With the coronavirus pandemic sweeping across the world, most jurisdictions are requiring non-essential businesses either work from home or temporarily close. As such, many dance studios, who have become accustomed to teaching in a classroom, are suddenly faced with taking their business entirely online.

This move has, for obvious reasons, caused consternation amongst many business owners. Will students stay with the online classes? Will teachers be as effective online as they could be in person? After all, dance is an art that benefits from tactile feedback. It can sometimes be challenging to teach proper form and finesse over a couple of computer screens.

If you find yourself suddenly working from home and switching to online learning, please keep these three tips in mind to make your transition as smooth as possible.

Choose Your Video Chat Solutions Carefully

One of the significant barriers to distance learning is the technology itself. If you spend minutes or hours fighting video chat software, then both you and the student will be discouraged. Moreover, you're going to be wasting valuable teaching time wrestling with technology.

Furthermore, every student is different. Some have iPhones, while others have Androids. Still, others need to join on their PCs. As an instructor, you should familiarize yourself with a few video chat solutions. Zoom is one of the most popular ones now because it is free and supports many concurrent users. Check out our blog "Choosing the Right Video Conferencing App for Your Business" for a brief review of five video conferencing products.

While you don't have to support every single application out there, you should decide on ones that you feel comfortable with and learn them. Learn your preferred video chat applications well so that you can spend less energy fighting technology and more time teaching.

Have a Dedicated Space for Teaching

Dance is physical. You're going to need space to display the right techniques online, just as you would in the dance studio.

Therefore, make sure that you invest in a proper setup for working from home. Make it professional. Clear out any clutter and make sure you have adequate supplies to keep the level of professionalism in your classes that your students have come to expect.

With smaller apartments and homes this can be more tricky, but usually, there's a way to angle the camera such that you appear to have a dedicated workspace. Experiment until you feel your surroundings convey the professionalism your clients expect.

Practise, Practise, Practise

Use your computer or phone to take some practice recordings of teaching in your environment. Pretend like you're teaching a student a particular aspect of dance. Play that back and note your style, form, and surroundings. Practise your teaching until you feel confident that you can deliver a high-quality class.

The first few times you teach online, there will invariably be some challenges. That's ok! Everyone - including your students - are learning to adapt in the era of COVID-19. Don't get too caught up in the mistakes and focus, instead, on delivering a quality product.

You Can Successfully Teach Dance From Home!

Ultimately, students and teachers are connecting for quality online instruction every day during this pandemic. Students are adapting well to this online format, as are teachers. Pick the video chat solutions you feel comfortable with, set up a dedicated space, and practise!

After a few classes, you'll discover that you can provide quality instruction online. Your students will be happy to continue making progress in the art form that they love!