The Art of Teaching the Arts : A Workshop for High School Teachers
An eight-part professional development workshop for use by high school dance, music, theatre, and visual art teachers. The workshop examines how principles of good teaching are carried out in teaching the arts at the high school level. In the eight one-hour video programs, seven principles of effective teaching are introduced, then explored in depth.
Episode Descriptions
1. Principles of Artful Teaching
Opens with teachers sharing passionate insights about why they teach the arts to young people. Then short classroom segments illustrate how arts teachers employ seven “principles of artful teaching” to meet the needs and imaginations of their students.
2. Developing Students as Artists
Participants explore how arts teachers help students develop knowledge and fundamental skills while weaving in opportunities for creativity and independence.
3. Addressing the Diverse Needs of Students
Arts teachers are aware of and respond to the many differences they find among their students. In this session, participants meet a visiting theatre artist who takes advantage of the different backgrounds and learning styles of ninth-graders to help them understand and embrace the playwriting process.
4. Choosing Instructional Approaches
Arts teachers take on a variety of roles, and use many different instructional techniques, as they engage with their students. Teachers can be instructors, mentors, directors, coaches, artists, performers, collaborators, facilitators, critics, or audience members.
5. Creating Rich Learning Environments
Arts teachers create a safe environment where students feel free to express their thoughts and feelings and take creative risks.
6. Fostering Genuine Communication
Arts teachers communicate with students, and students communicate with each other, in respectful ways that encourage communication of original ideas through the arts.
7. Making the Most of Community Resources
Arts teachers develop relationships with community members and organizations by bringing artists into the classroom, taking students beyond school walls, and asking students to draw inspiration from the voices of their community.
8. Nurturing Independent Thinkers
Arts teachers use formal and informal strategies to assess their students’ progress and to modify their own teaching practice.
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