GDP Proposal Main Page

SCVSDA General Dance Program

Size of the GDP List

A guiding principle in the development of the GDP list was that it be "about half the size of Plus". The committee used several different approaches to maintain a focus on this principle during the development of the list, and to check that the result was consistent with it. These approaches were: (1) comparison with other programs, (2) creation of sample teaching orders, and (3) comparison with the amount of material covered in current classes.

The issue of list size is more complex than it may appear at first. It is common to characterize lists by the number of "calls" (and for the higher levels, concepts) that they include. But some calls are harder to learn than others, and some have more variations. The way that CALLERLAB numbers the Basic program, with a single number sometimes used for a "family" of calls, is especially problematic. For example, Half Sashay, Rollway, and Ladies In Men Sashay together count as "one call" according to the CALLERLAB numbering, even though a new dancer has to learn three different names and three different actions.

For this reason, in comparisons of amounts of material being taught, two metrics already available through the SCVSDA online calls-taught database were used. The first is the number of "line items", i.e., a count of calls and variations of calls that are tracked separately in the calls-taught database, where a single "call" may span multiple lines. The second is based on the CALLERLAB numbering system, including fractional amounts in the total when only some of the lines corresponding to one CALLERLAB number are checked off. These two metrics, expressed as a percentage of the corresponding totals for the Basic, Mainstream, and Plus lists combined, are displayed by the system when the option "stats" is applied to a multi-class report, where the columns normally represent the progress of a class as of a particular date. But as applied here, the columns were mostly used instead to represent the entirety of some list.

Comparison with CALLERLAB Programs

CALLERLAB defines two programs smaller than Plus -- Basic and Mainstream. Mainstream is commonly used as an entry level, but it is clearly much more than half of Plus. Basic, with its "51 calls", is plausibly about half the size of Plus, which according to the way CALLERLAB numbers things adds 30 calls to the "68 calls" of Basic and Mainstream combined, for a total of 98.

But as previously discussed, there are a number of problems counting calls that way. As a first test of whether GDP is "about half the size of Plus", we can compare it to Basic according to the metrics computed by the calls-taught database:

This, as one might expect, shows Basic as being about half the size of Plus (52.5%) according to the CALLERLAB numbers. But Basic accounts for a significantly higher fraction of the "line items" (67.7%). This is because there are separate lines in the database for many more calls in the basic portion of the list than for Plus calls. Neither of these should be taken as being directly proportional to teaching time, nor does it make any sense to compare them with each other -- they are simply different ways of "counting calls".

But we can use these metrics to compare various lists with each other, as an indication of their relative size. If we take as a given that Basic is "about half the size of Plus", then it would be reasonable to say that another list for which these metrics have similar values would also be about half the size of Plus. As shown in the chart, GDP is just about the same size as Basic according to the CALLERLAB number metric, and smaller than Basic according to the line item metric.

The chart also shows that GDP is considerably smaller than Mainstream. Note: For the CALLERLAB number metric the calls-taught database counts Basic as having 52 calls (rather than 51) and Mainstream as having 69 calls (rather than 68) because it counts the "dancer identification" group of items as another "call family".

Sample Teaching Orders

The classes through which Plus is currently taught in this area vary considerably in length. The class that generally covers the list in the shortest time is Stanford Quads, taking anywhere from 20 to 30 weeks depending on the mix of students in a particular year. At the other end of the range, there are classes that allow up to a full year to cover the same material. But the more typical classes cover the material in about 35 to 40 weeks.

So a second way to approach the question of whether the GDP list is "half the size of Plus" is to look at whether it seems possible to teach it in about half the time that classes currently take teaching all the way to Plus. For this purpose, a sample plan for teaching the GDP list in 16 weeks was constructed:

This teaching order represents what might be done in a "moderately fast" class, starting with an intro night during which a relatively large number of calls are taught, gradually tapering down to three calls per week, and then tapering down to two calls per week and one call in the final session. A group that wanted to include one or two additional intro nights, and that wanted to allow one or two additional weeks at the end which would be entirely review/consolidation, could teach GDP at this rate in a total of 18 to 20 weeks, which is about half the 35-40 weeks that many classes now allow for Plus.

