IDEAS Workshops
Learning, Literacy, and the Arts

Synopsis

Research tells us that the artistic processes provide the most fertile lab for learning in all disciplines. This session provides time for teachers to discover reasons for engaging students in creative problem solving through the arts to teach understandings and skills that increase learning in all disciplines. Literacy in, about, and through the arts will be developed through hands-on and brains-on experiences that can be brought back to the classroom.

Goals

Through participation, attendees will:

• Identify theories that support arts-infused curriculum designs.
  

• Define literacy in a way that invites expression in multiple languages.
  
• Explore the artistic processes of creating, performing, and responding in music, visual art, dance/movement, and drama/language arts.
  
• Experience classroom-tested activities that engage the learner in using creative thinking skills to construct discipline based understandings and skills.

Participant Groupings

Whole school faculty, Primary discipline based and classroom teachers together, district-wide groups.

Suggested Time

One- or two-day introductory session; two-day follow-up recommended.