Readings and resources I’ve used in my studies across education, music, dance, and multimedia. The books are grouped by topic. Each book has a short notes on how each one connects to my learning and teaching.
I also joined a book club at my local library. Reading and meeting people is a great way to stay motivated to read and talk through new ideas in education, music, and dance. It’s helped me think more about my teaching and gave me friends to share ideas with others in education and the arts.
The following resources have helped me grow as an educator and strengthen my knowledge of music, dance, technology, and instructional design. This is many more ballet, piano and violin books that I recommend for learning, the complete book guide can be found on my bookclub page on this website.
Cecchetti, E. (2001). The Cecchetti method of classical ballet: Theory and technique (reprint ed.many times). Dover Publications.
Cecchetti method in detail, including technique, training structure, and progression through levels. It has been helpful for understanding proper alignment, discipline, and the foundation of classical ballet training.
Agay, (1981). The Joy of First Classics. Yorktown Music Press.
Collection has been a helpful resource for teaching beginning piano students, introducing fundamental techniques, musical expression, and classical repertoire in a progressive format.
Grant, G. (1982). Technical manual and dictionary of classical ballet (3rd ed.). Dover Publications.
Best book, my childhood favorite. Gail Grant’s ballet dictionary has been one of my most valuable references for ballet terminology, positions, and technique. It provides clear definitions and illustrations that support both teaching and learning classical ballet.
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). American Psychological Association.
Academic writing, research, and proper citation of sources.
Suzuki, S. (1983). Nurtured by love: The classic approach to talent education. Exposition Press.
Teaching violin by emphasizing encouragement, repetition, and learning through listening.
Gilbert, A. G. (2015). Creative dance for all ages (2nd ed.). Human Kinetics.
Ideas for teaching movement, creativity, and dance concepts to students of different ages.
Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017–1054.
How technology can be effectively integrated into teaching and learning.
Florida Department of Education. (2025). Florida Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (B.E.S.T.).
The B.E.S.T. standards serve as a guide for developing lessons and educational materials that align with Florida learning expectations.
Duckett, J. (2021). HTML and CSS: Design and build websites. John Wiley & Sons.
Learn the basics of HTML, CSS, page layout, navigation, and creating accessible websites.
Krug (2014). Don’t make me think, revisited: A common sense approach to web usability (3rd ed.). New Riders.
Website organization, navigation, and user-friendly design.
Adobe (2025). Adobe Dreamweaver User Guide.
The Dreamweaver guide provided instruction on building and editing websites, managing files, and creating web pages with HTML and CSS.
Vaughan, T. (2014). Multimedia: Making it work (9th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
How text, graphics, audio, video, and animation work together to effective multimedia projects.
Mozilla Developer Network. (2025). MDN Web Docs: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
MDN Web Docs has been a valuable online reference for coding, troubleshooting, and learning modern web development techniques.