Of course not everyone will want to teach at this rate. One of the advantages of a smaller list is that it is possible to teach it at a more leisurely pace and still get done in a reasonable amount of time. Two additional sample teaching orders were constructed to illustrate the range of possibilities:

The 24-week example shows how a group that wanted to cover the GDP list in six months (allowing two weeks off for holidays) might teach. For the bulk of this teaching order, from the 7th week through the 22nd week, only two calls per week are taught.

Finally, the 32-week example shows how GDP might be taught by a group that wanted to allow even longer, about eight months. This teaching order starts off much more slowly, tapers down to just two calls per week by the fifth week, and introduces only one call per week during the last five weeks.

None of these are intended as recommended teaching plans. They are simply examples to show that GDP could be taught at a moderately fast rate in less than half the time that many clubs now allow for teaching Plus, or taught in about the time that current classes teach Plus but at a far more leisurely rate. Of course there are many other possibilities within this range -- as well as even faster or even slower -- that a group might choose depending on their goals and circumstances. There are also many different teaching sequences (which calls are taught before other calls) that could work within the framework of a given teaching time.

Comparison with Current Plus Classes

A third way to approach the question of the size of the GDP list is to compare it with with how much is actually being taught during the first half of current classes that teach from zero to Plus.

The following report shows such a comparison:

This shows the GDP list along with what was covered in each of three recent classes during the first 16 sessions of that class. (In this report, the first column represents an entire list, while the others represent what was taught in certain class as of a particular date.)

The classes shown are CPSD starting in September 2012, Quads starting in October 2012, and Bows and Beaus starting in January 2013. These three are shown because they are ones for which the calls-taught database has accurate information about their week-by-week progress. (For two other significant classes, ECR and Sunnyvale Squares, there is a published teaching sequence, but the caller/club has been providing updates on actual progress only sporadically in recent years.)

All three of these classes had covered in their respective first 16 sessions, according to both of the metrics at the bottom of the chart, at least as much material as GDP -- Beaus and Bows somewhat more, CPSD significantly more, and Quads, as might be expected, a lot more. In other words, we have three examples of actual classes in our area that covered in 16 sessions more material than GDP.

Now a comparison of what has been "covered" at the mid-point of one class with what we want people to be able to do at the end of another class is not quite fair, since every class is structured to allow for repetition and review, and students in those Plus classes had not had a chance for such review of the calls taught during the 16th session. But note that for all of those three classes those 16 sessions included at least two intro/open nights -- in the case of both CPSD and Quads there were three. And all of them had introduced after those 16 sessions more material than is in GDP.

So it appears that it should be possible for the callers for any of these classes, using the teaching style and rate to which they are already accustomed, to teach GDP in 16 sessions making allowance for both multiple intro nights and a final cool-down session. Quads, teaching at its typical rate but with a revised teaching order and reducing its intro nights from three to two, might be able to cover GDP in 12 sessions.

All in all, this would seem to confirm the plausibility of the sample 16-week teaching order previously considered. If we take the Bows and Beaus teaching rate as "moderate", 16 or 17 weeks seems like a plausible time frame for a "moderate" GDP class.

On the other hand, the two other classes mentioned, ECR and Sunnyvale Squares, have historically gone at a more leisurely pace than Bows and Beaus. This is probably because those clubs put a higher priority on retention of dancers who are less able to come every week, and so they tend to end up including a certain number of sessions throughout the season that are mostly review. Those groups, if they wanted to teach GDP while maintaining a similar approach to retention, would have to allow more than 16 weeks. Someething like the 24-week sample teaching order might actually be a good fit for Sunnyvale Squares' current "multi-cycle" class structure. ECR, given its traditional goal of having new people dancing Plus in time for the IAGSDC convention, might want to target covering GDP in 20 weeks.