Inspiration boulders
Workshops
FUELING the CREATIVE SPARK
“In my first two years I often felt: I don’t know if teaching is the right thing for me, or: that lesson didn’t go well. You know, all those things that you can doubt. Then there would always be a workshop. There were so many talented teaching artists that were pulled into town and made available. I always walked away thinking: I could do that or: that was something that was meaningful and I should try. It was always really inspiring.”
“I think of the teachers that were attending the workshops; they would make comments like, this is the best part of my day when I come to these workshops …it was fun for them. They were super happy engaging in the work.”
COLLECTIVE INSPIRATION for the CLASSROOM
Artful Teaching workshops served as the classroom/collective learning space for the project. Each year offered a participant-curated collection of arts integrated learning experiences provided by truly talented and inspiring local and national teaching artists, scholars and elders. These workshops provided a meaningful learning experience that inspired and enabled teachers to adapt what and how they had learned in their own classrooms.
What Worked About Artful Teaching Workshops:
Learning through a collective creative process
“I would just go whenever I could and try to glean whatever I could. And so every time I went to one of the learning circles, I would always be really filled up by the other teachers and the conversations that were happening and how Artful Teaching really instilled a sense of play. Because when you go to a learning circle, you are really learning together, but usually there’s some form of creation, and you’re creating something together. And I just found that so inspiring and was really trying to bring that back, however I could.”
Introducing strategies that embodied and extended teachers mindsets
“So much of what we did… it just named everything that I was trying to say, I just didn’t have the language yet to articulate.”
Offering tangible tools to enact those mindsets
“All my Artful Teaching stuff is in a drawer to just reference, like, pull out the packet. This is tableau. How do I grade that again? Okay, here’s some ideas. Just having all that together… It’s so great. It’s so helpful.”
REFLECTION EDDIES
How do the learning experiences you provide for teachers model and reflect the learning experiences you hope they’ll provide for their students?
What are the underlying values and mindsets that inform the practices and tools being offered to your teachers?
What might bolster a teachers’ ability (or desire) to enact their professional learning in their classrooms? Are you framing this from an asset-based lens?