide a responsible and reliable service to WCS students.

$197 USD
includes immediate access to:

  • All 6 Units of the course
  • Access for 1 year 
  • Private Swing Literacy Teachers-only Facebook group
Register Now